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CHAPTER 8
IN SPITE OF VRONSKY’S apparently frivolous life in society, he was a man who hated irregularity. He liked to know, for instance, that all of his weapons were in proper working order at all times, and particularly when (according to the rumor currently making the regimental rounds) the Ministry’s Department of War was preparing to deploy them against some new, u
On waking up the day after the Cull, Vronsky put on a white linen coat, and without shaving or taking his bath, he distributed about him all the different pieces of weaponry he used, whether frequently or infrequently. Lupo padded in happy circles in a square of sunlight on the floor of the room, ready to be of use if needed, prepared even to act as a moving target if his master was in a mood to practice his aim.
As he worked, Vronsky considered the complexities of his life. Every man who knows the minutest details of the conditions surrounding him ca
What Vronsky attacked first were the small arms, the special favorite pieces he kept on his person, and for which he was known. These amounted to: the smokers, which sat with pride on his belt, one jutting forth from each hip; the smoldering hot-whip that coiled around his upper thigh in its transparent skin; and the gleaming crackle dagger tucked into his handsome, black leather boot.
He found all in excellent condition: the smokers unloaded their sizzling streams at the rate of sixteen’a’second, twice the regimental standard. At the pressure of his thumb on the hilt, the hot-whip leaped to life like an extension of his arm, and snapped across the length of the room in all directions. The crackle dagger he hurled with deadly accuracy into the far corner of his lodgings, propelling it into the body of a raccoon, which had picked the wrong moment to emerge from hiding behind the wastepaper basket.
He plucked the twitching, electrocuted raccoon from the blade, and tossed it to Lupo before, remembering his conversation with A
Vronsky’s life was particularly happy in that he had a code of principles that defined with unfailing certitude what he ought and what he ought not to do. This code of principles covered only a very small circle of contingencies, but then the principles were never doubtful, and Vronsky, as he never went outside that circle, had never had a moment’s hesitation about doing what he ought to do. In his own mind, he jokingly referred to these principles as the “Bronze Laws,” in winking homage to the Iron Laws that regulated robot behavior.
Vronsky’s Bronze Laws were a set of invariable rules: that one must never tell a lie to a man, but one may to a woman; that one must never cheat anyone, but one may a husband; that one must never pardon an insult, but one may give one; and so on. These principles were possibly not reasonable and not good, but they were of unfailing certainty, and so long as he adhered to them, Vronsky felt that his heart was at peace and he could hold his head up. Only quite lately in regard to his relations with A
He sighed and turned his little tour of inspection to the complex pieces of ordnance: there was the shoulder-mounted Disrupter; the Demagnetizing Wand; the gleaming obsidian Sapper Gun; and, of course, the dreaded organ-destabilizing propellant gun known as the “Tsar’s Vengeance.” One by one, he picked up each deadly machine, and with practiced ease disassembled it, inspected the co
The familiar and repetitive actions cleared his mind and gladdened his heart. His present relation to A
She was an honorable woman who had bestowed her love upon him, and he loved her, and therefore she was in his eyes a woman who had a right to the same, or even more, respect than a lawful wife. He would have had his hand chopped off before he would have allowed himself by a word, by a hint, to humiliate her, or even to fall short of the fullest respect a woman could look for.
His attitude to society, too, was clear. Everyone might know, might suspect it, but no one might dare to speak of it. If any did so, he was ready to force all who might speak to be silent and to respect the nonexistent honor of the woman he loved.
“Ah!” he shouted as, in his split concentration, he closed the clip of the Disrupter over his hand, pinching his fingertips. “Dratted thing.”
Vronsky’s attitude to the husband was the clearest of all. Thinking of Alexei Alexandrovich, he selected the next weapon from the table, an experimental device called a Particulate Intensifier-one of only seven yet in existence, according to the conspiratorial gadgetman who had sold it to him-and leveled it at the target bay he’d had constructed in the far corner of his chamber.
Vronsky paused before firing the Particulate Intensifier. From the moment that A
The target rattled violently for three long seconds, then exploded in a tumult of splintered wood and orange flares; Lupo howled his approval, dancing on his four legs about the room catching sparks and shards on his tongue like snowflakes. Vronsky smiled and looked at this new weapon admiringly. If it crossed his mind that Alexei Alexandrovich was no ordinary husband, and that he might have powers both literally and figuratively greater than any Vronsky may have previously encountered, he did not let that fact bother him. Striding about in his regimental barracks, surrounded by the deadly accoutrements of his trade, Vronsky could feel no sense that there was any man in the world more powerful than he, nor more deserving of the woman upon whom he had settled his attentions.
And yet, of late, new i