Hard to Be a God by Arkady Strugatsky

straight.
    â€œSo who was the bookworm?” Rumata asked.
    â€œI don’t know,” the cub said. “It was the order of Father Zupic.”
    â€œWell, what happened? You took him?”
    â€œThat’s right! We took him!”
    â€œThat’s good,” said Rumata. That really wasn’t bad. There was still time. Nothing is more precious than time, he thought. An hour buys a life; a day is invaluable. “And what did you do with him? Stick him in the tower?”
    â€œHuh?” the cub asked in confusion.
    â€œI’m asking, is he now in the tower?”
    The pimply mug spread into an uncertain grin. The giant roared with laughter. Rumata rapidly turned around. There, on the other side of the street, Father Hauk’s corpse hung like a sack of rags from the crossbeam of a gate. A few ragged urchins, mouths wide open, gawked at him from the yard.
    â€œIt isn’t everyone who gets sent to the tower nowadays,” the giant rasped out amiably behind him. “We do things quick nowadays. A knot by the ear—and off you go.”
    The cub giggled again. Rumata glanced at him blindly, and slowly crossed the street. The sad poet’s face was black and unrecognizable. Rumata looked down. Only the hands were recognizable, with their long, weak fingers, stained with ink.
    Nowadays we don’t pass away,
    We’re led away into darkness.
    And even if anyone dares to
    Wish that it were otherwise,
    Powerless and incompetent,
    He lowers his weak hands,
    Not knowing where the dragon’s heart is.
    And whether the dragon has one.
    Rumata turned around and walked away. My good, weak Hauk … The dragon does have a heart. And we know where it is. And that’s the most frightening thing, my quiet, helplessfriend. We know where it is, but we can’t destroy it without spilling the blood of thousands of frightened, hypnotized, blind people who know no doubts. And there are so many of them, hopelessly many—ignorant, isolated, embittered by perpetual thankless labor, downtrodden, not yet able to rise above the thought of an extra penny. And they cannot yet be taught, united, guided, saved from themselves. Far too early, centuries earlier than it should have, the gray muck has risen in Arkanar. It won’t meet with resistance, and all that’s left is to save those few there is still time to save. Budach, Tarra, Nanin, maybe another dozen, maybe another two dozen.
    But the very thought that thousands of others—maybe less talented but also honest and truly noble people—were fatally doomed caused an icy chill in his chest and an awareness of his own vileness. Sometimes this awareness became so acute that his mind would become clouded, and Rumata could almost see the backs of the gray bastards illuminated by lilac flashes of gunfire, and Don Reba’s eternally insignificant, pale visage contorted with animal terror, and the Merry Tower collapsing on itself. Yes, that’d be sweet. That would be actual work. An actual macroscopic impact. But then … Yes, they were right at the Institute. Then the inevitable. Bloody chaos in the country. The surfacing of Waga’s night army, ten thousand thugs excommunicated by every church—rapists, murderers, and sadists; hordes of copper-skinned barbarians descending from the mountains and destroying everything that moves, from newborns to the aged; huge crowds of peasants and townspeople, blind with terror, fleeing to the forests, mountains, and deserts; and your supporters—merry men, brave men!—ripping open each other’s bellies in a brutal struggle for power and for the right to control the machine gun after your inevitable violent death. And this absurd death—froma cup of wine served by your best friend, or from a crossbow bolt whistling toward your back from behind a curtain. And the horrified face of the one who will be sent from Earth to replace you, and who will find a country