Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky. The Time Wanderers
© Copyright Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky
BACKGROUND: Maxim Kammerer
My name is Maxim Kammerer. I am eighty-nine years old.
Once upon a time, long, long ago, I read an ancient novella that began
that way. I remember thinking then that if I ever were to write my memoirs
in the future, I would begin in just that way. However, strictly speaking,
this present text cannot be considered a memoir, and it should start with a
certain letter that I received about a year ago.
Kammerer: You naturally have read the notorious "Five Biographies of
the Age". Please help me to determine who is hiding behind the pseudonyms P.
Soroka and E. Braun. I think it will be easier for you than for me.
M. Glumova
13 June 125. Novgorod
I did not reply to this letter, because I was not able to establish the
real names of the authors of "Five Biographies of the Age". All I did
determine was that, as expected, P. Soroka and E. Braun were major
contributors to the Luden group at the Institute for the Research of Space
History (IRSH).
I had no difficulty in imagining the feelings of Maya Toivovna Glumova
as she read the biography of her son as related by P. Soroka and E. Braun.
And I realized that I had to speak out. Therefore, I write this memoir.
From the point of view of an unprejudiced and a particularly young
reader, I will be describing events that brought me to the end of the era in
cosmic self-awareness and opened absolutely new vistas, which had seemed
only theoretical previously. I was a witness, a participant in, and in some
sense even an initiator of these events, and therefore it is not surprising
that the Luden Group has been bombarding me with questions, official and
unofficial requests to contribute, and reminders of my civic duty.
Originally I had understanding and sympathy for the goals and aims of the
Luden group, but I never hid my skepticism about their chances for success.
Besides, it was absolutely clear to me that the materials and information in
my personal files could be of no help to the Luden group, and therefore I
have continued avoiding participating in their work.
But now, for reasons that are more personal, I have felt a persistent
need to gather up and present to the attention of anyone who might be
interested everything that is known to me about the early days of the Big
Revelation.
I have reread the last paragraph, and I must correct myself. First of
all, I am offering far from everything that is known to me, naturally. Some
of the material is too special in nature to be presented here. Some names I
will not give, out of purely ethical considerations. I will also refrain
from mentioning certain specific methods of my work then as head of the
Department of Unusual Events (UEs) of the Commission on Control (COMCON-2).
Secondly, the events of the year 99 were not, strictly speaking, the
early days of the Big Revelation, but, on the contrary, its last days. I
think this is precisely what the Luden group people do not understand, or
rather, do not wish co understand, despite all my efforts to convince them.
Of course, perhaps I was not insistent enough. I'm not young anymore.
The personality of Toivo Glumov and the Luden group are linked. I can
understand why, and therefore I made him the central figure in my memoir.
For whatever reasons I might recall those days and whatever I might
remember about those days, Toivo Glumov appears in my mind. I see his thin,
always serious young face, his long white lashes, always lowered over his
transparent gray eyes, and I hear his apparently intentional slow speech.
Once again I feel his silent, helpless, but inexorable pressure, like a
wordless cry: "Well, what's the matter with you? Why are you doing nothing?
Give me an order!" And, vice versa, no sooner do I remember him for some
reason than the "mean dogs of recollection" wake up, as if from a swift
kick: all the horror of those days, all the despair of those days, all the
impotence of those days -- horror, despair, and impotence that I experienced
alone, because I had no one with whom to share them.
This memoir is based on documents. As a rule, these are standard
reports made by my inspectors, and some official correspondence, which I
cite primarily to re-create the atmosphere of those days. In general, a
picky and competent researcher would have no difficulty in noticing that a
large number of documents that relate to the case are not in the memoir,
while I could have managed without some of the documents that are included.
Responding ahead of time to this rebuke, I will note that I selected the
materials In accordance with certain principles, which I have no desire nor
pressing need to go into.
Further, a significant portion of the text is made up of chapter
reconstructions. These chapters are written by me and in fact are
reconstructions of scenes and events that I did not witness. The
reconstructions were based on oral accounts, tape recordings, and subsequent
reminiscences by people who took part in these scenes and events, such as
Toivo Glumov's wife, Asya, his colleagues, acquaintances, and so on. I
realize that the value of these chapters for the Luden group people is not
great, but what can I do? It is greatly significant for me.
Finally, I allowed myself to dilute the information-bearing text of the
memoir with personal reminiscences that carry information not so much about
the events of those days as about the Maxim Kammerer of those days, at age
58. The behavior of that man In the circumstances depicted seems to me to be
of some interest even now...
Having made the final decision to write this memoir, I faced the
question: where do I begin? When and what started the Big Revelation?
Strictly speaking, it all began two centuries ago, when in the bevels
of Mars they discovered a deserted tunnel city of amberine. Mat was the
first time that the word "Wanderers" was spoken.
That is true. But too general. It could just as easily be said that the
Big Revelation began with the Big Bang.
Then perhaps it was fifty years ago? The affair of the "foundlings"?
When the problem of the Wanderers took on a tragic aspect, when the vicious
rebuking epithet "Sikorski Syndrome" was born and lived through word of
mouth? It was the complex of uncontrollable fear of a possible invasion by
the Wanderers. That's also true. And much more to the point... But back then
I was not yet head of the UE Department; in fact, it did not even exist. And
I am not writing a history of the problem of the Wanderers.
For me it began in May of 93, when I, like all the heads of the UEDs of
all the sectors of COMCON-2, received a circular report about the incident
on Tisse. (Not on the Tisse River, which flows peacefully through Hungary
and the Carpathians, but on the planet Tisse near the star EN-63061,
discovered not long before that by the fellows from GSP.) The circular
described the incident as a sudden and unexplained madness in all three
members of the research party, landing on the plateau (I can't remember the
name) two weeks earlier. All three suddenly imagined that they had lost
communication with the central base and had lost all communication in
general except with the orbiting mother ship, and the mother ship was
broadcasting an automatic message that Earth had been destroyed in some
cosmic cataclysm, and that the entire population of the Periphery had died
out from unexplained epidemics.
I don't remember all the details anymore. Two of the party, I think,
tried to commit suicide, and in the end went off into the desert in despair
over the hopelessness and total uselessness of further existence. Their
commander was a stronger man. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to
live -- as if humanity had not perished, but only he had suffered an
accident and had been cut off forever from his home planet. He later
recounted that, on the fourteenth day of this crazed life, someone dressed
in white appeared to him and announced that he had honorably passed the
first round of the trials and had been accepted as a candidate into the
society of Wanderers. On the fifteenth day, the lifeboat came from the
mother ship, and the atmosphere was discharged. They found the two men who
had gone off into the desert, everyone remained of sound mind, and no one
died. Their testimony was consistent down to the tiniest details. For
instance, they all reproduced exactly the accent of the automatic machine
that allegedly gave the fatal announcement. Subjectively, they perceived the
incident as a vivid, unusually authentic-seeming theatrical presentation, in
which they had been unexpected and unwitting participants. Deep mentoscopy
confirmed their subjective perception and even showed that, in the very
depth of their subconscious, none of them suspected that it was merely a
theatrical performance.
As far as I know, my colleagues in the other sectors took this for a
rather ordinary UE, an explainable UE, one of the many that constantly occur
beyond the Periphery. Everyone was alive and well. Further work in the area
of the UE was not necessary; it hadn't been necessary in the first place. No
volunteers interested in solving the mystery appeared. The area of the UE
was evacuated. The UE was taken into account. In the files.
But I was a student of the late Sikorski! When he was alive, I had
often argued with him, both mentally and out loud, when talk turned to the
threat to humanity from the outside. But there was one thesis of his that
was hard to dispute and I didn't want to argue with it: "We are workers of
COMCON-2. We are allowed to be called ignoramuses, mystics, and
superstitious fools. There is one thing we are not allowed: to underestimate
danger. And if there is suddenly the odor of sulfur in our house, we are
simply obliged to assume that a horned devil has appeared somewhere nearby
and to take appropriate measures right up to organizing national industrial
production of holy water." No sooner did I hear that someone in white was
speaking in the name of the Wanderers than I smelled sulfur and grew as
agitated as an old warhorse at the sound of bugles.
I made appropriate queries through appropriate channels. Without great
surprise, I learned that in the lexicon of instructions, directives, and
projected plans of our COMCON-2, the word "Wanderer" does not exist I had
been received by the higher-ups and, without the least bit of amazement, I
was convinced that as far as our most responsible leaders were concerned,
the Progressorist activity of the Wanderers in the system of humanity had
been lived through and survived, like a childhood disease. The tragedy of
Lev Abalkin and Rudolf Sikorski in some inexplicable manner had somehow
cleared the Wanderers forever of suspicion.
The only person in whom my anxiety elicited a flash of sympathy was
Athos-Sidorov, the President of my sector and my immediate supervisor. He
confirmed with his authority and affixed with his signature my proposed
theme: "A Visit from an Old Lady." He allowed me to organize a special group
to develop that theme. Actually, he gave me a carte blanche in that area.
And I began by organizing a questionnaire for a number of the most
competent specialists in zenosociology. My aim was to create a model (as
realistic as possible) of the Progressorist activity of the Wanderers in the
system of Earth humanity. Without going into details: I sent all the
materials I gathered to the famous science historian and erudite Isaac
Bromberg. Now I don't even remember why I did that, since by then Bromberg
had not worked in zenology in many years. It must have been because most of
the specialists to whom I had turned with my questions had refused to talk
seriously with me (the Sikorski Syndrome! ), while Bromberg, as everyone
knows, "always had a few words to spare," no matter the topic.
Anyway, Dr. L Bromberg sent me his reply, which is now known as the
Bromberg Memorandum.
It all began with it.
I'll begin with it, too.
DOCUMENT 1: The Bromberg Memorandum
To COMCON-2
Sector Ural-North
To Maxim Kammerer
Personal and Official
Date: 3 June 94
FROM: I. Bromberg, senior consultant COMCON-1, doctor of historical
sciences, laureate of the Herodotus Prize (63, 69, and 72 ), professor,
laureate of the Small Prize -- Jan Amos Kamensky Prize( 57),doctor of
xenopsychology, doctor of sociotopology, acting member of the Academy of
Sociology (Europe), corresponding member of the Laboratorium (Academy of
Sciences) of Great Tagro, master of the realization of Parsival's
abstractions.
THEME: "A Visit from an Old Lady."
CONTENTS: working model of the Progressorist activity of the Wanderers
in the system of humanity on earth.
Dear Kammerer!
Please do not take the heading with which I capped this missive as an
old man's mockery. l merely wanted to stress that my missive, while
completely personal, is at the same time official. I've remembered the cap
of your reports from the days when they were tossed on my desk as an
argument (rather feeble) by your pathetic Sikorski.
My attitude toward your organization has not changed in the least. I
never hid it, and it is certainly well known to you. Nevertheless, I studied
with great interest the materials you were kind enough to send me. Thank
you. I want to assure you that in this direction of your work (but not only
in this direction!) you will find me your most ardent ally and collaborator.
I do not know whether this Is a coincidence, but I received your
Compendium of Models just at the moment when I was about to embark on
summing up my many years of thinking about the nature of the Wanderers and
the inevitability of their collision with the civilization of Earth. Of
course, it is my profound belief that there are no coincidences. Apparently,
the time for this question is ripe.
I have neither the time nor the wish to make a detailed criticism of
your document. I must note, however, that the models Octopus and
Conquistador brought me uncontrollable laughter, with their jokelike
primitivism, while the model New Air, despite its appearing to be less than
totally trivial, is also devoid of any serious argumentation. Eight models!
Eighteen development engineers, among whom are such shining stars as
Karibanov, Yasuda, and Mikich! Damn it, you should expect something more
significant! Say what you will, Kammerer, but the natural supposition is
that you were unable to impress these great masters with your "anxiety over
our general unpreparedness in this area." They simply ducked the issue.
Herein I offer to the pedestal of your attention a brief notation of my
future book, which I plan to call "Monocosm: Peak of First Step? Notes on
the Evolution of Evolution." Again, I have neither the time nor inclination
to equip my basic positions with detailed argumentation. I can assure you
only that each of these positions even today can be argued more
exhaustively, so if you have any questions, I will be happy to answer them.
