Titanium Sirens

An American aristocrat named Winston Niles Rumford, in his own spaceship, plunges with his dog Cossack into the "chrono-synclastic infundibulum", after which the man and the dog are "smeared" in space and time. This is expressed in the fact that they are constantly moving between the Earth, Mars , Saturn’s satellite, Titan and Mercury , materializing on each of these planets for several minutes at different intervals . Only on Titan are they constantly present.

One day, Rumford, during materialization on Earth (and his materialization is events of planetary significance that every inhabitant of the Earth wants to fall into), invites the young rake of Malaki Constant and informs him that he will become the husband of Winston's real wife Niles Rumford, Mrs. Beatrice Rumford, on Mars. Both Constant and Beatrice Rumford herself are trying to do everything possible so that this prophecy does not come true.

Malaki Constants, who had previously led the way of life of a lucky heir, soon after this conversation suddenly loses his enormous fortune and finds himself recruited into the army secretly assembled on Mars.

Further, the reader discovers Malaki Constant in the Martian army as an ordinary soldier, nicknamed “Uncle”. It turns out that in the Martian army, most of the personnel, including Uncles, are outside-controlled puppets with a special chip in their heads. The leading army link - a limited number of soldiers with a rank no higher than the rank and file - do not have a chip in their heads and can control the rest, including causing them a remotely terrible headache, using special remotes. Uncle at the time was one of the real leaders of the army, but was subsequently demoted with the obligatory erasure of memory. Since then, many times with his newly acquired friend from among the real commanders, Stony Stevenson, he tried to understand the essence of the structure of the army and the world around him, was caught several times and again erased from memory.

The reader finds Uncle with a completely clear memory, killing by order, who came through a chip in his head, his best friend Stony Stevenson in front of the entire Martian army. Stony, however, manages before death to tell Uncle where to look for records of their joint discoveries regarding the world around him. Uncle finds them, finds out that he has a family and deserts to find her.

He finds his son named Chrono and his wife, Bi (Beatrice Rumford, who also does not remember her past). Chrono constantly carries with him a metal strip of an unusual shape - his talisman . Uncle is trying to convince them that they, as a family, should stick together, but Chrono and Bee are completely indifferent to him. As a result, they are again separated.

The Martian army goes to attack the Earth, but it turns out that it is very weakly armed and organized, so the Earth’s army with minimal losses in a few days will completely neutralize the threat. Chrono and Bi as civilians fly in one of the ships of the last echelon of the Martians, their ship crashes in the jungle in which they wander for a year after that. They fall into the wild Gumbo tribe, and in the end they are picked up by a helicopter sent by Rumford.

It turns out that the suicide of Mars was organized by Rumford, to attract the attention of earthlings. It was he who prepared the production of ships, arranged the receipt of recruits from the Earth. After the “war” he materializes and announces the creation of a new religion, the cult of God the Indifferent. He promises at the next materialization to bring a book describing the appearance of the Star Wanderer, and in confirmation of his status as a prophet, he makes several accurate predictions of the future. The idea of ​​the new religion is: “TAKE CARE OF PEOPLE, AND THE ALMIGHTY MYSELF WILL TAKE CARE OF HIMSELF”.

Uncle goes to war with some delay in the same ship with the soldier Boz, one of the real army commanders, and therefore the owner of the control panel, which on the way Uncle intentionally breaks. Before sending the ship from the surface of Mars, Rumford tells Uncle who doesn’t remember his past, that even on the way to Mars, after recruiting to the Martian army, Uncle raped Beatrice Rumford in the dark compartment of the spacecraft, seeing her face only after what was done.

For the first time in his life, the lieutenant colonel realized what most people do not understand at all - that they are not only victims of a ruthless fate, but also the most cruel instruments of this ruthless fate.

Rumford tells Uncle something else about his past; however, since the story is about third parties, it is unclear whether Uncle understands that Rumford's words refer to him.

The flight of the Uncle and Bose ship is also planned by Rumford, and instead of Earth, they fall into the deep dungeons of the planet Mercury, inhabited only by harmonious creatures that feed on the vibrations of this planet. Their ship is stuck in a cave. Boz eventually begins to take care of the harmonies that sometimes form patterns on the walls (later it turns out that these patterns are again stacked by Rumford). Uncle, however, a few years later, with the help of an inscription that Rumford spreads on the wall with harmoniums, he finds out a way to get out of the caves with the ship. Boz prefers to stay on Mercury with his new friends and feed them classical music.

Uncle flies to Earth, on which the new religion proclaimed by Rumford already reigns. The appearance of the Uncle turns out to be described in detail in the prophecy about the Star Wanderer. He is greeted with triumph and taken to the place of usual materialization of Rumford and Cossack, the estate of the Rumford family. Bee and Chrono, having the honorary status of veterans of the Martian War, sell souvenirs near the Rumford estate. Rumford holds a sermon in the form of a show, ridiculing all three members of this strange family. From the point of view of the Church of God the All-Indifferent Malaka, Constant is a symbol of the erring sinner: when he was a rich heir, he acted like a pig and considered his extraordinary luck as a gift “to someone up there”; Rumford announces that Uncle is the very Malaki Constant. Rumford also informs Uncle that he himself killed on Mars his only friend Stony Stevenson, whom Uncle still wants to find someday. This finally suppresses Constant, and he agrees to be expelled from the Earth. After the sermon, Chrono, Bee and Constant plunge into the ship that Rumford sends to Titan.

On Titan lives a sentient car named Celo. Celo is the envoy of the planet Tralfamador, his mission is to deliver a sealed message from one edge of the universe to another; however, a breakdown once occurred in his ship, due to which he was stuck on Titan. At one time, he sent a distress signal to his planet, and the Tralfamadors initiated the appearance of human civilization on Earth and its development in order to deliver Sela a spare part for his ship and keep him informed of his efforts. The great constructions of the Earth (for example, the Great Wall of China and the Moscow Kremlin ) are outline symbols of the Tralfamador language sent by Selo through the earthlings to the Tralfamadorfians. Celo considers Rumford his friend.

For hundreds of thousands of years on Titan, Celo has acquired many hobbies , one of which is to spy on earthlings. Having fun, Salo sculpted many statues, one of which depicts three beautiful women - those same Titan sirens.

The Chrono Talisman turns out to be a spare part for the ship that Selo has been waiting for for thousands of years. All earthly history existed for the delivery of this part.

Rumford and Cossack are separated in their eternal wandering due to some cosmic radiation. Rumford quarrels with Salo because he refuses to open the sealed message for which he left his world and show it to Rumford. In the end, Rumford disappears forever from Titan. In desperation, Celo nevertheless opens the message. It turns out that the message, which, having spent millions of years, had to be conveyed from one end of the universe to the other, is just a point; this symbol in trafamadorski means "hello." Celo, like the rest of the heroes, realizes that he was used. In desperation, he disassembles himself, but subsequently Constant manages to restore it.

Bee and Constant grow old on Titan. Already in old age, Constant finally deserves the love of Beatrice. Their adult son Chrono goes to live with the blue birds of Titan, and near the end of their lives they almost do not see him. Bee dies on Titan at the age of 74, and after her death, Celo first speaks with Constant, takes him to Earth on his now working ship, and before hypnosis he puts hypnotic suggestion .

Malaki Constant, Uncle dies two hours after returning to Earth, sitting on a bench at a snowy bus stop. Before his death, he sees his best friend Stony Stevenson descend to him on a spacecraft and take him with him - this is the result of a hypnotic suggestion, a farewell gift from Selo.

"Titanium Sirens" on the site " Fantasy Laboratory "