CHAPTER 14

NEXT DAY AT ELEVEN o’clock in the morning Vronsky drove to the station of the Petersburg-Moscow Grav to meet his mother, and the first person he came across on the great flight of steps was Oblonsky, who was expecting his sister by the same train.

“Ah! Your Excellency!” cried Oblonsky. “Whom are you meeting?”

“My mother,” Vronsky responded, smiling, as everyone did who met Oblonsky and his funny little Class III. “She is to be here from Petersburg today.” Vronsky shook hands with Stiva, patted Small Stiva amiably on his hemispheric head-dome, and together they all ascended, Lupo prowling along at the rear, nose down, examining the steps with his keen scent sensors as they went.

“I was looking out for you till two o’clock last night. Where did you go after the Shcherbatskys’?”

“Home,” answered Vronsky. “I must own I felt so content yesterday after the Shcherbatskys’ that I didn’t care to go anywhere.”

“I know a gallant steed by tokens sure,

And by his eyes I know a youth in love,”

declaimed Stepan Arkadyich, just as he had done before to Levin.

Vronsky smiled with a look that seemed to say that he did not deny it, but he promptly changed the subject.

“Look there: Our tireless protectors are out in force today. I hope there are not koschei along the lines. Mother so hates to be discomfited.”

Even as he spoke, the distinct heavy thud of the 77s in their metal boots echoed through the station. Dozens of the elite bots, bulbed heads performing their endless all-seeing rotations, roamed through all corners of the vast terminus, magnifying sensors clipped to their end-effectors, searching for the monstrous little bugs known and feared as koschei

“And whom are you meeting?” Vronsky asked of Oblonsky.

“I? I’ve come to meet a pretty woman,” said Oblonsky, and maintained a sly, elusive expression, even as he raised his arms in the air to allow a 77 swiftly to scan his entire body. Even members of the nobility, when traveling by rail, had to submit to this relative indignity, and Oblonsky took it, like most all inconveniences, with ease and good humor.

“A pretty woman?” Vronsky replied meanwhile. “You don’t say so!”

“Honi soit qui mal y pense! My sister Anna.”

“Ah! That’s Madame Karenina,” said Vronsky. The 77 leveled his physiometer at Count Vronsky, who, with an officious scowl, whistled to the accompanying Caretaker and directed the man’s attention to a small pin he wore on his lapel, identifying him as an officer of the Border Regiments.

“If you need assistance, I am here,” he with quiet arrogance to the gold-uniformed soldier, who, mollified, gestured curtly to the 77 and departed.

“You know my sister Anna, no doubt?” Stepan Arkadyich was saying as together they approached the platform.

“I think I do. Or perhaps not . . . I really am not sure,” Vronsky answered heedlessly, with a vague recollection of something stiff and tedious evoked by the name Karenina.

“But Alexei Alexandrovich, my celebrated brother-in-law, you surely must know. All the world knows him. He is in the Higher Branches.”

“Ah, yes,” said Vronsky. “And . . . he is, enhanced, yes?”

Oblonsky nodded with mock gravity. “Oh, that he most certainly is.”

“I know him by reputation and by sight,” Vronsky continued. “I know that he’s clever, learned, religious somewhat. . . . But you know that’s not . . . not in my line” said Vronsky in English.

“Yes, he’s a very remarkable man; rather a conservative, but a splendid man,” observed Stepan Arkadyich, “a splendid man.”

A chorus of shrill beeps erupted from the center of the station, as a dozen of the bioscanners rang out as one. The 77s and their Caretaker converged around a fat peasant with a battered rucksack, who stood wide-eyed and trembling as one of the massive machine-men snaked a winding, pincer-tipped cord from a slot on his lower-mid-torso and plucked a tiny koschei from the pocket of his vest.

“They’ve got one,” said Vronsky with evident enjoyment. He and Oblonsky watched as the 77 held the wriggling, roach-like koschei aloft. The fat peasant recoiled in horror from the twitching little bug-machine, its armor-plated back lined with quivering antennae, that had been playing stowaway in his shirtfront, while the fearsome 77 held the tiny thing carefully by the tip of its tail, carried it to a rubbish bin, and flicked it inside. While Vronsky and Oblonsky watched approvingly, a second 77 tossed a miniature I-bomb in after it, and slammed down the lid.

With one motion, everyone in the station covered their ears, and Small Stiva and Lupo dampened their auditory sensors. A moment later came the deafening explosion, followed by silence, as the station filled with heavy, acrid smoke. A child burst into tears and was comforted by the heavy mechanical arms of a II/Governess/646.