(Incidentally, I can't resist noting that your request for my consultation
was perhaps the first and so far only socially useful act by your
organization in all the time it has existed.)
And so: Monocosm.
Any intelligence -- technological, Rousseauist, or even a heron's -- in
the process of evolution first travels the path from the state of maximal
separation (savagery, mutual hostility, crude emotions, mistrust) to a state
of maximal unification while still retaining individuality (friendliness,
high culture of relationships, altruism, disdain for success). This process
is governed by biological, biosocial, and specifically social laws. It is
well studied and is of interest go us here only insofar as it brings us to
the question: what next? Leaving aside the romantic trills of the theory of
vertical progress, we have discovered only two real possibilities, differing
in principle. On the one hand, a halt, a self-soothing, a turning off, a
loss of interest in the physical world. Or entering on the path of evolution
of a second order, the path of planned and controlled evolution, the path
toward Monocosm.
The synthesis of intelligences is inevitable. It gives an infinite
number of new facets to the perception of the world, and this leads. to an
incredible increase in the quantity, and more importantly, the quality of
available information, which in its turn leads to a decrease of suffering to
a minimum and an increase in pleasure to a maximum. The concept of "home"
will extend to universal scope. (This is probably why that irresponsible and
superficial concept of the Wanderers appeared in the first place.) A new
metabolism develops, and, as a result, life and health become practically
eternal. The age of an individual becomes comparable with the age of cosmic
objects -- with a total absence of psychic weariness. An individual of the
Monocosm does not need creators. He is his own creator and consumer of
culture. From a drop of water not only can he re-create the image of the
ocean, but the whole world of the creatures that inhabit it, including the
reasoning ones -- and all this with a constant unsatisfiable sense of
hunger.
Every new individual appears as a creation of syntectic art he is
created by physiologists, geneticists, engineers, psychologists,
estheticians, teachers, and philosophers of Monocosm. This process will
definitely take up several Earth decades, and, naturally, is the most
engrossing and respected san of activity of the Wanderers. Contemporary
humanity does not know of any analog for this kind of art, if one does not
count the very rare instances of Great Love.
Create Without Destroying! That is the motto of the Monocosm.
The Monocosm cannot consider its path of development and its modus
vivendi to be the only true path. Pain and despair elicit pictures of
separated minds that had not matured to become part of it. It must wait
until reason within the framework of evolution of the first order develops
to the state of an all-planet socium. For it is only after that that you can
interfere with biostructure, with the aim of preparing the bearer of
intelligence to the transformation into the monocosmic organism of a
Wanderer. For the intervention of the Wanderers into the fates of separated
civilizations can yield nothing worthwhile.
A significant situation: the Progressors of Earth strive to speed up
the historical process of creating more developed social structures in
suffering civilizations. Thereby, they are preparing new reserves of
material for the future work of Monocosm.
We now know of three civilizations that consider themselves happy.
The Leonidians. An extremely ancient civilization (at least three
hundred thousand years old, no matter what the late Pak Hin maintained).
This is a model of a "slow" civilization; they are frozen in unity with
nature.
The Tagorians. A civilization of hypertrophied foresight. Three-fourths
of all their strength is directed to studying the harmful consequences that
might arise from a discovery, invention, or new technological progress. This
civilization seems strange to us only because we cannot understand the
interest in avoiding harmful consequences, or how much intellectual and
emotional satisfaction it can give. Slowing down progress is as amusing as
creating it -- it all depends on your starting point and your upbringing. As
a result, their only transportation is public; they have no aviation at all,
and their communication lines are very well developed.
The third civilization is ours, and now we understand precisely in our
lives why the Wanderers must interfere. We are moving. We are moving, and
therefore we might make a mistake in the direction of our movement.
Nowadays, no one remembers the "asskickers" who tried to force progress
with great enthusiasm among the Tagorians and Leonidians. By now me know
that kicking ass in civilizations that are mature in their own way is as
meaningless and hopeless as trying to speed up the growth of a tree -- an
oak, say -- by pulling it up by the branches. The Wanderers are not
asskickers, and forcing progress is not and could not be their goal. Their
aim is the search, the selection, the preparation for communing, and finally
to bring individuals mature enough for it into the community of the
Monocosm. I do not know by what process the Wanderers make their selection,
and that is a shame, because whether we want it or not, we must speak
plainly, without euphemisms and scientific jargon. This is what we are
talking about.
First: mankind's stepping onto the path of evolution of the second
order means the practical transformation of Homo sapiens into Wanderers.
Second: most likely; far from every Homo sapiens is suitable for such
transformation.
Summary:
- humanity will be divided into two unequal parts;
- humanity will be divided into two unequal parts along parameters
unknown to us;
- humanity will be divided into two unequal parts along parameters
unknown to us, and the smaller part will be forced to surpass the greater
half forever;
- humanity will be divided into two unequal parts along parameters
unknown to us, and the smaller part will be forced to surpass the greater
half forever, and this will be done by the will and art of a
supercivilization, determinedly alien to humanity.
My dear Kammerer, as a sociopsychological experiment I offer you this
situation, not without innovation, for analysis.
Now, when the bases of the Monocosm's Progressorist strategy has become
more or less clear to you, you will probably be better able than I to
determine the basic direction of a counterstrategy and the tactics for
capturing the moments of the Wanderers' activity. It goes without saying
that the search, selection, and preparation for communing of matured
individuals must be accompanied by phenomena and events accessible to the
careful observer. For instance, we can expect the appearance of mass
phobias, new messianic teachings, the appearance of people with
extraordinary abilities, the unexplained disappearance of people, the sudden
-- almost as if by witchcraft -- development of new talents in people, and
so on. I would definitely recommend that you keep your eyes on the Tagorians
and Golovans accredited on Earth -- their sensitivity to the alien and
unknown is significantly higher than ours. (In this sense, you should also
watch the behavior of earth animals, especially herd animals and those with
rudimentary intellect.)
Naturally, the sphere of your attention should include not only Earth,
but the entire solar system, the Periphery, and most of all, the young
Periphery.
I wish you luck,
Yours, I. Bromberg
[End of Document 1]
DOCUMENT 2: Theme: 009 "A Visit from an Old Lady"
To the President of Sector Urals-North
Date: 13 June 94
FROM: M.M. Kammerer, head of UED
THEME: 009 "A Visit from an Old Lady"
CONTENTS: the death of A. Bromberg
President!
Professor Isaac Bromberg died suddenly in the Bezhin Meadow Sanatorium
on the morning of June 11 of this year.
We have not found any notes on the Monocosm model or any notes at all
on the Wanderers in his personal files. The search continues. The medical
certificate on his death is appended.
M. Kammerer
[End of Document 2]
It was in this order that my young probationer, Toivo Glumov, read
these documents in early 95, and naturally, these documents made a very
definite impression on him, gave him very definite ideas, especially since
they supported his most gloomy expectations. The seed fell in fertile soil.
He immediately located the medical death certificate and, finding nothing
there at all to confirm his suspicions, which seemed so natural, he demanded
permission to see me.
I remember that morning well: gray, snowy, with a real blizzard outside
my office windows. Perhaps because of the contrast, because my body was
here, in the snowy Urals, and my eyes senselessly watched the streams of
melting water on the panes, while my mental gaze was on a tropical night
above a warm ocean, and a dead naked body bobbed in the phosphorescent foam
that rolled up onto the sloping sandy beach. I had just received information
from the Center about the third fatal incident on the island of Matuku.
At that moment, Toivo Glumov appeared before me, and I chased away the
vision and asked him to sit down and speak.
Without any preamble, he asked me if the investigation of the
circumstances of the death of Dr. Bromberg was considered closed.
With a certain amount of surprise, I replied that there had been no
investigation, in effect, just as there had not been any special
circumstances in the death of the hundred-and-fifty-year-old man.
Then where, in that case, were Dr. Bromberg's notes on the Monocosm?
I explained that there probably had never been any notes. Dr.
Bromberg's letter, I had to assume, was an improvisation. Dr. Bromberg had
been a brilliant improviser.
Then should he deem it an accident that Dr. Bromberg's letter and the
announcement of his death, sent by Maxim Kammerer to the President, were
next to each other?
I looked at him, his thin lips set in a determined line, his low brow
with a strand of white hair across it, and it was perfectly clear to me.
What he wanted to hear from me. "Yes, Toivo, my lad," he wanted to hear. "I
think just as you do. Bromberg had guessed much, and the Wanderers got rid
of him and stole his precious papers." But naturally, I didn't think
anything of the sort and I didn't say anything of the sort to my lad Toivo.
Why the documents were next to each other, I didn't know myself. Most
likely, it really was by accident. And that's what I told him.
Then he asked me if Bromberg's ideas had gone into practical
development.
I replied that the question was being examined. All eight models,
proposed by the experts, were very open to criticism. As for Bromberg's
ideas, circumstances were not right for a serious attitude toward them.
Then he mustered his courage and asked me straight on if I, Maxim
Kammerer, head of the department, intended to take up the development of
Bromberg's ideas. And here, finally, I had the opportunity to make him
happy. He heard exactly what he wanted to hear.
"Yes, my lad," I said. "That's why I brought you into the department."
He left feeling ecstatic. Neither he nor I had any idea then, of
course, that it was at that very moment that he took his first step toward
the Big Revelation.
I am a practicing psychologist. When I am dealing with a person, I can
say without false modesty that I feel his spiritual state at every moment,
the direction of his thoughts, and I'm quite good at predicting his actions.
However, if I were asked to explain how I do it, and on top of that asked to
draw or explain in words the image - that is created in my mind, I would
find myself in a very difficult position. Like every practicing
psychologist, I would be forced to turn to analogies from the world of art
or literature. I would refer to the characters of Shakespeare, or Strogov,
or Michelangelo, or Johann Sourd.
So Toivo Glumov reminded me of the Mexican Rivers. I mean from the
oft-anthologized story by Jack London. Twentieth century. Or even
nineteenth... I don't remember exactly.
By profession, Toivo Glumov was a Progressor. Specialists told me that
he could have been a Progressor of the highest class, a Progressor ace. He
had brilliant qualifications. He had wonderful self-control, he was
extraordinarily cool, had truly unusually fast reflexes, and was a born
actor and master of impersonation. And having worked as a Progressor for
over three years, without any apparent reasons he retired and returned to
Earth. No sooner had he finished reconditioning than he got on the BVI and
learned without any great difficulty that the only organization on our
planet that had anything to do with his new aims was COMCON-2.
He appeared before me in December of 94, imbued with icy preparedness
to answer questions over and over: why he, such a promising, absolutely
healthy, and highly valued man was quitting his job, his mentors, his
comrades, destroying carefully worked-out plans, squashing the hopes that
had been placed in him... Naturally, I did not ask him anything of the sort.
In general, I was not interested in why he did not want to be a Progressor
anymore. I was interested in why he suddenly wanted to be a
Counter-Progressor, if you can put it that way.
His reply was memorable. He felt hostility for the very concept of
Progressorism. If possible, he would not dwell on details. It was just that
he, a Progressor, had negative feelings about Progressorism. And over there
(he jerked his thumb over his shoulder), he had a very trivial thought:
while he was tramping along the cobblestones of Arkanara's squares, shaking
his staff and brandishing his sword, here (he pointed his index finger at
the ground beneath his feet) some trickster in a fashionable rainbow cape
and a metavisor over his shoulder was strolling on Sverdlov Square. As far
as he knew, that simple thought rarely occurs to anyone, and if it does,
then as an incongruously silly or romantic one. But he, Toivo Glumov, had no
peace from that thought: no gods should be allowed to intervene in our
affairs; the gods had no place on earth, for "the good of the gods is the
wind -- it fills sails, but it also raises storms." (I later found the
source of this citation with great difficulty -- it's from Verbliben.)
My naked eye could see that before me was a Catholic who was far more
Catholic than the Pope. Without further discussion, I took him into my group
and started him in on the theme "A Visit from an Old Lady."
He turned out to be a marvelous worker. He was energetic, he had
initiative, he did not know the meaning of tired, and -- this was a very
rare quality at his age -- he was not disappointed by failure. There were no
negative results for him. Moreover, negative results of his research made
him just as happy as the rare positive ones. He had seemed to set his mind
from the beginning that nothing definite would be learned in his lifetime,
and know how to find pleasure horn the actual (often rather dreary)
procedure of analyzing the least-bit-suspicious incident. Amazingly, my old
workers - Grisha Serosovin, Sandro Mbvevari, Andryusha Kikin, and others -
shaped up around him, stopped wasting time, and grew much less ironic and
much more efficient. And it wasn't as if they were following his example,
there could be no question of that; he was too young for them, too green.
