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certainly do not understand. But the real honest to God Gas-ton never even
touched you. So don't be angry."
"Honestly, I don't even remember you at the table dhoti," added
Mongeusseau.
"False life," Zernov reminded me of our talk on the stairs. "I allowed
for modelling of suppositions or imagined situations," he explained to
Carresi.
"And I didn't allow for anything," Carresi objected impatiently. "I
didn't want to have anything to do with that world-wide scandal. At first I
simply refused to believe it, like those flying saucers, then I saw your
film and was petrified: that was it! For a whole week I could not think of
one single thing except that. Then I got used to the idea, like you get used
to something unusual and quite far-fetched but repeated a sufficient number
of times. Professional interests took me away from common sense and a good
heart: even on the eve of the Congress I could think of nothing except my
new picture. I wanted to revive an historical film, not Hollywood syrup and
not a museum piece, but something re-evaluated by the eyes and minds of
people of today. I chose the age, the heroes and, as you people put it, the
socio-historical background. Then at the restaurant I found a 'star' and
convinced him. There was only one thing he didn't like: fighting with his
left hand. But, you see, that was my lookout, strange as it may seem. I
remember him at fencing contests. The sword in his right hand-it would be
too professional, he wouldn't be able to enter the image. Now in the left
hand, he was a God! There were threats and mistakes and anger with himself
and a miracle of naturalness. I convinced him. We parted. Then I lay down in
my hotel room, thinking. A red light bothered me. The hell with it, I closed
my eyes. And I imagined the whole scene, the road high above the sea, the
rocks, the vineyards, the white wall of the Count's park. And then this
craziness: the hirelings of Gaston-he's Bonnville in the play-stop some bums
on the road. Well, not bums, tourists, if you like, outsiders, in a word.
The age is changed and the plot too. I want to throw them out but I can't,
they're just stuck there. So then I switch round and include them too. This
produces a new plot, very original: say, the bums are wandering actors. Now
Gaston, quite naturally, at home is thinking about the film, not about the
plot but about himself, his dilemma of fighting either with his left or his
right. Mentally, I get into an argument with him: I get excited, try to
convince him, then demand subordination. Period!"
"I saw that," I recalled. "A pile of crimson foam near the road, and
then you stepped out like a devil from a box."
Carresi closed his eyes, obviously trying to visualize what he had
heard and was again pleased.
"Now that's an idea! A marvellous angle for the plot. Let's restore
everything that happened and exactly the way it occurred. In short, do you
want to play together with Gaston?"
"Thanks a lot," I said hoarsely, "I don't want to die a second time."
Mongeusseau smiled politely but with a certain amount of guile.
"In your place, I would refuse too. But drop in to see me on Rivoli for
a friendly visit. We'll cross swords. Don't be afraid, they're only for
training. Everything according to regulations, outfit and masks. I want to
try you out a bit, and find out how you stood up so long. I'll work with my
left on purpose."
"Thanks," I repeated, but knew that I would never again see him.
When the producer and the swordsman had left, a strange uncomfortable
silence set in. I contained myself with difficulty exasperated by this
unneeded visit. Zernov laughed, waiting to find out what I would say. Irene,
noticing at once the import of the pause, remained silent as well.
"Angry?" asked Zernov.
"Positively," I said. "You think it's fun being polite to that
murderer?"
"Mongeusseau is not to blame, even indirectly," Zernov continued.
"That's what I have just figured out."
"Presumption of innocence," I taunted.
He did not respond.
"It's my fault, I got you two together on purpose, don't be angry. I
wanted to correlate the model with the source. For my paper I had to have a
perfect check on what was modelled, whose psyche. And what is more
important-the memory or imagination. Now I know. They have dipped into both.
The other one simply wanted to go to sleep, probably going over Carresi's
proposition lazily: not too much work, it would seem, and the pay not so
bad. But Carresi created, he was the one who contrived the conflicts, the
dramatic situations, in a word, the illusion of real life. It was the
illusion that they modelled. And rather exactly, incidentally. Remember the
landscape? Vineyards on the background of the sea. More exact than a
photograph."
I involuntarily touched my throat.
"And this? Another illusion?"
"That's an accident. While experimenting they probably did not even
realize that it was dangerous."
