Definitely Maybe Chapter 9 - Choices and Consequences
Chapter 9 is where people start making their choices. And most of them choose to quit.
The Impossible Telegram
Let’s start with the thing that should terrify everyone. That telegram Irina got? “DMITRI BAD HURRY TO MAKE IT IN TIME.” It was signed by Snegovoi. But Snegovoi was already dead when it was sent. Nobody went to a telegraph office and typed it out. The machine just printed it. By itself.
This is the Homeostatic Universe in action. It doesn’t need agents or conspirators. It just makes things happen. A telegram appears. A delivery shows up. A beautiful woman rings the doorbell. The machinery of the world bends a little, and the result looks almost normal. Almost.
A Night Without Sleep
Malianov can’t sleep. He lies there in the dark and his mind is running full speed. He’s not just scared for himself anymore. He’s scared for everyone around him. Irina flew in on planes packed with coffins and refrigerators. The universe doesn’t aim carefully. It’s like someone swatting flies with a wet towel, hitting everything nearby.
That image stuck with me. The pressure isn’t precise. It’s sloppy and powerful. Irina isn’t a scientist. She wasn’t working on anything dangerous. But she’s near Malianov, so she gets caught in the blast radius. The planes she flew on were dangerous not because someone planned it, but because the universe was throwing interference around and didn’t care who got hit.
If you’ve ever been in a situation where your problems started hurting the people you love, you know this feeling. It’s worse than being in danger yourself.
The Passport on the Floor
At 6 AM, Malianov finds a passport on the floor. It belongs to “Sergeenko, Inna Fedorovna.” The photo looks like Irina but isn’t quite right. It’s her face, but not her.
He goes to check on sleeping Irina. And for a second, just a second, she looks like a witch. Something old and wrong. Then she wakes up and she’s perfectly normal. Smiling. His wife.
This is the book messing with your head. Or maybe it’s the universe messing with Malianov’s head. Is Irina really Irina? Was she replaced? Is the passport a clue or a hallucination? Malianov doesn’t know. You don’t know. And that uncertainty is the whole point.
I think the Strugatsky brothers understood something important about fear. The worst kind isn’t when the monster appears. It’s when you can’t tell if the monster is there or if you’re going crazy. Both options are bad, and you can’t prove either one.
The Decision to Work
Malianov does something that surprised me. He sits down and starts working. He takes all his notes and copies them carefully into a clean notebook. Like a final draft. Like someone putting their affairs in order.
There’s a strange, solemn satisfaction in it. If you’ve ever worked on something knowing it might be the last time, you understand. You do it carefully. Every line matters. Every symbol gets written properly. It’s not productive work in the normal sense. It’s a ritual. It’s a man saying: this is who I am, and I’m going to be that person for as long as I can.
The Tree
Morning comes. And there’s a giant tree in the courtyard that wasn’t there yesterday. Just appeared overnight. An explosion of growth. The cops are there, investigating, confused. Normal people are staring at it.
Malianov knows it’s his fault. Not directly. But his work caused this. The universe is reacting to his calculations, and the side effects are getting bigger and stranger. First it was wrong phone calls. Then mysterious deliveries. Then a dead neighbor. Now reality itself is warping. Trees don’t grow overnight. But this one did.
The scale is escalating. And that means either Malianov is getting closer to something important, or the universe is getting more desperate to stop him.
Weingarten Gives Up
Irina wakes up cheerful. She doesn’t want to go back to Odessa. Malianov carefully avoids mentioning Lidochka or any of the strange events. Some things are easier not to explain.
Then Weingarten shows up. And you can see it immediately. He’s carrying bags full of manuscripts. His research materials. His life’s work.
He’s made his choice. He’s giving up. He accepted the institute directorship that was offered to him as a bribe. No more groundbreaking biology. No more Nobel Prize possibility. He’ll be an administrator. Safe. Comfortable. Done.
Weingarten tries to dress it up. He calls it “a profitable deal.” He mocks 19th century ideals about honor and scientific duty. “A living dog is better than a dead lion,” he says. But his eyes tell a different story. He’s terrified. He’s not choosing freely. He’s surrendering, and he knows it.
But here’s the interesting part. He’s not destroying his research. He’s bringing it to Vecherovsky. Vecherovsky asked for it. So somewhere in this surrender, there’s a small act of resistance. The work survives, even if Weingarten won’t be the one to finish it.
Zakhar Too
Then Zakhar comes by. Briefly. He’s given up too. The strange boy is gone. Zakhar is heading to Vecherovsky’s apartment, probably to drop off his own materials.
One by one, they’re folding. The pressure works. The universe wins. Each person finds their own reason to stop, their own way to justify it.
The Meat Hammer
The chapter ends with Malianov sitting down to work again. But this time he grabs a meat hammer and keeps it on the desk. For self-defense.
Against what? Against the universe? Against whatever might come through the door next? It doesn’t matter. It’s absurd and brave and sad all at once. A man with a notepad and a kitchen tool, ready to fight reality itself.
The Strugatsky brothers know exactly what they’re doing here. By this point in the book, everyone except Malianov and Vecherovsky has quit. The smart play is obvious: give up, take the deal, live your life. But Malianov picks up a meat hammer instead. He’s not a hero. He doesn’t have a plan. He’s just stubborn. And sometimes that’s the only thing that counts.
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