But he seemed to have infected them with his seriousness, his concentration
on the work, and, most of all, I think, they were astonished by the intense
hatred for the object of our work that they could guess in him and which
they totally lacked. Once, I happened to mention the tanned youth Rivera
around Grisha Serosovin and soon discovered that they had all located and
reread that story by Jack London.
Like Rivera, Toivo had no friends. He was surrounded by faithful and
trusty colleagues, and he was a faithful and trusty partner himself for any
undertaking. But he never did develop friends. I think it was because it was
too hard to be his friend: he never was satisfied with himself in anything,
and therefore never made allowances for others in anything. He had this
ruthless concentration on his goal, which I had seen before only in major
scientists and athletes. No room for friendship...
Actually, he did have one friend. I mean his wife, Asya Stasova, name
and patronymic Anastasiya Pavlovna. When I met her, she was a charming
little woman, as lively as mercury, sharp-tongued, and with a tendency to
make quick judgments. Therefore, the atmosphere in their house was always
combat-ready, and it was sheer pleasure to observe their constantly erupting
verbal battles.
It was all the more amazing because in ordinary circumstances -- that
is, at work -- Toivo gave the impression of being a slow and taciturn man.
He seemed to be always stuck on some important idea he was thinking over
carefully. But not with Asya. Only not with Asya. With her he was
Demosthenes, Cicero, Apostle Paul; he intoned, quipped, created maxims --
damn it, he even ironized! It was difficult to imagine just how different
the two men were; silent, slow Toivo Glumov-at-Work and animated, chatty,
philosophizing, constantly erring and agitatedly defending his errors Toivo
Glumov-at-Home. At home, he even ate with an appetite and with taste. He
even complained about the food. Asya worked as a gastronomic degustator and
did all the cooking herself. That's the way it had been in her mother's
home, and in her grandmother's home. This tradition, which delighted Toivo
Glumov, went back in the Stasov family to the depths of centuries, to those
unimaginable times before molecular cuisine, when an ordinary hamburger had
to be cooked by means of very complicated and not very appetizing
procedures...
And Toivo also had a mother. Every day, no matter how busy or where he
was, he always found a minute to call her on the videochannel and exchange
at least a few words. They called that their "check-in call" Many years ago,
I met Maya Toivovna Glumova, but the circumstances of our meeting were so
sad that subsequently we never met again. Not through any fault of mine. No
one's fault, really. In brief, she had a very bad opinion of me, and Toivo
knew it. He never spoke of her with me. But he spoke with her about me
frequently -- I learned that much later...
This duality undoubtedly irritated and depressed him. I don't think
that Maya Toivovna said bad things about me. It is completely improbable
that she would have told him the terrible story of Lev Abalkin's death. Most
likely, whenever Tolvo brought up the subject of Kammerer, she simply coldly
refused to speak on that topic. But that was more than enough.
For I was more than a boss for Toivo. After all, I was the only person
who shared his views, the only person in the enormous COMCON-2 who treated
the issue that engrossed him totally with complete seriousness and without
any allowances. Besides which, he felt great piety toward me. Say what you
will, but his boss was the legendary Marc Sim! Toivo hadn't even been born
when Mare Sim was blowing up ray towers and fighting fascists on Saraksha...
The peerless White Queen! The organizer of Operation Virus, after which
Excellency himself called him Big Bug! Toivo was just a schoolboy when Big
Bug penetrated into the Island Empire, into the very capital... the first
earthling, and the last, incidentally... Of course, these were all exploits
of a Progressor, but it is written: a Progressor can be vanquished only by
another Progressor! And Toivo was a fierce adherent of that simple idea.
And then there was also this: Toivo had no idea how he would act when
at last-the intervention of the Wanderers in human affairs would be
established and proven with absolute reliability. No historical analogies
from the centuries of activity by Earth Progressors helped there. For the
Duke of Irukan, an exposed Earth Progressor was a demon or a practicing
sorcerer. For counterintelligence from the Island Empire, the same
Progressor was a clever spy from the mainland. And what was an exposed
Progressor Wanderer from the point of view of a worker in COMCON-2?
An exposed sorcerer would be burned; or he could be placed in a stone
sack and forced to make gold from his own feces. A clever spy from the
mainland should be rerecruited or killed. But what do you do with an exposed
Wanderer?
Toivo did not know the answer to these and similar questions. The
majority felt these questions were incorrect. "What do you do if your
outboard motor catches the beard of a watersprite? Do you untangle him? Cut
it ruthlessly? Pull the watersprite up by the sides?" Toivo did not discuss
these things with me. And l think that he didn't because he had convinced
himself that Big Bug, the legendary White Queen, the clever Marc Sim had
long ago thought it out, had analyzed all the possible variants, had
compiled detailed plans and had them confirmed by the authorities.
I did not disillusion him. For the time being.
I must say that Toivo Glumov was a man of prejudices. (How else, with
his fanaticism?) For instance, he refused to acknowledge the ties between
his theme, "A Visit from an Old Lady," and the Rip Van Winkle theme that had
been worked out a long time ago in our department. The incidents of sudden
and completely unexplained disappearances of people in the Seventies and
Eighties and their just as sudden and unexplained return was the only part
of the Bromberg Memorandum that Toivo steadfastly refused to examine or even
to take into account. "That's a typo," he maintained. "Or we don't
understand him properly. Why would the Wanderers need people to disappear
inexplicably!" And this despite the fact that Bromberg's Memorandum had
become his cathechism, the program for his work for the rest of his life...
Apparently, he was unwilling and unable to endow the Wanderers with almost
supernatural powers. Such an admission would have made his work valueless.
Really, what would be the point of researching, seeking, trying co catch a
creature that was capable at any moment of disintegrating in the air and
restructuring itself in some other place?
But for all his tendency toward prejudices, he never tried to argue
with established facts. I remember when he was just a green neophyte and he
convinced me to join in the investigation of the tragedy on the island of
Matuku.
The affair was in the jurisdiction of the Oceania sector, naturally,
where they didn't even want to hear the word Wanderer. But this was a unique
case, with no precedents in the past (I sincerely hope that nothing like
this will occur in the future), and Toivo and I were accepted without demur.
Since time immemorial, an ancient, half-crumbled radio telescope has
stood on the island of Matuku. It has never been established who built it or
why.
The island was considered uninhabited; it was visited only by herds of
dolphins and random couples seeking pearls in the translucent bays of the
north shore. However, as we soon learned, for the last several years a
doubled family of Golovans had been living there. (Today's generation had
started forgetting what Golovans are. A reminder: they are a race of
rational Canoids from the planet Saraksh, who for a time were in very close
contact with earthlings. These large-headed talking dogs readily accompanied
us throughout space and even had something like a diplomatic embassy on our
planet. About thirty years ago, they left us and did not enter into contact
with humans anymore.)
On the south of the island, there was a round volcanic harbor. It was
indescribably dirty: the beach was polluted by some disgusting foam. It
looked like the filth was organic in origin because it attracted innumerable
flocks of sea birds. Of course, the waters of the harbors were lifeless.
Even seaweed grew unwillingly.
Murders were taking place on that island. People were killing people,
and it was so horrible that no one would lift his hand for several months to
report these events through the mass media.
It soon became apparent that the fault, or rather, the cause of it all
was a giant Silurian mollusk, a monstrous primeval cephalopod that had
settled some time ago on the bottom of the volcanic harbor. It must have
been swept into there by a typhoon. The biofield of this monster, which
floated up to the surface from time to time, had a depressive effect on the
psyche of higher animals. In particular, it elicited a catastrophic lowering
of the level of motivation in humans. In that biofield man became asocial;
he could kill an acquaintance who accidentally dropped his shirt into the
water. And he did.
And so Toivo Glumov got it into his head that this mollusk was the
individual of the Monocosm, as predicted by Bromberg, in the process of
creation. I must confess that, in the beginning, when there weren't any
facts at all, his theories seemed rather convincing (if you can speak of
convincing logic built en a fantastic supposition). And you had to see him
retreat step by step under the onslaught of new data, which daily were
obtained by shocked specialists in cephalopods and paleontology...
He was finished off by a biology student who dug up in Tokyo a
thirteenth-century Japanese manuscript that contained a description of this
or a similar monster (I quote from my diary): "In the Eastern seas is seen a
katatsumorikado of purple color with many long thin arms. It sticks out of
its round shell of thirty feet in size with pens and centilia, its eye seems
rotten, and the whole thing is covered with polyps. When it surfaces, it
lies on the water flat like an island, spreading a foul odor and defecating
white, to lure fish and birds. When they gather, it grabs them with its arms
indiscriminately and feeds on them. On moonlit nights it lies, bobbing in
the eaves, staring into the low sky and thinking about the deep waters from
where it was disgorged. These thoughts are so gloomy that they horrify men,
and they become like tigers."
I remember how Toivo read this and then was silent for several minutes,
and then sighed -- it seemed to me with relief -- and said: "Yes. That's not
it. And a good thing, because it's too vile." According to his lights, the
Monocosm had to be a totally disgusting creature, but not that bad. The
Monocosm in the form of a Silurian octopus -- with its poisonous biofield,
its extensible shell, and its personal age of over four hundred million
years -- did not lit into any concepts of the specialists.
Thus the first serious affair that Toivo Glumov took on came to naught.
He had quite a few such zeros later; and in the middle of the year 98 he
asked permission to do some work on the materials on mass phobias. I gave
permission.
DOCUMENT 3: A Report from T. Glumov
REPORT COMCON-2
No. 011/99 Urals-North
Date: 20 March 99
FROM: T. Glumov, Inspector
THEME: 009 "A Visit from an Old Lady"
CONTENTS: Cosmophobia, "the Penguin Syndrome"
In analyzing the incidents of cosmic phobias in the last hundred years,
I've come to the conclusion that, within the parameters of theme 009, the
materials from the so-called Penguin Syndrome could be of interest to us.
Sources:
A. Mobius, paper at the XIV Conference of Cosmopsychologist Riga, 84
A. Mobius, "The Penguin Syndrome," PCP (Problems of Cosmic Psychology),
42, 84
A. Mobius, "More on the Nature of the Penguin Syndrome," PCP, 44, 85
Reference:
Mobius, Asmodeus-Matvei, doctor of medicine, corresponding member of
the Academy of Medical Sciences of Europe, director of the branch of the
World Institute of Cosmic Psychopathology (Vienna). Born 26/04/36,
Innsbruck. Education: Psychopathology Department, Sorbonne; Second Institute
of Space Medicine, Moscow; Higher Courses of Equipment-free Aquanautics,
Honolulu. Basic areas of scientific interest: non-industrial space and
aquaphobias. From 81 to 91, deputy chairman of the Main Medical Commission
of the Directorate of the Space Fleet. Now generally recognized founder and
head of the school known as Polymorphous cosmopsychopathology.
On October 7, 84, at a conference of cosmopsychologists in Riga, Dr.
Asmodeus Mobius reported on a new type of space phobia, which he called the
Penguin Syndrome. This phobia was a non-dangerous psychic deviation,
expressed in persistent nightmares that came to the patient in his sleep. No
sooner does the patient fall asleep than he discovers himself hanging in
airless space, absolutely helpless and weak, alone and abandoned, given up
to the whims of soulless and potent powers. He physically feels the
suffocation: he feels his being burned by destructive rays, his bones
thinning and melting, his brain boiling and evaporating, an incredible
intense despair overwhelms him, and he wakes up.
Dr. Mobius did not consider this disease dangerous because, first of
all, it is not accompanied by any psychic damage, and secondly, it responds
successfully to ambulatory psychotherapy. The Penguin Syndrome attracted the
attention of Dr. Mobius primarily because it is a completely new phenomenon,
never before described by anyone. It was amazing that this disease struck
people irrespective of sex, age, and profession, and no less amazing was the
fact that there was no connection between the syndrome and gene index of the
patient.