"I don't get it," Irene interrupted, continuing her own thoughts,
"there must be something else to all this, and not life. Biologically it
can't be life, even if it reproduces life. Life can't be made out of
nothing."
"Why out of nothing? They probably have some sort of building material,
a kind of primary matter of life."
"The red fog?"
"Perhaps. So far nobody has found any explanation, nobody has even
advanced a hypothesis," Zernov sighed. "Don't expect hypotheses tomorrow
from me either. I'm simply going to express a supposition of what is
modelled and why. As to how it is done-that's beyond me.. .."
I laughed.
"Somebody will get to an explanation. Live and see."
"Where?"
"Where do you think? At the Congress naturally."
"You won't see anyone."
Zernov smoothed his straight light hair. He always did that before
saying something unpleasant.
"It won't work," I said maliciously. "You won't hold me here. I'm
well."
"I know. The day after tomorrow you will be discharged. And in the
evening you can pack your suitcases."
He said it so firmly and decisively that I jumped up out of bed.
"A recall?"
"No."
"So it's to Mirny again?"
"And not to Mirny either."
"Then where to?"
Zernov was silent, smiling, he gave a quick sidelong glance at Irene.
"Suppose I don't agree?" I said.
"You'll agree. You'll be all too eager. In fact, you'll grab at the
chance."
"Come on, Boris Arkadievich. Where to?"
"Greenland."
My face obviously spelled such disappointment that Irene burst out
laughing.
"He doesn't jump, Irene".
"No, he doesn't."
I lay back on purpose.
"There's no dope to make me jump. But why to Greenland?"
"There'll be dope enough," said Zernov and winked at Irene.
Irene, imitating the TV news announcer, began:
"Copenhagen. Our special correspondent reports that pilot observers of
the United States polar station at Soenre Stremfiorde (Greenland) have
detected a curious artificial or natural phenomenon to the north of the
seventy-second parallel of latitude, in the area of Simpson's expedition.
..."
I rose up on my pillows.
".. .over an extensive ice-covered plateau, blue kilometre-long
protuberances have been observed. Something in the nature of a diminished
Aurora Borealis, only along an enormous ellipse in a close band of blue
fire. The tongues of flame merge roughly at an altitude of one kilometre
forming the surface of an immense octahedron. That's it, isn't it, Boris
Arkadievich?"
I fell back on the bed.
"Now are you ready to jump, Anokhin?"
"I seem to be ready."
"Now listen. Reports of this 'aurora' have appeared in all the papers.
The octahedron shines for hundreds of kilometres. It cannot be approached
either on foot or on tractor: our familiar invisible wall repulses all
oncomers. Aircraft have been unable to come down from above, they are turned
aside. The suspicion is that this is a powerful field of force that the
space beings have set up. Now do you jump?"
"Definitely. Boris Arkadievich, that means they are already in
Greenland."
"Have been for some time. But deep in the interior of the plateau they
seem to have something new. Fire, yet instruments nearby do not register the
slightest increase in temperature. Neither is there any rise in atmospheric
pressure or in ionization. Radio communications are not interrupted even a
few metres away from the protuberances. Geiger counters are suspiciously
silent. Strange camouflage, rather like a kid's kaleidoscope. The flashing
of broken glass and that's all. The photos we have don't seem to make sense.
A clear sky on a sunny day reflected in enormous crystalline facets of a
crystal. But the 'horsemen' go through like birds into a cloud. But real
birds bounce back like tennis balls. Attempts were made with pigeons,
complete failure."
I was bitterly jealous of my colleagues for getting in to shoot that
scene!
Zernov was not so elated, he thought there might be great danger in the
whole affair. He said: "You know what the activities around this thing are
now called? 'Operation T' after our friend Thompson. He himself says that
this is a personal search for contact. He says that before he took over,
everything had been tried, and in vain: light signals, radio waves,
mathematical codes, and all manner of figures traced in the sky by jet
planes. The horsemen refuse to respond. But he says he'll make contact. So
far nobody knows with what media, and he isn't communicative either.
However, the core of the expedition has already been formed and has been
sent to Upernivik. That's where the Greenland expedition of Koch-Wegener
started out from in 1913. They are supported by a cargo-passenger aircraft,
a helicopter borrowed from the Tutie base, two tracked vehicles and
aerosleighs. Not so badly equipped, as you can see."