“Good show.” Oblonsky clapped, waving appreciatively at the 77s. “That will teach UnConSciya to trifle with the power of the Ministry. Nothing sneaks past us.”

Vronsky shook his head and sighed. “Yes, yes. Though the Grav will be delayed, and Mother will be agitated.”

“Of course,” Stepan Arkadyich agreed. “This is the price we pay for happiness,” he added, parroting one of the popular slogans which together comprised his political opinions.

“By the way, did you make the acquaintance of my friend Levin?” asked Stepan Arkadyich of Count Vronsky, as the station’s normal hum of activity resumed and they waited at the platform’s edge for the Grav to arrive.

“Yes; but he left rather early.”

“He’s a capital fellow,” pursued Oblonsky. “Isn’t he?”

“I don’t know why it is,” responded Vronsky, “in all Moscow people—present company of course excepted,” he put in jestingly, “there’s something uncompromising. They are all on the defensive, lose their tempers, as though they all want to make one feel something. . . .”

“Yes, that’s true, it is so,” said Stepan Arkadyich, laughing good-humoredly.

“Are the tracks cleared? Will the Grav soon be in?” Vronsky asked a II/Station Agent/L26, when the last of the 77s had marched away.

“Grav has signaled,” answered the Class II, a green light glowing affirmatively in the dead center of his faceplate.

The approach of the magnificent Moscow—St. Petersburg High-Speed Antigravitational Massive Transport, was more and more evident by the preparatory bustle in the station, the rush of II/Porter/7e62s, the movement of II/Policeman/R47s, and people meeting the train. Through the frosty vapor could be seen II/GravWorker/X99s in their impregnable groznium outer-sheaths and soft, felt-lined roller wheels crossing the magnetized rails of the curving line.

“No,” said Stepan Arkadyich, who felt a great inclination to tell Vronsky of Levin’s intentions in regard to Kitty. “No, you’ve not got a true impression of Levin. He’s a very nervous man, and is sometimes out of humor, it’s true, and his Class III is an odd duck indeed, but then he is often very nice. He has such a true, honest nature, and a heart of gold. But yesterday there were special reasons,” pursued Stepan Arkadyich, with a meaningful smile, totally oblivious of the genuine sympathy he had felt the day before for his friend, and feeling the same sympathy now, only for Vronsky. “Yes, there were reasons why he could not help being either particularly happy or particularly unhappy.”

Vronsky stood still and asked directly: “How so? Do you mean he made your belle-soeur an offer yesterday?”

This moment of exchanged confidences was interrupted by Lupo, who sat back on his haunches, flattened his ears against his head, and howled. Vronsky looked down at his beloved-companion inquiringly, but in the next moment the rest heard what Lupo had sensed: The gentle pulse of the Grav shooshing forward could be both heard and felt reverberating along the magnet bed.

“Maybe,” said Stepan Arkadyich. “I fancied something of the sort yesterday. Yes, if he went away early, and was out of humor too, it must mean it . . . He’s been so long in love, and I’m very sorry for him.”

“So that’s it! I should imagine, though, she might reckon on a better match,” said Vronsky, “though I don’t know him, of course,” he added. “Yes, that is a hateful position! That’s why most fellows prefer to have to do with II/Klara/X14s. If you don’t succeed with them it only proves that you’ve not enough cash, but in this case one’s dignity’s at stake. But here’s the Grav.”

Now the platform was quivering, and with visible lines of electric force quivering above the magnet bed, the great hovering massive transport eased magnificently forward into the station, the stern figure of the II/Engineer/L42 covered with frost. Behind the tender, setting the platform more and more slowly swaying, came the luggage van with a dog whining in it. At last the passenger carriages whooshed in, de-oscillating for a full three minutes after the circuits were switched off and the Grav came to a standstill.

A II/GravGuard/FF9 appeared, emitted a high whistle from a slanting slot in his groznium torso, and after him one by one the impatient passengers began to get down: an officer of the Border Regiments, holding himself erect in his silver uniform, and looking severely about him; a nimble little merchant with a Class II suitcase tucked under his arm, smiling gaily; a whistling peasant with a sack over his shoulder.

Vronsky, standing beside Oblonsky, watched the carriages and the passengers, totally oblivious of his mother. What he had just heard about Kitty excited and delighted him. Unconsciously he swelled his chest, and his eyes flashed. He stooped to run his hand through Lupo’s bristling metallic fur. He drew himself erect and stood with his hand on the handle of the hot-whip that curled along his thigh. He felt himself a conqueror.

“Countess Vronskaya is in that compartment,” said the Border Officer, going up to Vronsky.

The officer’s words roused him, and forced him to think of his mother and his approaching meeting with her.