Interested in the etiology of the phenomenon, Dr. Mobius subjected the
material he gathered (close to twelve hundred cases) to a multifactor
analysis on eighteen parameters and to his satisfaction discovered that in
78 percent of the incidents, the syndrome arose in people who had made
long-distance space flights on the Phantom-17-Penguin Spaceship. "I had
expected something like that," Dr. Mobius announced. "In my memory this is
not the first time that construction engineers have offered us technology
that has not been sufficiently tested. That is why I called the syndrome I
discovered after the type of ship, and let that be a lesson and warning."
On the basis of Dr. Mobius's speech, the conference in Riga passed a
resolution to ban the use of spaceships of the Phantom-17-Penguin type until
all the construction flaws creating the phobia had been repaired.
1. I determined that the Phantom-17-Penguins spaceship had been
subjected to the most thorough diagnostics, in the course of which nothing
major in the construction was discovered, so that the direct cause of the
Penguin Syndrome has remained shrouded in mist and fog. (However, wanting to
reduce the risk to zero, the Directorate of the Space Fleet removed the
Penguins from passenger flights and redesigned them for autopilot.) The
incidence of the Penguin Syndrome rapidly decreased, and as far as I know,
the last case was recorded thirteen years ago.
However, I was not satisfied. I was worried by the 22 percent of the
cases reviewed whose relationship with the Phantom-17-Penguin spaceship
remained vague. Of those 22 percent, according to the figures of Dr. Mobius,
7 percent never had anything to do with the Penguins, and the remaining 15
percent could not say anything useful either they did not remember or they
were not interested in spaceship models and did not know which ones they had
flown in.
Naturally, the statistical significance of the hypothesis of the role
of the Penguins in the appearance of the phobia is indisputable. However, 22
percent is not a small figure. I subjected Mobius's materials to a
multifactored analysis of twenty additional parameters, and selected these
parameters, I confess, rather randomly, having nothing to work from, not the
most dubious hypothesis. For instance, I had parameter dates of takeoff
accurate to within the month, place of birth accurate to the region, hobbies
with accuracy to within the class rating... and so on.
It turned out to be quite simple, however, and it was only humanity's
eternal belief in the isotropism of the universe that kept Dr. Mobius from
discovering what I managed to come up with. Here is what I learned: the
Penguin Syndrome affected people who had made space flights on the routes to
Saula, Redut, and Cassandra -- in other words, through subspace sector entry
41/02.
The Phantom-17-Penguin had nothing to do with it. It was simply that
the overwhelming majority of those ships in those days ( the early 80s) went
straight from the hangar to the Earth-Cassandra-Zephyr and
Earth-Redut-EN-2105 routes. That explained Dr. Mobius's 78 percent. As for
the remaining 22 percent, 20 had flown on those routes in other ships; that
left only 2 percent, who had never flown anywhere, and so did not play a
significant role.
2. The data of Dr. Mobius is definitely incomplete. In the names he
collected as well the data from the archives of the Directorate of the Space
Fleet, I was able to determine that during the period in question 4,512
people traveled along those routes in both directions, of which 183 people
(primarily crew members) made round trips several times. More than
two-thirds of the reference group did not fall into Dr. Mobius's field of
vision.
The most likely conclusion is that they were immune to the Penguin
Syndrome or that for various reasons they did not seek medical help. In
connection with this, it seemed extremely important for me to determine:
- whether there were people within the reference group who were immune
to the syndrome; and
- if there mere any, then could the causes of their immunity be
determined, or at least the biosociopsychological parameters in which these
people differed from the patients.
With these questions, I turned to Dr. Mobius himself. He replied that
this problem had never interested him, but intuitively he tended to assume
that the existence of such biosociopsychological parameters seemed highly
unlikely. In response to my request, he agreed to assign this research to
one of his tabs, warning me that I should not expect results before two or
three months.
So as not to lose time, I turned to the files of the Directorate's
Medical Center and tried to analyze the data on all 124 pilots who made
regular round trips on the routes in question during the period in question.
Elementary analysis showed that, at least fog the pilots, the
probability of being subjected to an attack of the Penguin Syndrome was
approximately one-third and did not depend on the number of flights through
the "dangerous" sector. Thus, it becomes quite probable that (a) two-thirds
of people are immune to the Penguin Syndrome, and (b) a person without
immunity is stricken by the syndrome with a probability close to one. That
is why the question of distinguishing the immune person from the non-immune
takes on such interest.
3. I feel it necessary to cite in full the notes by Dr. Mobius to his
article, "More on the Nature of the Penguin Syndrome." Dr. Mobius writes:
"I received a curious missive from my colleague Krivoklykov (of the
Crimean branch of the Second ISM). After my speech in Riga was published, he
wrote that for many months he has been having dreams that are incredibly
similar to the nightmares of the sufferers of the Penguin Syndrome -- he
feels suspended in airless space far from planets and stars, he does not
feel his body but sees it, just as many space objects, real and fantastic.
But as opposed to those with the Penguin Syndrome, he does not feel any
negative emotions. On the contrary, the event seems interesting and
pleasant. He imagines that he is an independent heavenly body, moving along
a trajectory he has chosen. The movement itself gives him pleasure, for he
moves toward a certain goal that promises much that is interesting. The view
of stellar masses glittering in the abyss elicits feelings of inexplicable
rapture, and so on. It occurred to me that in the person of my colleague
Krivoklykov I have an incident of a certain inversion of the Penguin
Syndrome, which would be of great theoretical interest in light of the
considerations I have explicated in my article. However, I was disappointed:
it turned out that Krivoklykov had never in his life flown in a
Phantom-17-Penguin starship. However, I do not give up hope that the
inversion of the Penguin Syndrome does exist as a psychic phenomenon, and I
will be grateful to any physician who would be kind enough to send me new
data on that subject."
Reference:
Krivoklykov, Ivan Georgievich, replacement physician and psychiatrist
of Lemba base (EN 2105), in the period in question had made several trips on
the Earth-Redut-EN-2105 route on various spaceships. According to the data
In BVI, at the present time he is on Lemba case.
In the course of personal conversation with Dr. Mobius, I learned that
in the last few years he has discovered the "positive" inversion of the
Penguin Syndrome in another two people. Our of medical ethic, he refused to
divulge their names.
I am not attempting a detailed commentary on the inversion of the
Penguin Syndrome. However, it seems clear to me that there should be
significantly more such people than are now known.
T. Glumov
[End of Document 3.]
I presented Document 3 here not only because it was one of the most
summarizing reports made by Toivo Glumov. As I read and reread it, I sensed
that we had finally come across the first real clue then, even though at the
time that had not occurred to me, that the chain of events that would play
the decisive role in my part in the Big Revelation began with that report.
On March 21, I read Toivo Glumov's report on the Penguin Syndrome.
On March 25, the Wizard presented his demonstration in the Institute of
Eccentrics. (I learned about it only several days later.)
And on March 27, Toivo turned in his report on fukamiphobia.
DOCUMENT 4: Report by T. Glumov
Theme 009
NARRATIVE: Little Pesha: 6 May 99. Early morning
Little Pesha: 6 May 99. 6 AM
Little Pesha: Same Day. 8 AM
DOCUMENT 5: Once of the UE-2
Department: 6 May 99. Around 1 PM
REPORT COMCON-2
No. 013/99 Urals-North
Date: 26 March 99
FROM: T. Glumov, Inspector
THEME: 009 "A Visit from an Old Lady"
CONTENTS: Fukamiphobia, the history of the Amendment to the Law on
Mandatory Bioblockade
In analyzing the incidents of mass phobias in the last one hundred
years, I have came to the conclusion that within the parameters of theme
009, the events that preceded the passage on 2/02/65 by the World Council of
the famous Amendment to the law on the Bioblockade would be of interest to
us.
The following should be kept in mind:
1. Bioblockade, also known as the Tokyo Procedure, has been
systematically in use on Earth and the Periphery for about one hundred and
fifty years. Bioblockade is not a professional term, and is used primarily
by journalists. Medical specialists call this procedure fukamization in
honor of the sisters Natalya and Hosiko Fukami, who were the first to give a
theoretical basis for it and to put it into practice. The aim of
fukamization is raising the natural level of adaptation of the human body to
external conditions (bioadaptation). In its classic form, the procedure of
fukamization is used exclusively an infants, beginning with the third
trimester of its intrauterine development. As far as I have learned and
understood, the procedure consists of two stages.
The introduction of UNBLAF serum (the "bacteria of life" culture)
raises resistance by several orders to all known infections and viruses --
viral, bacterial, or spore -- and also to all organic toxins. (This
basically is the bioblockade.)
Unbreaking the hypothalmus with microwave radiation increases the
body's ability to adapt to such physical agents of the environment as strong
radiation, toxic gas, and high temperatures. Besides which, the ability to
regenerate damaged organs increases the spectrum visible to the retina, and
response to psychotherapy is heightened.
The complete test of instruction on fukamization is appended below.
2. The procedure of fukamization was used up until 85 as a mandatory
procedure in accordance with the law on Mandatory Bioblockade. In the year
82, a draft of an amendment was presented to the World Council, calling for
an end to mandatory fukamization for infants born on Earth. The Amendment
called for "maturity vaccination," to be given to people who reached the age
of sixteen, to replace fukamization. In 85, the World Council (by majority
of only twelve votes) passed the" Amendment to the law on Mandatory
Bioblockade. According to this Amendment, fukamization was no longer
mandatory, and its use was left up to the parents. People who did not
undergo fukamization in infancy had the right to later refuse the maturity
vaccination. However, in that case, they could not work in professional
fields involving heavy physical and psychological stress. According to the
BVI, at the present time there are close to a million teenagers on Earth who
have not been fukamized and close to twenty thousand people who have refused
the maturity vaccination.
INSTRUCTION
On antenatal and postnatal fukamization of newborns.
1. Determine the exact time of start of birth by the method of even
integrals. (Recommended diagnostics: radioimmune assay NIMB, selectors FDH-4
and FDH-8.)
2. No less than 18 hours before the first uterine construction,
determine the volume of the fetus and the volume of the amniotic fluid
separately.
Note: Lazarevich's correction is mandatory! The calculations must be
made only through the monographs of the Institute of Bioadaptation, taking
into account racial differences.
3. Determine the necessary dose of UNBLAF serum. A full, stable,
long-term immunization to alum agents and organic compounds of albumen and
haptoid structures is achieved at a dose of 6.8094 gamma moles per gram of
lymph tissue.
Note: a) At an index of volumes of less than 3.5, the dose is increased
by 16 percent.
b) With multiple fetuses, the total dose of injected serum is reduced
by 8 percent for each fetus (twins 8 percent, triplets 16 percent, etc.).
4. Six hours before the first uterine contraction, use the nul injector
to introduce through the anterior abdominal wall into the amniotic fluid the
calibrated dose of UNBLAF serum. The infection is done from the side, away
from the fetus's back.
5. Fifteen minutes after birth, perform a scintigraph of the newborn's
thymus. If the index is under 3.8, introduce an additional 2.6750 gamma
moles of UNBLAF serum into the umbilical vein.
6. In an increase of body temperature, immediately place the newborn in
a sterile box. The first natural feeding is permitted no sooner than after
12 hours of normal temperature.
7. The hypothalamic zones of adaptogenesis are irradiated with
microwaves 72 hours after birth. The topography distribution of the zones is
calculated by the program BINAR-1. The volumes of the hyporhalamic zones
should correspond as follows:
Zone I: 36-42 neurons
Zones II: 178-194 neurons
Zones III: 125-139 neurons
Zones IV: 460-510 neurons
Zones V: 460-510 neurons
Note: When performing measurements, be sure that birth hematomas have
dissolved completely.
The obtained data is put in the BIOFAK-PULSE.
HAND CORRECTION OF THE PULSE IS CATEGORICALLY FORBIDDEN.
8. Place the newborn in the operating chamber of the BIOFAK-PULSE. In
orienting the head, watch especially that the angle of deviation on the
stereotaxis scale is no more than 0.0014.
9. Microwave irradiation of the hypothalamic zones of adaptogenesis is
done by reaching the second level of deep sleep, which corresponds to 1.8 --
2.1 alpha on an encephalogram.