I still couldn't make out what sort of contact Thompson could expect to
make with the aid of helicopter and aerosleigh. Zernov smiled enigmatically.
"The news boys don't either. But Thompson is no fool. He didn't
corroborate a single statement attributed to him by the press concerning the
aims of the expedition or the means with which they hope to attain them.
Queried by journalists, not a single firm supplying him with equipment and
gear has responded. He has been asked whether he is taking along tanks with
gas of an unknown composition. Other questions: What are the instruments
recently loaded onto a vessel at Copenhagen to be used for? Does he intend
to explode, drill or break into the force field of the extra-earth-lings?
His reply is that the equipment of his expedition was checked by customs
officials and that nothing was found to violate the rules for bringing it
into Greenland. He knows nothing, he insists, about any special instruments
that were said to have been loaded at Copenhagen. The aims of the expedition
are scientific-research and he's going to count his chicks when they hatch."
"Where does he get the money?"
"Don't know? There's no big money here, even the 'mad men' of politics
aren't ready to place big sums at his disposal. He's not fighting communists
or Negroes. Of course, somebody is financing the thing, without a doubt.
Some newspaper syndicate they say. Like Stanley's expedition to Africa. A
sensational piece is playing, why not risk it."
I wanted to know whether his expedition was connected with some kind of
decision or recommendation of the Congress.
"He's broken with the Congress," Zernov explained. "Even before it
started he announced in the press that he does not consider himself bound by
its future resolutions. By the way, you don't even know what happened
there."
That was so, I didn't know what had happened at the Congress. I didn't
even know that it had taken place at the very time that I was being removed
from the operating table to my post-operative ward.
After the Security Council of the United Nations refused to discuss the
phenomenon of the rose clouds prior to a resolution of the Paris Congress,
correctly taking the view that the first word should come from science, the
atmosphere around the Congress became extremely heated.
It opened up like a world football championship. Trumpets, flags of the
nations, greetings from all scientific associations of the world. True, the
wiser ones kept quiet while the less cautious participants came out with
statements that the mystery of the rose clouds would be clarified in the
near future. Of course, there was no discovery of any kind, with the
possible exception of Academician Osovets' report. He advanced and
substantiated the thesis that the visitors were peace-loving beings from
space, and this set the course for other scientists. Pieces of wisdom were
bandied about. Zernov told roe some of them with hardly containable
disappointment. Opinions collided and hypotheses rose and fell. Some of the
conferees even took the 'clouds' to be varieties of flying saucers.
"Yuri, if you only knew how many dopes there are in science, people who
have long since lost the right to be called scientists!" said Zernov.
"Naturally, there were some well-thought-out speeches, and original
hypotheses, some bold conjectures. But Thompson left after the very first
meetings. 'A thousand shy oldsters won't cook up anything worth while,' he
said to waiting newspaper men."
Out of the entire Congress, he invited to this expedition only Zernov
together with the crew of the 'Kharkovchanka' and Irene. "We began together,
we'll continue together," said Zernov.
"I didn't begin," interrupted Irene.
"But you continued."
"Where?"
"On that same night in the hotel Homond."
"I don't get it."
"Ask Anokhin. He'll tell you a thing or two."
"About what?" Irene was concerned.
"That you are not you but your model created by the 'clouds' on that
ill-fated night."
"Quit joking, Boris Arkadievich."
"I'm not joking. Simply Anokhin and Martin saw you in St. Disier."
"Not her," I put in, "you've forgotten."
"I haven't forgotten, but I figured it would be better not to tell."
A nervous extended pause set in. Irene took off her glasses, collapsed
the bows automatically and again opened them-the first sign of nerves.
"Now I understand," she said accusingly to Zernov, "that you and Martin
were hiding something from me. What was it?"
Zernov evaded the question this time as well.
"Let Anokhin tell you. We believe that he is the only one who has the
right to tell you."
I replied to Zernov with a glance the force of a sword stroke by
Bonnville. Irene turned to him, then to me in a state of complete confusion.
"Is that true, Yuri?"
"Yes, it is," I sighed and said nothing.
To tell her what had happened in the officer's casino in St. Disier I
had to be alone with her, not here.
