Dmitry Glukhovsky - Metro 2034 English fan translation (v1.0) (docx) (32 page)

How had humanity
learned
to
build
in just a few centuries? To change
its
surrounding
matter
and
to create new?

Why had
they
started to paint all of a sudden
and
how
had
they
discover
ed
music all of a sudden? How could
they
bent the earth to
their
will and change it
according to
their
needs? What was it that
had made this
animal
to something special
in the last ten thousand years? Fire? It gave humans the ability to tame light and warmth and carry it into uninhabitable
cold regions
. But what changed that? Good, it
made it possible
for
humans to extend their reach. But rats had colonized the entire planet without fire. No it wasn’t fire, well not just fire, there the
musician
had been right. There had to be something else … But what?

Language? That was a difference to any other animals without a doubt. When rough thoughts were polished to brilliants of words
they had
finally turned
into
the
common
, currency. At the same time it wasn’t just so much about express
ing
yourself,
not really about
what was
happening
in your head but more
about
the ability to
order
the instable, like molten iron flowing pictures into a solid form.
To retain a clear
and
sober
mind
and
to pass on orders and knowledge accurately
. So also
about
the ability to
organize
, to conquer, to raise armies and form states.

But ants didn’t need any words. On
a for
a human unnoticeable level
they
lived in complex hierarchies, shared
information and orders
with
high
accuracy,
agitated thousands of fearless legions
with iron discipline
to merciless wars.

Or
was
it letters? Without them
would we
have been
able to safe our knowledge? Those bricks that made up the to the sky rushing
tower
of
Babylon of human civilization?

Without
them all
wisdom that Humanity had gathered, would
flow
apart like
unbaked
clay and
the tower would
fall down under its own weight
.
Turning into dust.

Without letters every generation had to
build
the
tower
again, would work all
their
life in the ruins of
their
clay hut
s
and finally die, without even
having
constructed a single floor. First letters and then writing made it possible for humanity
to transport the gathered knowledge out of
their small
head
s
and store it just like it was for their
decedents
. So it was no longer their fate to discover the discovered over and over again and
they were
able to built something of their own on the stable fundament that had
been
built
by their ancestors.

Was that all?

If wolves could wr
ite, would their civilization b
e similar to the one of humanity? Would they even have a civilization? A full wolf that was no longer hungry go
t tired, snuggled with its kind
until
it’s
growling stomach
drove
it further. A full
human
gets a strange feeling on
the
other
hand:

He gets melancholic. The
unbelievable
, unexplained tend that gets him to look at the stars for hours
, paint on the wall of his
cave with
ochre
, to decorate the front of his
warship with a carved statue
,
building
stone colossuses
over
centuries
of hard
labor
instead
of
strengthening the wall of his fortress and work his whole life on the perfection of his poetic masterpiece instead of learning how to wield a sword.

It was the
tendency which
brought a former train operator helper to devote the few years he still had to
lecture and search and to
try
and
write something down …

Something special ….
T
o free him of the longing the common and
poor
people listen to the skilled violist, kings
had
kep
t
own
troubadours
and
painters and
an underground born girl
looked at
the package of a painted teabag. It is
an
obscure
and
powerful
calling, that is even able to overshadow the voice of hunger
. A
nd only humans can hear.

It is not just the
calling
that goes
past
the spectrum of animals and gives a human the ability to dream
and
hope for courage. Love and mercy
, two emotion which
humans think
to be
such a special ability
.
They weren’t the first to find it
. Even a dog is able to love and feel mercy: Is its master sick, it doesn’t s
tray from his side and whimpers
. Even it can long for the day and is able to see the reason of life of another creature: Some dogs have been ready to die as well
after
the death
of their
master
.
Only so that they
could
stay with
them.

But a dog can’t dream.

Then isn’t there
the longing for something beautiful and the ability to value it? This
surprising
ability to enjoy a composition of colors, arrays of sound, broken lines and elegant constructed sentences
? To get the sweet and at the same time hurting sound
of
their
s
oul,
which
grips
your
heart, even
if it is
sick and scarred and make it pure again?

Maybe. But not just that.

To
sound over
shots and
the
desperate screams of imprisoned naked humans, some humans have
played
wonderful
operas from Wagner on full
volume
. And that wasn’t a contradiction: One underlined the other.

What else?