10. All data must be entered on the newborn's personal chart.
From the events that led to the passage of the Amendment to the Law on
Mandatory Bioblockade in February 85, I have determined:
1. In the century and a half of global fukamization, not a single case
is known to cause any damage. Therefore, it was not surprising that until
the spring of 61 very few mothers refused fukamization. The overwhelming
majority of physicians with whom I consulted had not heard of any such cases
before that year. But statements against fukamization, theoretical and
propagandistic, had appeared frequently. Here is a typical one for our age:
Pumivur, K. "Rider: Rights and Responsibilities." Bangkok, 15.
The author, vice president of the World Association of Reeders, is an
adherent and propagandizer of maximally active participation of reeders in
the activities of mankind. He argues against fukamization, basing his
argument an the data of personal statistics. He maintains that fukamization
is allegedly harmful for the appearance of reeder potential in man, and even
though the relative number of reeders in the era of fukamization did not
decrease, during that time there were no reeders of the power comparable to
those active in the late twenty-first and early twenty-second centuries. He
calls for the abolition of the mandatory nature of fukamization -- at first,
at least for the children and grandchildren of reeders. (All the materials
of the books are hopelessly out of date: in the Thirties a brilliant
constellation of reeders of incredible power appeared -- Alexander Solemba,
Peter Dzomny, et al.)
Debuque, Charles. "To Build Man?" Lyon, 32.
A posthumous edition of the major (and now forgotten) antieugenicist.
The second half of the book is devoted wholly to the criticism of
fukamization as a "shamelessly subversive invasion into the natural state of
the human organism." He stresses the irreversible character of the changes
made by fukamization ("... no one has ever been able to slow down an
unbridled hypothalamus..."), but the main thrust of his argument is the fact
that this is a typical eugenic procedure, imbued with the authority of world
law, and which for many years has served as a bad and tempting precedent for
new eugenic experiments.
Skesis, August. "The Stumbling Stone." Athens, 37.
The famous theoretician and preacher of neophilism devoted his brochure
to harsh criticism of fukamization, but to a poetic criticism rather than a
rational one. Within the framework of the concepts of neophilism, like a
vulgarization of the theory of Yakovits, the universe is the location of the
neocosm, in which the mental and emotional code of a human personality flows
after his death. Judging by everything, Skesis knows absolutely nothing
about fukamization, indeed imagines it to be something like an appendectomy,
and passionately calls on people to reject such a crude procedure, which
mutilates and distorts the mental and emotional code. (According to BVI
statistics, after the passage of the Amendment, not a single member of the
congregation of neophiles agreed to the fukamization of his children.)
Toseville, G. "Insolent Man." Birmingham, 51.
This monograph is a typical example of a whole library of books and
brochures devoted to the propaganda of putting an end to technological
progress. All these books are characterized by an apologia for stuck
civilizations like the Tagorian or the biocivilization of Leonida. Earth's
technological progress is declared to be done with. Man's expansion into the
cosmos is depicted as a kind of social extravagance, which v ill bring a
cruel disillusionment. Rational Man turns into Insolent Man, who in his
striving for quantity of traditional and emotional information loses in its
quality. (The assumption is that information on the psychocosmos is of
immeasurably higher quality than information about the external cosmos in
the broadest meaning of the word.) Fukamization does humanity a bad service
precisely because it furthers the transformation of Rational Man into
Insolent Man, broadening and in fact stimulating his expansionist potential.
He proposes a first stage of refusing the unbreaking of the hypothalamus.
Oxovu, K "Movement Along a Vertical." Calcutta, 61.
K. Oxovu is the pseudonym for a scientist or a group of scientists who
formulated and disseminated the unknown idea of so-called vertical progress
of humanity. I was unable to learn the real name of the author. I have
reason to suspect that K. Oxovu is either G. Komov, Chairman of COMCON-1, or
someone from the Academy of Social Prognosis who shares his views. The
present edition is the first monograph of the "verticalists." The sixth
chapter is devoted to a detailed examination of all aspects of fukamization
-- biological, social, and ethical -- from the point of view of the precepts
of vertical progress. The basic danger of fukamization is seen to be the
possibility of uncontrolled influence of genetics. To support this idea,
they give data (for the first time, as far as I can determine) on the many
incidents of passing along to children the qualities of fukamization. There
are over one hundred such cases where the mechanism of the fetus while still
in the mother's womb began developing antibodies, characteristic of the
action of UNBLAF serum, and over two hundred cases of newborns with an
unbraked hypothalamus. Moreover, over thirty cases have been reported of
passing these qualities on to the third generation. They stress that while
these phenomena pose no threat to the overwhelming majority of people, they
are an eloquent illustration of the fact that fukamization has not been as
thoroughly studied as its adepts claim.
I must say that the material has been selected with extraordinary
thoroughness and presented very effectively. For instance: several striking
paragraphs are devoted to so-called G-allergics, for whom an unbraked
hypothalamus is contradicted G-allergy is an extremely rare condition of the
organism, easily detected in the fetus while still in utero and posing no
danger to anyone; an infant like that simply does not have the second stage
of fukamization. However, if an unbraked hypothalamus is passed on to a
G-allergic by heredity, medicine will be powerless, and an incurably sick
person will be born. K. Oxovu managed to find one such case, and he does not
hold back on color in his description.
The author paints on even more apocalyptic picture in depicting the
world of the future, in which humanity, under the influence of fukamization,
is split into two genotypes. This monograph has been reprinted many rimes,
and played a not unimportant role in the discussion of the Amendment. It is
interesting to note that the last edition of this book (Los Angeles, 99)
does not contain a single word about fukamization; we are to understand that
the author is completely satisfied with the amendment, and the fate of 99.9
percent of the population, who continue to subject their children to
fukamization, does not worry him.
Note: In concluding this section, I feel it necessary to stress the
fact that the selection and annotation of the materials was done on the
principle of their lack of triviality from my personal point of view. I
apologize in advance if the low level of my erudition causes
dissatisfaction.
2. Apparently, the first refusal to be fukamized, which began a whole
epidemic of refusals, was recorded in the maternity home of the village of
K'Sava (Equatorial Africa). On 17/4/81, all three women who entered the home
that day, independently of one another and in differing forms, categorically
forbid the personnel to perform the procedure of fukamization. Mother 1
(first child) motivated her refusal on her husband's wishes, and the
slightest attempts to change her mind made her go into hysterics. Mother 2
(first child) did not even try to give a motivation for her refusal. "I
don't want to, and that's that!" she kept repeating. Mother 3 (third child,
first protest) was very reasonable and calm, and explained her refusal by
not wanting to decide her child's fate without his knowledge and consent
"When he grows up, he'll decide," she announced.
(I cite the motivations because they are very typical. With slight
variations, the "refuser" used them in 99 percent of the cases. The
literature uses three classifications. Refusal type A: totally rational, but
in principle unverifiable, motivation; 25 percent. Refusal type B: pure
phobia, hysterical, irrational behavior; 60 percent. Refusal type C: ethical
considerations; 10 percent. Refusal type R (rate): references extremely
varied in form and content: religious circumstances, adherence to exotic
philosophical systems, and so on; e. 5 percent).
On April 18, in the same hospital, there were two more refusals, and
new refuses were registered in maternity homes in the region. By the end of
the month, refusals numbered in the hundreds, registered in all regions of
the globe, and on May 5 came the first report of a refuse outside Earth
(Mars, the Big Syrt). The epidemic of refusals, waxing and waning, continued
right up to the year 85, so that by the time the Amendment was passed, there
were almost fifty-thousand refusers (0.1 percent of all mothers).
The laws of epidemics have been studied phenomenologically very well
and with a high degree of veracity. Yet, they did nor result in convincing
explanations.
For instance, it was noted that the epidemic had two geographic centers
of distribution: one in equatorial Africa, the other In northeastern
Siberia. An analogy with the probable distribution centers of humanity comes
to mind, but this analogy, of course, explains nothing.
A second example. The refusals were always individual; however, within
each maternity home, each refusal seemed to continue the previous one. Hence
the term "chain of refusals of X number of links." The number X could be
quite large: in the maternity home in the Howekai Gyneclinic, the "chain of
refusals" began on 11/09/83 and extended until 21/09/83, pulling all the
mothers who came into the home, so that the length of the "chain" contained
nineteen mothers.
In some hospitals, the epidemics of refusals arose and died down
several times. For instance, the epidemic was repeated twelve times in the
Berne Palace of the Child.
For all this, the overwhelming majority of maternity homes on earth
never heard about the epidemics of refusals. Just as most extraterrestrial
settlements did not hear of the refusals. However, in places where the
epidemics broke out (Big Syrt, Saula base, Resort), they developed according
to the laws typical for Earth.
3. A large body of literature is devoted to the causes of fukamiphobia.
I familiarized myself with the most solid works in the field, recommended to
me by Professor Derouide of the Lhasa Psychology Center. I am insufficiently
prepared to make a competent summary of these works, but I have formed the
opinion that there is no generally accepted theory of fukamiphobia.
Therefore, I will limit myself here to a verbatim fragment from my
conversation with Professor Derouide.
QUESTION: Do you think it possible for the phobia to arise in a healthy
and happy person?
ANSWER: Strictly speaking, that is impossible. In a healthy person, a
phobia always arises as a consequence of excessive physical or psychological
overload. You could hardly call such a person happy. But often, especially
in our turbulent times, a person does not always realize that he has been
overstrained... Subjectively, he might consider himself happy and even
satisfied, and then the appearance of a phobia in him, from the point of
view of a dilettante, may seem an inexplicable phenomenon...
QUESTION: And does this apply to fukamiphobia?
ANSWER: You know, even today, from a certain point of view, pregnancy
remains a mystery... It is enough to say that we only recently understood
that the mind of a pregnant woman is the psyche of the binary, the result of
a devilishly complicated interaction of the fully formed psyche of a grown
person and the antenatal psyche of the fetus, the laws of which are
practically unknown to us... And if you add to this the inevitable physical
stress, the inevitable neurotic behavior... All that, in general, creates a
rich soil for phobias. However, it would be rash to draw a conclusion from
this, to think that this sort of discussion has in any way explained
anything at all in this amazing business. Very rash... and not serious.
QUESTION: Are their any differences between the "refusers" and ordinary
mothers? Physiological, psychological... Have there been studies?
ANSWER: Many. But nothing concrete has been established. I personally
always felt, and still do, that fukamiphobia is a universal phobia, like,
for instance, a phobia for zero-transportation. But zero-T-phobia is a very
wide-spread phenomenon. Almost every human being experiences fear before his
first zero-T-transfer, no matter what sex or profession, and then that fear
disappears without a trace... while fukamiphobia is, luckily, a rare
manifestation. I say luckily because we have not learned how to treat
fukamiphobia.
QUESTION: Have I understood you correctly, professor, that there is not
a single concrete cause known for fukamiphobia?
ANSWER: Not verifiably, no. But there have been many theories, dozens.
QUESTION: For instance?
ANSWER: For instance -- propaganda by opponents of fukamization. An
impressionable personality, especially in the state of pregnancy, could
easily be influenced by such propaganda. Or, say, hypertrophy of the
maternal instinct, the instinctive need co protect her child from any
external actions, even beneficial ones... Are you planning to argue? Don't.
I agree with you completely. All these hypotheses explain only a very narrow
circle of facts, at best. No one could explain the phenomenon of the "chain
of refusals," nor the geographic peculiarities of the phenomenon... And no
one at all understands why it all began in the spring of 81, and not only on
Earth but also very far from earth...
QUESTION: And why did it end in 85? Can that be explained?
ANSWER: Just imagine -- it can. Imagine that the fact of the Amendment
passing could play a decisive role in ending the epidemic. Naturally, there
is still much that is unclear here, but just details.
QUESTION: What do you think -- could the epidemic have broken out as
the result of some careless experiments?
ANSWER: Theoretically, that is possible. But in our time we checked
that hypothesis out. There were no experiments being carried out on earth
that could have caused mass phobias. Besides, do not forget, that
fukamiphobia broke out beyond Earth at the same time...
QUESTION: What sort of experiments could have caused phobias?