"Something unpleasant?"
Zernov smiled. The pause continued. I was really pleased to hear the
familiar creak of the door.
"The most unpleasant thing is to begin right now," I said and nodded in
the direction of the opening door, through which my angel in white with
hypodermic needle in hand was coming. "This is part of the treatment that
even friends are not supposed to view."
And the curative therapy of Professor Peletier again pushed me down
into the abyss of sleep.
I woke up the next morning, promptly recalled everything and got mad as
hell: I still had another day in the hospital. The appearance of my white
angel with a wheeled table containing my breakfast did not console me in the
least.
"Turn on the radio."
"We have no radio here."
"Then get me a transistor set."
"Out of the question."
"Why?"
"Everything is prohibited that can interfere with the normal well-being
of a convalescent patient."
"I'm already well."
"You will know about that only tomorrow morning."
The white angel was fast turning into a demon.
"But I've got to know what is taking place at the Congress. Zernov is
speaking. Don't you understand? Zernov!"
"I do not know Monsieur Zernov."
She handed me a folder in red morocco.
"What's this?"
"Newspaper clippings that Mademoiselle Irene left for you. The
Professor allowed them."
That was bread for a person starving from lack of information. I opened
the folder, forgetting about breakfast and listened. Yes, I listened.
It was the voice of the world coming through to me, through nickel and
glass, through the white brick of the hospital walls, through the murk of
bottomless sleep and the beatitude of getting well. It was the voice of the
Congress with the opening speech of Academician Osovets that set the right
course for a reasonable and consistent stand of humanity relative to the
visitors from space.
"What is already clear?" said the Academician. "That we are dealing
with an extraterrestrial civilization, one from another planet. That its
technical and scientific level far surpasses our own. That neither they nor
we have been able to establish contact with one another. And also that its
attitude towards us is friendly and peaceful. During these three months the
visitors have collected and transported out into space the ice of all the
continents and we have not been able to intervene. What does this action
spell for humanity? Nothing but good. Climatologlsts will establish the
precise consequences of what has been done, but even now we can speak of a
considerable amelioration in the climate of the polar and adjacent moderate
latitudes, about the mastering of vast earlier inaccessible areas and of a
free settling of the population of the world. What is more, the extraction
of the terrestrial ice was accomplished without geological catastrophes,
Hoods or other natural calamities. Not a single expedition or ship or
scientific research station operating in these areas of glaciation suffered.
More, the guests presented humanity, as a by-product, with newly discovered
riches that were soon located. In the foothills of the Yablonevy Range, they
discovered vast deposits of copper ore, in Yakutia fresh diamond deposits.
In the Antarctic they discovered oil and in their own way drilled and put up
rigs of a very peculiar design quite unfamiliar to any of us." He concluded
in a burst of applause with the following words. "I can say to you that
right now in Moscow an agreement is being signed among interested countries
on the establishment of an industrial and trade stock company, with the code
name SJEAP, which stands for Society for the Joint Exploitation of Antarctic
Petroleum."
Academician Osovets also summarized the events connected with the
spacelings' modelling of phenomena in terrestrial life in which they were
interested. The list was so long that the speaker did not read it. It was
simply issued as a printed supplement to the report. I will cite only what
was commented on by the journalists at Paris.
In addition to Sand City/the "horsemen" modelled a resort town in the
Italian Alps, the French beaches in the morning, when they resemble the
mating grounds of seals, the square of St. Mark in Venice and a portion of
the London underground railway. Passenger transport systems attracted their
attention in many countries. They dived into trains, ocean and air liners,
police helicopters and even balloons participating in some kind of sporting
contest at Brussels.
In France they penetrated to some kind of racing event at the Parisian
cycle racetrack, in San Francisco, it was a boxing match of heavyweights for
champion of the Pacific Coast, in Lisbon, at a football game for the Cup of
European Champions (the players later complained that the red fog around
them was so thick that they could not see the opponent's goal). The fog was
the same during the games of the first round at the interzonal chess
tournament in Zurich, and for two hours at the Government Cabinet meeting in
the South African Republic, and for forty minutes the animals in the London
Zoo dined. The newspaper gibed that both events occurred on the same day and
that in both cases the fog did not disperse either the beasts or the
racists.