Even when humanity survives this hell as a biological kind, is it going to keep that fragile and almost unnoticeable but without a doubt real part of
its
nature? Is
it
going to protect that special spark that had brought the hungry animal over ten thousands of years to a creature of order?
To
a creature who
was
tortured more by the hunger of the soul then the hunger of the body
?
. A stumbling creature, always torn from one side to the other, between spiritual greatness and lowness
.
Between for a
predator forbidden mercy and unforgivable cruelty
which seemed to have come
out of the
soulless
world of insects
?
.

A creature that
built
wonderful
castles and
made
unimaginable paintings
.
Whose
ability to create beautiful things could measure up
with
the creator
itself
and at the same time
create
g
as chambers and nuclear weapons
to destroy and annihilate the crea
ted and exterminate his own kind
. A creature that
built
sand castles with much passion so that
it could
destroy them
one day
when
it
felt like it. A creature that
knew
no limits
, that
was
fearful
and cooking of hate, unable to satisfy its hunger but
not
try
ing
to do anything
but that in its entire life
. A human …

Is
that spark going to stay in
it
?

Or is it going to disappear in the past, like a short beat on the diagram of history? Is humanity going to be
thrown
back after this strange
event?
It had become timeless routine for
countless
of
generation
to have
their
eyes
fixed
onto
the ground
.
Will
the ten, hundredth, five hundredth years
going to pass on them without extinguishing the spark?

What else?

“Is it true?”

“What?” Leonid was smiling at her.

“That with the emerald city? The ark? That there is such a place in the metro?” Sasha’s voice sounded like she was sunken in thoughts while she was looking at her feet.

“There’re rumors”

“I would like to see it … You know, when I was walking around up there it had pity on humanity. Only because of one mistake it won’t ever be like back then. But it is so beautiful … I think at least it is”

“Because of one mistake? No that wasn’t just one. To destroy the entire world, to kill six milliards of people, can you even call that a mistake?”

“Still. Don’t you and I have earned their forgiveness?

Everybody deserves a second chance, to change and try again and again and even if it’s the last time.” Sasha turned silent for a while and then she said: ”I would like to see how it looks like in reality. Back then I didn’t care. Back then I was just afraid and everything was so ugly up there.

But it seems that I had just gone up at the wrong place. How stupid … The city up there is like from another
life before mine. It has no future. Only memories and even those are strange to me. Just ghosts.

I’ve realized something important when I was up there you know …” She was searching for the right words.

“Hope is like blood in your veins. As long as it flows you’re alive. I want to keep hoping”

“What do you want in the emerald city?” Asked Leonid.

“I want to see how life was back then. You’ve said it yourself. There the people are probably totally different. They haven’t forgotten yesterday and they will surely have a tomorrow. So they have to be totally different, totally …”

They hastily walked along the
Dobryninskaya
. The guards still didn’t leave them out of their eyes. Homer had gathered all his courage and went to speak with the commander of the station. He had been gone for a while now and there was no trace of Hunter.

Then at the marble passageway of the
Dobryninskaya
Sasha realized something strange: The big arcs through which you could get to the tracks changed into smaller ones.

Always a big arc and a small arc, a bigger one and a smaller one. Like a man and a woman who were holding hands. A man and a woman, a man and a woman … Suddenly
she felt the need for the broad and strong hand of a man. To put her hand into his.

“Even here you can start a new life.” Said Leonid and winked with his eyes into her direction. “Sometimes you just have to go somewhere else and search … Sometimes it is enough to look around”

“And what am I seeing?”

“Me”

“I’ve already seen you. Already heard you play too.” Finally Sasha smiled as well “I like your music very much. Like all. Don’t you need the bullets? You’ve given so many away to get us through …”

“I only need enough for food. I always have enough.

To play for money is stupid”

“Then why are you playing?”

“Because of the music.” He laughed. “Because of the people. But not to just for them. Because of what music does to the people.”

“What are you doing to the people?”

“Whatever I want.” Now he was serious again.

“I got one for love and another for tears”

Sasha gave him a distrusting look. “And the one that you’ve played the last time? The one that doesn’t have a name? What does it create?”

“That one?” He whistled the song. “Nothing. That one just takes away the pain”

“Hey old man!”

Homer closed his book and slid from one side of the uncomfortable bench to the other. The officer on duty towered over a small desk that was almost completely covered with three old black telephoned that were missing the dials. On one of the apparatuses a small red lamp was flashing.