ANSWER: Probably I did not make myself clear. I could name a series of
technical methods with which I could create some phobia in you, a healthy
man. Note that I said "some" phobia. For instance, if I irradiate you with a
certain regimen of neutrino concentrates, you will develop a phobia. But
what phobia will it be? Fear of heights? Fear of emptiness? Fear of fear? I
can't predict. There can certainly be no talk of eliciting a specific
phobia, like fukamiphobia, the fear of fukamization... Unless it were in
conjunction with hypnosis. But how can you realize that combination in
practice?.. No, that's not a serious consideration.
4. For all its geographical (and cosmographical) distribution, the
incidence of fukamiphobia remained a very rare occurrence in medical
practice, and on its own it would hardly have led to any changes in the law.
However, the epidemic of fukamiphobia very quickly turned from a medical
problem to an event of a social character.
August 81. The first registered protest of fathers, still
individualized (complaints to local and regional medical authorities,
separate appeals to local officials).
October 81. The first collective petition of 124 fathers and two
obstetricians to the Commission for the Protection of Mothers and Infants
under the World Council.
December 81. At the XVII World Congress of the Association of
Obstetricians: physicians and psychologists first speak out against
mandatory fukamization.
January 82. An initiative group, VEPI (named after the founder's
initials), is formed, uniting doctors, psychologists, sociologists,
philosophers, and lawyers. It was VEPI that started and brought to victory
the struggle to pass the Amendment.
February 82. The first protest rally by opponents of fukamization in
front of the World Council building.
June 82. The formal formation of the opposition to the law within the
Commission on Protection of Motherhood and Infancy.
Further chronology of events is not interesting, from my point of view.
The time (three and a half years) necessary for the World Council to study
the Amendment from all sides and then pass it is sufficiently typical.
However, what does not seem typical to me is the relationship between the
number of mass proponents of the Amendment and the numbers of the
professional corps. Usually, the number of mass proponents of a new law is
at a minimum ten million people, while the professional corps, qualified to
represent their interests (lawyers, sociologists, specialists in the give
issue) is only several dozen people. In our case, the mass proponents of the
Amendment (the "refusers," their husbands and relatives, friends,
sympathizers, and people who joined the movement our. of religious or
philosophical considerations) were never truly a mass movement The total
number of participants in the movement never exceeded half a million. As for
the professional corps, the VEPI group alone al the time of passage had 536
specialists.
5. After the Amendment was passed, the refusals did not stop, even
though their number diminished noticeably. Most importantly, during the year
85, the character of the epidemic changed. Actually, the phenomenon could no
longer be called an epidemic. Whatever laws it had had ("the chains of
refusals," geographical concentration) disappeared. Now, the refusals were
completely random, individual; and motivations A and B were no longer
encountered. Now there were references to the Amendment. Apparently, that is
why doctors today do not see refusals to be fukamized as manifestations of
fukamiphobia. Amazingly, many women who had categorically refused
fukamization and had played an active role in the campaign for the Amendment
now have lost interest completely in the question and don't even use the
right granted by the Amendment when they give birth. Of the women who
refused fukamization during the years 81-85, only 12 percent refused a
second time. A third referral is very rare: only a few cases were recorded
in fifteen years.
6. I feel I must stress two circumstances.
a). The almost total disappearance of fukamiphobia after the Amendment
was passed is usually explained by well-known psychosocial factors. Modern
man accepts only those limitations and requirements that stem from moral and
ethical orders of society. Any limitation or requirement based on other
considerations is met with (unconscious) hostility and (instinctive) inner
protest. And naturally, once they achieved freedom of choice in
fukamization, people lost the basis for hostility and became neutral toward
fukamization, as toward any other medical procedure.
Taking this consideration into account, I stress, nevertheless, the
possibility of another interpretation -- one that is of interest within the
framework of theme 009. To wit: the story related above of the appearance
and disappearance of fukamiphobia can be easily explained as the result of a
concentrated, well-planned action of a certain rational will.
b). The epidemic of fukamiphobia corresponds well in time with the
appearance of the Penguin Syndrome. (See my report No. 011/99.)
Sapieti sat,
T. Glumov
[End of Document 4.]
Now I can maintain with total assurance that it was this report of
Glumov's that forced the shift in my consciousness that led me finally to
the Big Revelation. And, funny as it may seem now, that shift began with the
uncontrollable irritation brought on by Toivo's crude and unambivalent hints
about the alleged role of the "verticalists" in the history of the
Amendment. In the original of the report, that paragraph is covered with
thick marks in my hand; I remember quite well that I was planning to call
Toivo on the carpet for his overactive imagination. But then I was given
information on the Wizard's visit to the Institute of Eccentrics, I finally
got the point, and I had no time for calling people on the carpet.
I was in a cruel crisis, because I had no one to talk to. First of all,
I had no propositions. And secondly, I did not know with whom it was safe to
talk now, and with whom it wasn't. Much later, I asked my group if they
found anything strange about my behavior in those horrible (for me) days of
April 99. Sandra was engrossed in the Rip Van Winkle theme and was bowled
over himself and noticed nothing. Grisha Serosovin maintained that I was
particularly silent then and replied to all initiatives on his part with a
mysterious smile. And Kikin is Kikin: even then, "everything was clear" to
him. Toivo Glumov must have been driven crazy by my behavior then. And he
was. However, I really did not know what to do! One by one I sent my
coworkers to the Institute of Eccentrics and waited each time to see what
would happen, and nothing would happen, and I would send the next one and
wait some more.
At that time, Gorbovsky died at his place in Kraslava.
At that time, Athos-Sidorov was preparing to go back into the hospital,
and there was no certainty that he would return.
At that time, Danya Logovenko invited himself over for a cup of tea for
the first time in many years and spent the whole evening reminiscing,
chatting nonsense.
At the time, I decided nothing.
On the night of May 5, the emergency service got me out of bed. In
Little Pesha (on the Pesha River, which falls into the Czech inlet of the
Barents Sea), some sort of monsters had appeared, creating panic in the
villagers. The emergency squad was sent out to examine the site.
According to the rules, I had to send one of my inspectors to the site.
I sent Toivo.
Unfortunately, Inspector Glumov's report on the events and on his
actions in Little Pesha has apparently been lost. In any case, I have not
been able to discover it... However, I would like to show how Toivo
performed that study in as detailed a manner as possible, and therefore I
will have to resort to a reconstruction of the events, basing it on my own
memory and on conversations with participants in that event.
It is not hard to see that the reconstruction being offered (and all
the ones that follow) contains, besides absolutely reliable facts, some
descriptions, metaphors, epithets, dialogues, and other elements of fiction.
But I need for the reader to see the living Toivo before him, the way I
remember him. Documents alone are not enough. If one cares, however, one can
examine my reconstructions as a special kind of deposition.
LITTLE PESHA. 6 MAY 99. EARLY MORNING
From above, Little Pesha looked just the way that village should look
at 'three in the morning. Sleepy. Peaceful. Empty. A dozen multicolored
roofs in a semicircle, a grass-covered square, several gliders standing
around, the yellow club pavilion by the cliff over the river. The river
seemed motionless, very cold, and uninviting; clumps of whitish fog hung
over the reeds on the other side.
On the club porch, his head thrown back, a man stood watching a glider.
His face seemed familiar to Toivo, and there was nothing amazing about that:
Toivo knew many emergency-squad members -- probably every other one.
He landed next to the porch and jumped out onto the damp grass. The
morning here was cold. The emergency-squad man was wearing a huge, comfy
jacket with numerous special packets, with nests for all their cylinders,
regulators, extinguishers, igniters, and other objects for perfect emergency
work.
"Hello," said Toivo. "Basil, isn't it'!"
"Hello, Glumov," the man responded, offering his hand. "Right. It's
Basil. What took you so long?"
Toivo explained that zero-T wasn't working here in Little Pesha far
some reason, that he was let out at Lower Pesha and had to take a glider
there and fly over forty minutes above the river.
"I understand," Basil said, and looked back at the pavilion. "That's
what I thought. You see, in their panic they mutilated their zero-T
cabin..."
"You mean, no one has come back yet?"
"No one."
"And nothing else has happened?"
"Nothing. Our people finished the examination ninety minutes ago,
didn't find anything substantial, and went home to do the lab work. They
left me to keep everyone out, and I've spent the time repairing the zero-T
cabin."
"Have you fixed it?"
"More yes than no."
The cottages of Little Pesha were ancient, built in the last century,
utilitarian architecture, in toxically bright colors -- from old age. Each
cottage was surrounded by impenetrable currant bushes, lilacs, strawberries.
And right beyond the semicircle of houses was the forest, the yellow trunks
of gigantic airs, the crown gray-green in the fog, and above them, rather
high up, the crimson disk of the sun in the northeast...
"What lab work?" Toivo asked.
"Well, there are a lot of clues... That disgusting stuff crawled out of
that cottage, I guess, and spread in all directions..." Basil began
pointing. "On the bushes, the grass, and on some of the verandas there's
dried slime, scales, clumps at something..."
"What did you see yourself?"
"Nothing. When we got here, it was like it is now, except there was fog
on the river."
'Then there are no witnesses?"
"At first, we thought everyone had run off. Then we learned that in
that house there, the end one on the bank, there is a very elderly woman
doing one, thank you, who never thought about running away..."
"Why not?" Toivo asked.
"No idea!" Basil replied, raising his eyebrows and spreading out his
hands. "Can you imagine, total panic, everyone scattering, the door pulled
off the hinges of the zero-cabin, and she doesn't give a damn... We fly in,
start up our whole battle campaign, sabers unsheathed, bayonets plugged in,
and she comes out on her porch and demands severely that we be more quiet,
because we're keeping her up with our noise!"
"Had there been panic?" Toivo asked.
"And how!" Basil said, palm outstretched. "There were eighteen people
here when it all began. Nine ran off on their gliders. Five escaped through
the zero-cabin. And three ran off into the woods, and got lost; we were
lucky to find them. So don't have any doubts about it, there was panic...
There was panic, and there were monsters, and they left traces. Now, why the
old lady didn't get scared, that we don't know. She's strange, that old
lady. I heard her tell the commander: 'You got here too late, boys. You
can't help them now. They're all dead.' "
Toivo asked: "What did she have in mind?"
"I don't know," Basil said grumpily. "I told you, she's strange."
Toivo looked at the toxic pink cottage that contained the old lady. The
garden was well tended. There was a glider parked next to the cottage.
"I don't recommend disturbing her," Basil said. "Let her wake up on her
own, and then you can talk --"
At that moment, Toivo felt something behind him and turned sharply. A
pale face with wide-open, frightened eyes peered out of the club's door. The
stranger was silent for a few seconds; then his bloodless lips moved, and he
said in a hoarse voice:
"A silly story, isn't it?"
"Wait, wait, wait!" Basil said kindly, moving toward the man with his
hands upturned and open. "Please forgive me; you can't come in here.
Emergency squad."
The stranger nevertheless stepped across the threshold and stopped.
"I'm not trying," he said, and coughed. "But circumstances... Tell me,
did Grigory and Elya come back yet?"
He looked unusual enough. He was wearing a heavy coat with fur inside
and outside, and beneath its tails you could see his richly embroidered fur
boots. The coat was unbuttoned at the chest, revealing a colorful summer
shirt of micromesh, which were popular in those days with inhabitants of the
steppe zone. He looked forty or forty-five; his face was simple and nice,
but too pale, either out of fear or embarrassment.
"No, no," Basil replied, coming up close to him. "No one's come back.
We're examining the area, and we're not letting anyone in..."
"Wait, Basil," Toivo said. "Who are Grigory and Elya?" he asked the
stranger.
"I think I'm in the wrong place again," the stranger said with despair,
and looked over his shoulder into the depths of the pavilion where the
zero-T-cabin glowed. "Excuse me, is this ... hm... Oh, Lord, I forgot
again... Little Pesha? Or isn't it?"
"It's Little Pesha," Toivo said.
"Then you must know ... Grigory Alexandrovich Yarygin... As I
understand it, he lives here every summer." Pointing, he suddenly cried out
happily; 'There it is, that cottage! That's my raincoat on the veranda!"
