Free Android Karenina by Ben H. Winters Page B

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