Everything was cleared up. The stranger was a witness. His name was
Anatoly Sergeyevich Krylenko, and he was a zoo technician; he did work in
the steppe zone -- in the Azgir agrocomplex. Yesterday, at the annual
exhibition of innovations in Arkhangelsk, he bumped completely by accident
into his old school friend, Grigory Yarygin, whom he hadn't seen in some ten
years. Naturally, Yarygin dragged him off to his place, here, in this... ah,
forgot it again... oh, yes,, to Little Pesha. They spent a lovely evening
yesterday, the three of them, Yarygin, his wife Elya, and Krylenko, went out
in the boat, walked in the woods, and got back around ten, to that cottage
over there, had dinner, and settled down with tea on the veranda. It was
still very light, children's voices carried from the river, and it was warm.
The arctic strawberries smelled terrific. And then, suddenly, Anatoly
Sergeyevich Krylenko saw eyes...
In this most important part of his story, Anatoly Sergeyevich grew
incomprehensible, to put it mildly. He seemed to be trying to recall a
horrible, complicated dream.
The eyes were staring from the garden ... they were moving closer and
stayed in the garden... Two huge, nauseating eyes... Something kept dripping
on them... And on the left, to the side, was a third... or three?... And
something kept falling, falling, Ailing through the railing of the veranda
and was creeping up the steps... And it was impossible to move. Grigory
disappeared somewhere; he couldn't see Grigory. Elya was somewhere nearby,
but he couldn't see her either. He could hear her screaming hysterically...
or laughing... Then the door flew open. The room was about waist-deep in
writhing jellied carcasses, and the eyes of the carcasses were outside,
behind the bushes...
Anatoly Sergeyevich realized that the scariest part was just beginning.
He pulled his feet out of the sandals that were stuck to the floor, jumped
over the table, fled into the woods, and ran around the house... No, he
didn't run around the house, he had jumped into the woods but ended up in
the square... He ran wherever his feet took him, and suddenly saw the club
pavilion, and through the open door he saw the violet flash of zero-T, and
he realized that he was saved. He burst into the cabin like a bomb and began
pushing buttons and keys at random, until the machine worked...
The tragedy ended there, and the comedy began. The zero-transporter
threw Anatoly Sergeyevich out in the settlement of Roosevelt on the Island
of Peter the Great. That's in the Bellingshausen Sea, 49 below, wind speed
18 meters per second, and the settlement was almost empty, winter-like.
Of course, the automatic machinery was on in the polar-bear club; it
was warm and cozy, and a brilliant rainbow of bottles glimmered in the bar,
intended to light up the darkness of the polar nights. Anatoly Sergeyevich,
in his light shirt and shorts, still wet from the tea and the horror, got
the rest he needed and came to his senses. And when he came to his senses,
the first thing he felt, as was to be expected, was unbearable shame. He
realized that he had fled in panic like the lowliest coward... He had read
about such cowards in historical novels. He remembered that he had abandoned
Elya and at least one other woman, whom he had noticed in passing in the
neighboring cottage. He remembered the children's voices on the river and
realized that he had abandoned those children, too. A desperate urge to
action overwhelmed him. But here's the amazing part: the urge did not arise
immediately, and secondly, once it did arise, he remained for a rather long
time in unbearable horror at the thought of returning there, to the veranda,
to the field of vision of those nightmarish dripping eyes, to the revolting
jellied carcasses...
A noisy group of glaciologists burst into the club and found Anatoly
Sergeyevich gloomily wringing his hands: he still had not made up his mind
to do anything. The glaciologists heard him our in total sympathy and
immediately and enthusiastically decided to return to the horrible veranda
with him. But then they discovered that Anatoly Sergeyevich not only did not
know the zero-index of the village but had forgotten its name. He could tell
them only that it was not far from the Barents Sea, on the banks of a small
river, in the zone of arctic firs. Then the glaciologists dressed Anatoly
Sergeyevich in clothes more suitable to the local climate and, through the
howling blizzard and monstrous snowdrifts, led him to the settlement
headquarters accompanied by gigantic beast-like hounds... And at
headquarters, at the BVI terminal, one of the glaciologists had the very
sobering thought that this was no joke. The monsters must have escaped from
some bestiary, or -- horrible thought! -- from some lab constructing
biomechanisms. In any case, amateur activity was uncalled for, boys; we have
to notify the emergency squad.
And they called Central Emergency. At Central Emergency, they thanked
them and said they would take the information into account. A half-hour
later the duty officer called headquarters and told them that their call was
confirmed and asked to speak with Anatoly Sergeyevich. Anatoly Sergeyevich
described in the most general terms what had happened to him and how he came
to be on the shores of the Antarctic. The duty officer calmed him down by
telling him there had been no casualties, that the Yarygins were alive and
well and that he would be able to return to Little Pesha in the morning, and
that now he should take a tranquilizer and lie down.
And Anatoly Sergeyevich took a tranquilizer and lay down right at
headquarters. But he had not slept an hour before he saw the dripping eyes
over the veranda railing and heard Elya's hysterical laughter, and he awoke
full of unbearable shame.
"No," Anatoly Sergeyevich said, "they did not stop me. They understood
how I felt... I never thought something like that would happen to me. I'm no
Pathfinder or Progressor, of course... but I've had acute situations in my
life, and I've always behaved decently... I don't understand what happened
to me. I try to explain it to myself, and nothing happens... It was like an
invasion..." He started looking around. "I'm talking to you now, but I'm ice
inside... Maybe we were all poisoned by something here?"
Toivo asked questions, Anatoly Sergeyevich answered, and Toivo nodded
importantly and showed in every way possible how essential everything he was
hearing was for the investigation. And gradually Anatoly Sergeyevich
relaxed, cheered up, and they stepped onto the veranda as colleagues.
The veranda was a shambles. The table was at an angle, one of the
chairs was turned over, the sugar bowl had rolled into a corner, leaving a
trail of sugar crystals. Toivo felt the kettle; it was still hot. He glanced
over at Anatoly Sergeyevich. He was pale again, and his muscles were
twitching. He was looking at a pair of sandals huddling like orphans under
the far chair. Apparently, they were his. The straps were buckled, and it
seemed impossible for Anatoly Sergeyevich to have pulled his feet out. But
Toivo did not see any spills on them, under them, or anywhere near them.
"I see they don't recognize domestic robots here," Toivo said to bring
Anatoly Sergeyevich back from the world of the horror to the world of
everyday life.
"Yes," he muttered. "That is ... Who does nowadays?.. There... see, my
sandals..."
"I see," Toivo said matter-of-factly. "Were all the windows opened like
this? You don't think that it was a hallucination?"
Anatoly Sergeyevich shuddered and looked in the direction of the
Yarygin cottage.
'I don't know..." he said. "No, l can't say."
"All right, let's go look," Toivo suggested.
"You and I?" Basil asked.
"Not necessary," Toivo said. "I'll be going back and forth here a long
time. You hold the fort."
"Do I take prisoners?" Basil asked formally.
"That is necessary," Toivo said "I need prisoners. Anyone who saw
anything with his own eyes."
He and Anatoly Sergeyevich moved on across the square. Anatoly
Sergeyevich looked determined and businesslike, but the closer he got to the
house, the more tense his face looked and the more his tendons showed on his
neck. He was biting his lip as if fighting pain. Toivo thought it wise to
give him a break. About fifty paces from the living fence, he stopped -- as
if to look around one more time -- and began asking questions. Was there
anyone in the cottage on the right? Oh, it was dark? And on the left? The
woman... Yes, yes, I remember, you mentioned her... Just one woman and no
one else? Was there a glider nearby?
"I don't remember. That one was open. I jumped out there."
"I see," Toivo said, and looked out into the garden.
Yes, there were footprints here. There were many footprints: crushed
and broken bushes, a destroyed flower bed, and the grass under the railings
looked as if horses had trampled it. If animals had been here, then they
were clumsy, awkward animals; and they hadn't crept up on the house, but
pushed straight on. From the square, through the bushes at an angle, and
through the open windows right inter her rooms...
Toivo crossed the veranda and pushed the door into the house. There was
nothing disorderly inside. Rather, none of the disorder that one could
expect from heavy, unwieldy carcasses.
A couch. Three armchairs. No table in sight -- it must be built in.
Only one control panel -- in the arm of the owner's armchair. There were
polycrystal service systems in the other chairs and in the couch. On the
front wall hung a Levitan landscape, an old-fashioned chromophoton copy with
a touching triangle in the bottom left-hand comer, so that, God forbid, some
expert would not be fooled into taking it for an original. And on the left
wall: a pen drawing in a handmade wooden frame, an angry woman's face. A
beautiful one, incidentally...
A more careful examination revealed footprints on the floor,
apparently, one of the emergency crewmen had walked from the living room to
the bedroom. The foot-prints did not return; the man had climbed out the
bedroom window. So, the floor in the living room was covered with a rather
thick layer of very fine brown powder. And not only the floor. The chair
seats. The window ledges. The couch. There was no powder on the walls.
Toivo came back out on the veranda. Anatoly Sergeyevich was sitting on
the porch steps. He had tossed off the fur coat, but he had forgotten to
toss off the fur boots, and consequently he had a rather incongruous air
about him. He had not even touched his sandals; they were still under the
chair. There were no spills nearby, but the sills and the floor were covered
with the brown powder.
"Well, how are you doing?" Toivo asked from the doorway.
Anatoly Sergeyevich was startled anyway.
"Well... I'm slowly coming to terms with it."
"Fine. Pick up your raincoat and go home. Or do you want to wait for
the Yarygins?"
"I don't know," Anatoly Sergeyevich said indecisively.
"As you prefer," Toivo said. "In any case, there's nothing dangerous
here."
"Have you understood anything?" Anatoly Sergeyevich asked.
"A few things. There really were monsters here, but they are not
dangerous. They can scare you, and nothing more."
"You mean it was lake?"
"Looks like it."
"But why? Who?"
"We'll find out."
"You'll be finding out while they scare someone else."
Anatoly Sergeyevich took his raincoat from the railing and stood
around, staring at his fur boots. It seemed that he would sit down again and
start pulling them off angrily. But he probably didn't even see them.
"You say they can scarce a person," he said through gritted teeth,
without looking up. "Scare isn't so bad! But you know, they can break a
man!"
He gave Toivo a quick look and averted his eyes and went down the steps
without looking back, then down along the trampled grass, through the
damaged flower bed, across the square at an angle, bent over, clumsy in his
long polar fur boots and jaunty shepherd shirt, he walked on, increasing his
steps, to the yellow club pavilion, but halfway there veered sharply to the
left, jumped into the glider near the neighboring cottage, and flew up like
a candle into the pale blue sky.
It was after four in the morning.
This is my first attempt at a reconstruction. I tried very hard. My
work was complicated by the fact that I had never been in Little Pesha in
those bygone days, but I had numerous video-recordings made by Toivo Glumov,
the emergency squad, and Fleming's crew. So I can vouch
at least for the topographic accuracy. I feel it is possible to vouch
for the accuracy of the dialogue, as well.
Besides everything else, I would like to demonstrate here how the
typical beginning of the typical investigation looked. Incident. Emergency
squad. Arrival of the inspector from the Unexplained Event Department. First
impression (most often very right): someone's hooliganism or a stupid joke.
And growing disillusionment: not it again, once again zero, why not shrug
this off and just go home to bed. However, that's not in my reconstruction.
I suggest you add that, reading between the lines.
Now a few words about Fleming.
This name will appear more than once in my memoir, but I want to warn
you that this man had nothing to do with the Big Revelation. In those days,
the name Alexander Jonathan Fleming was the talk of COMCON-2. He was the
major specialist in the construction of artificial organisms. At his base,
the Sydney Institute, and in the branches of the Institute, he cooked up
with indescribable industriousness and daring a great number of the wildest
creatures, for which Mother Nature had not had enough imagination and
know-how. In their eagerness, his coworkers were instantly violating the
existing laws and limitations of the World Council in the area of frontier
experimentation. For all our purely human delight and awe for Fleming's
genius, we could not stand him for his mediocrity, lack of conscience, and
pushiness, amazingly coexisting with his ability to get out of trouble.
Every schoolboy knows now what Fleming's biocomplexes are or, say, Fleming's
living wells. In those days, he was rather more notorious than famous.
It is important for my narrative that one of the far-flung branches of
Fleming's Sydney Institute was located in the mouth of the Pesha River, in
the scientific community lower Pesha, just forty kilometers from Little
Pesha. Having learned about that, my Toivo naturally grew wary and said to
himself, "Aha, so that's whose work this is!"
Oh, by the way, the crawcrabs mentioned below are one of Fleming's most
useful creations, which first appeared when he was still a young worker in a
ash farm on Lake O'Nega. Crawcrabs turned out to be creatures astonishing in
their delicate taste, but for some reason they did well only in the small
streams that fed the Pesha.
LITTLE PESHA. 6 MAY 99 6 AM
On 5 May, around 11 PM, in the resort village of Little Pesha (thirteen
cottages, eighteen residents), panic rose. The cause of the panic was the
appearance of a certain (unknown) number of quasibiological creatures of an
extremely repulsive and even frightening appearance. The creatures moved on
the village from cottage number 7 in nine clearly visible directions. These
directions can be seen from the trampled grass, damaged bushes, by stains of
dried slime on foliage, paving stone, on the outside walls and window
ledges. All nine routes ended inside living quarters; to wit: in cottages
numbers l, 4, 10 (on the verandas), 2, 3, 9, 12 (in the living room), 6, 11,
and 13 (in the bedroom). Cottages 4 and 9 apparently are uninhabited...
As for cottage number 7, where the invasion began, someone clearly was
living there, and it remains only to determine who that was -- a stupid
practical joker or an irresponsible dolt! Did he activate the embryophores
on purpose, or did he miss the self-start? If he missed it, then was it by
criminal negligence or ignorance?
Two things, however, bothered him. Toivo did not find any traces of the
embryophore cases. That's one. And two, at first he could not find any data
on the person inhabiting cottage number 7. Or persons.
Suddenly, indignant voices were heard on the square, and in a minute,
Toivo learned that the original inhabitant had appeared in the midst of the
events himself, in person, and not alone, but with a guest.
He turned out to be a stocky, cast-iron-looking man in a travel
jumpsuit and with a canvas sack from which came strange rustling and
creaking noises. The guest acutely reminded Toivo of good old Duremar, right
out of Aunt Tortilla's pond -- tall, long-haired, long-nosed, skinny, in
vague rags covered with drying seaweed.
It was instantly established that the stocky, cast-iron inhabitant was
Ernst Jurgen, who worked as an orthomaster operator on Titan and who was on
vacation on Earth... He had two months leave a year on Earth -- one month in
winter, one in the summer -- and he always spent the summer here on the
Pesha in this very cottage... What monsters? Who exactly did you have in
mind, young man? What monsters could there be in Little Pesha? Think about
it. And you call yourself an emergency-squad member. What's the matter,
don't you have anything else to do with your time?
Duremar, on the contrary, seemed totally earthbound. Moreover, he
seemed local. His surname was Tolstov, and his name was Lev Nikolaevich. But
something else about him was amazing, too. He worked and lived just forty
kilometers away from here, in Lower Pesha, where for the last several years
Fleming's branch offices were flourishing.
It also turned out that this Ernst Jurgen and his old pal, Lev Tolstov,
were passionate gourmets. They met here every day, in Little Pesha, because
five kilometers upriver a little stream fell into the river, and it was full
of crawcrabs, whatever they were. That was why Ernst Jurgen spent his
vacation in Little Pesha, and that's why he and his friend Lev Tolstov left
early in the evening by boat to catch crawcrabs, and that's why he and Lev
would be very grateful to the emergency squad if they would leave them
alone, since the crawcrabs (Ernst Jurgen shook the heavy sack from which
emanated the strange sounds) are fresh only briefly, and that was right
now...
This funny, noisy man could not understand that events could occur on
Earth -- not on Titan, or Pandora, or Yaula, but on Earth! in Little Pesha!
-- that could elicit fear and panic. Typical example of a professional space
traveler. He could see that the village was empty, he could see a member of
the emergency squad before him, he could see a representative of COMCON-2,
he did not deny their authority, and he was ready to seek an explanation for
all of it in anything as long as he did not have to admit that something
could go wrong on his own Earth...
Then, when they managed to convince him that there had been an
unexplained event, he was insulted -- pouted like a child and walked away,
dragging the sack with the precious crawcrabs, and sat down on the porch,
his back to everyone, not wanting to see anyone or hear anything, shrugging
from time to time and muttering to himself, "A vacation, they call it... You
come once a year, and this has to happen... How could it be!"
Toivo, incidentally, was more interested in the reaction of his friend,
Lev Nikolaevich Tolstov, who worked for Fleming, a specialist in the
construction and activation into existence of artificial organisms. And this
was the specialist's reaction: at first, total incomprehension, goggling
eyes and uncertain smile, befitting a man who thinks a joke is being played
on him, and not a very clever one at that. Then: a perplexed frown, empty
gaze that seemed inward-directed, and thoughtful motion of the jaw. And
finally: an explosion of professional anger. Do you realize what you are
saying? Do you have any knowledge of the subject? Have you ever seen an
artificial creature? Ah, only in the newsreels? Well, let me tell you that
there aren't any and can't be any artificial creatures that are capable of
climbing into people's bedroom windows. First of all, they are slow and
clumsy, and if they do move, it's away from people, not toward them, because
natural biofields are contradicted, even a cat's biofield... Further, what
do you mean, 'the size of a cow'?. Have you tried to figure how much energy
is needed for an embryophore to develop to that mass in even an hour? There
wouldn't be anything left here, no cows left; it would look like an
explosion!..
Did he think that there could have been activated embryaphores here of
a type he did not know?
Certainly not. Embryophores like that did not exist in nature.
Then what happened here, in his opinion?
Lev Tolstov did not understand what had happened here. He had to look
around before coming to any conclusion.
Toivo led him to look around, then went with Basil to the club to have
a snack.
They had a cold meat sandwich, and Toivo tried to make some coffee. And
then: "Mmmmm!" Basil said with his mouth full.
He swallowed mightily and, looking past Toivo, called out loudly: "Hold
it! Where are you headed, son?"
Toivo turned around. There was a boy of twelve or so, lop-eared and
tan, wearing shorts and an open shirt. Basil's mighty cry had stopped him in
the pavilion exit.
"Home," he said challengingly.
"Come here, please!" Basil said.
The boy moved closer and stopped, his hands behind his back.
"Do you live here?" Basil asked ingratiatingly.
"We used to live here," the boy replied. "In number six. Now we won't
live here anymore."
"Who's we?" Toivo asked.
"Me, Mama, and Papa. Rather, we were here on vacation and we live in
Petrozavodsk."
"And where are your parents?'
"Sleeping. At home."
"Sleeping," Toivo repeated. "What's your name?"
"Kir."
"Do your parents know you're here?"
Kir hesitated, shuffled his feet, and said, "I came back here just for
a minute. I had to get my galleyship. I worked on it for a whole month."
"Your galley..." Toivo repeated, looking at the boy.
The boy's face expressed nothing but patient boredom. It was obvious
that only one thing concerned him: to get his galley and get home before his
parents awakened.
"When did you leave here?"
"Last night. Everyone was leaving, and so did we. And we forgot the
galley."
"Why were they leaving?"
"There was a panic. Didn't you know? Wow, what went on here! Mama got
scared and Papa said, 'Well, you know, let's get out of here and go home.'
We got in the glider and flew off... So, can I go?"
"Wait a minute. Why was there a panic, do you think?"
"Because those animals came. Out of the woods ... or the river.
Everyone got scared of them for some reason and started running around. I
was asleep; Mama woke me."
"You weren't afraid?"
He jerked his shoulder.
"Well, I was scared at first ... half asleep... Everyone was screaming,
shouting, running; you couldn't understand what was going on..."
"And then?"
"I told you: we got in the glider and left."
"Did you see those animals?"
The boy laughed.
"I saw them, of course... One climbed right in the window, with horns;
only the horns weren't hard, they were like a snail's... really cute..."
"You weren't afraid?"
"No, I told you: I was scared at first. Why would I lie? Mama ran in
all white; I thought something terrible had happened... I thought, something
happened to Father..."
"I see, I see. But the animals didn't scare you?"
Kir said, "Why should I be afraid of them? They were kind and funny...
they were soft, silky like a mongoose, but without fur. So what if they're
big? Tigers are also big, so I'm supposed to be afraid of them? Elephants
are big, whales are big... dolphins are sometimes big... These animals
weren't any bigger than a dolphin, and they were just as gentle."
Toivo looked at Basil. Basil, his jaw hanging, was listening to the
strange boy and holding his half-eaten sandwich.
"And they smell good!" Kir went on hotly. "They smell of berries! I
think they feed on them... They should be domesticated. Why should people
run from them?" He sighed. "Now they're gone, probably. Go find them in the
taiga... Ha! Everybody shouted at them, stamped their feet, and waved their
arms at them! Of course they got scared! And now go lure them back..."
He lowered his head and gave in to sorrow thoughts. Toivo said, "I see.
However, your parents don't agree with you. Right?"
Kir waved his hand.
"Ah... Father's not so bad, but Mama is firm: not a single step, never,
no way! Now we're leaving for Resort. They don't have them there, do they?
Do they? What are they called, do you now?"
"I don't know, Kir," Toivo said.
"But there's not even one left here?"
"Not one."
"Just what I thought," Kir said. He sighed, and then asked, "Can't I
take my galley?"
Basil finally got hold of himself. He got up noisily and said, "Come
on, I'll walk you. Okay?" he asked Toivo.
"Of course."
"Why walk me?" Kir asked indignantly, but Basil had already put his
hand on the boy's shoulder.
"Let's go, let's go." he said. "I've been dreaming of seeing a real
galley all my life."
"It's not real, it's a model..."
"All the more. All my life I've dreamed of seeing a model of a real
galley..."
They left. Toivo drank a cup of coffee and also left the pavilion.
The sun was noticeably hot, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Blue
dragonflies flickered over the green grass of the square. Through the
metallic flickering, like a crazy daylight apparition, a majestic old woman
floated toward the pavilion with an expression of absolute aloofness on her
narrow brown face.
Holding, devilishly elegantly, the hem of her snowy white dress with a
brown birdlike hand, she seemed not to touch the ground as she approached
Toivo and stopped.
Toivo bowed respectfully, and she nodded in response, quite
benevolently.
"You may call me Albina," she said kindly in a pleasant baritone.
Toivo hurriedly introduced himself. Her brown forehead frowned beneath
her cap of white hair.
"COMCON? Be kind enough, Toivo, to tell me please how you people at
COMCON explain all this?"
"What exactly do you have in mind?"
This question irritated her.
"I mean this, dear boy," she said. "How could it happen that in our
day, at the end of our age, here on Earth, living creatures that called on
humans for help and pity not only did not receive pity or help but became
the object of badgering, hostility, and even active physical action of the
most barbaric kind. I do not wish to name names, but they struck them with
rakes, they shouted madly at them, they even tried to run them over with
gliders. I would have never believed it if I had not seen it with my own
eyes. Are you familiar with the concept of savagery? Well, this was
savagery! I am ashamed."
She stopped talking, never taking the penetrating gaze of her angry,
coal-black, and very young eyes from Toivo. She was waiting for an answer,
and Toivo muttered:
"Will you permit me to bring out a chair for you?"
"I will not," she said. "I do not intend to sit around with you. I
would like to hear your opinion on what happened to the people in the
village. Your professional opinion. What are you? A sociologist? Teacher?
Psychologist" Then please explain! Understand that we are not talking about
sanctions. But we must understand how it could happen, how people who were
civilized, well-brought-up... I would even say marvelous people just
yesterday, today suddenly lose their human image? Do you know what
distinguishes man from the other creatures of the world?"
"Um... reason?" Toivo suggested.
"No, my dear! Mercy! Mer-cy!"
"Well, of course," Toivo said. "But how does it follow that those
creatures needed mercy?"
She looked at him with disgust.
"Did you see them yourself?" she said.
"No."
"Then how can you judge?"
"I'm not judging;" Toivo said. "I am trying to establish what they
wanted..."
"I believe I made it quite clear that those living creatures, those
poor things, were seeking help from us! They were on the brink of
destruction! They were about to die! They did die, didn't you know that?
They died before my very eyes and turned to nothing, to dust, and I couldn't
do anything about it. I'm a ballerina, not a biologist or a doctor. I called
out, but who could have heard me in that orgy, that debauched savagery and
cruelty! And then, when help finally did come, it was too late; no one was
left alive. No one! And these savages... I don't know