The Academician's list included a detailed enumeration of all the
factories and plants modelled by the cosmic visitors completely or
partially: sometimes a department, or a conveyor line, or simply a few
machines and tools characteristic of a given type of production and chosen
with unerring precision. Parisian journalists commenting this choice came to
some curious conclusions. Some said that the "clouds" were interested mostly
in outmoded types of machines that had not changed fundamentally over the
past century, and therefore least comprehensible to them, such as the
filigree working of precious stones or the designations of kitchen utensils.
Then a diamond-cutting shop in Amsterdam was modelled and a primitive
manufactory of toys in Nuremberg.
Other observers, commenting on the list of Osovets, noted the interest
displayed in services for the consumer. Wrote the correspondent of the
"Paris-Midi": "Have you noticed the quantity of modelled barbershops,
restaurants, fashion houses and television studios? Note the attention paid
to the choice of shops, stores, market places, fairs and even show windows.
And note the variation of modes of modelling. At times a "cloud" will dive
onto a site and leave immediately before there is time for a natural panic
to develop. At other times the cloud envelopes the objective slowly,
imperceptibly penetrating to every nook and cranny, and people do not notice
anything until the density of the gaseous cloud turns into visibility. And
even then there is something that prevents them from altering their
customary behaviour, something that represses the mind and will power.
Nobody experienced fear: barbers cut hair, clients leaf through illustrated
journals, movie cameramen make takes or conduct TV shows, the goalkeeper
snatches a difficult ball, and a waiter politely hands you the bill in the
restaurant. Everything round about has become red like the light of a red
lamp, but you continue your activities, only later realizing what has
occurred after the ''horsemen' have passed beyond the horizon carrying with
them your live imagination. Most of the time you don't even have a chance to
see it: the cosmic visitors demonstrated it to humans only during the first
experiments in fixation of terrestrial life. afterwards everything was
confined to films of red gas of varying consistency and tonality."
"Nobody has suffered during all of this, and nobody has even had any
material losses of any kind," thus the Academician summarized. "With the
exception of a stool that vanished together with a double at a meeting of
polar men at Mirny, and the automobile of pilot Martin who rashly left it in
the modelled city, no one can name a single thing destroyed or damaged by
our cosmic friends. There was talk of a cycle that was left by a Czech
cyclist and disappeared near Prague during a race, but it was later found in
a parking lot during a rest period. Then there was an alpenstock taken away
from a Swiss guide, Fred Schomer, by his double who suddenly appeared in
front of him on an Alpine pathway. But Fred Schomer wrote to the editors
saying that nothing of the kind had taken place, that firstly, he was so
frightened he threw it away, and secondly, the same stick was returned to
him by the rose cloud that dived to the front door of his house. All of the
other cases reported in the press turned out to be simply the idle
imaginings of self-styled 'victims' or of the newspaper men themselves. The
rose clouds returned to space without having done any harm to humanity and
without taking anything with them except terrestrial ice and the conjectured
recordings of terrestrial life coded in some fashion in red fog. This,
incidentally, is a hypothesis that has not been proven in any way by
anybody."
Academician Osovets' speech met the approval of far and away the bulk
of the delegates. I did not read Thompson's speech, it had found no support,
and actually the debate turned into an exchange of queries and replies, not
in the least polemical and not even very bold or confident. There were
apprehensions for example that the peaceful nature of the newcomers was only
a manoeuvre and that they would return with quite different intentions.
"What kind?" the Academician would like to know.
"Aggressive."
"With the technological facilities at their disposal what purpose is
there in camouflage?"
"But suppose it's reconnaissence?"
"The very first encounters have demonstrated to them the difference in
our technical potentials."
"But have we shown them our potential?" Thompson asked.
"They've modelled it already."
"But we didn't even attempt to direct it against their attack."
"How can you call that an attack?"
"However, can you risk asserting that it will not follow?"
"In support of my assertions I cited numerous proven facts, while in
support of your contentions I hear only hypotheses."
After that ignominious discussion-that is, for the opponents of the
Soviet Academician-the "doubters", as they were dubbed, fought back in the
commissions, especially in the Commission for Contact and Conjecture that
soon became famous for its tempestuous sessions. Here, all manner of
hypotheses were advanced and straightway venomously countered. One
discussion merged into another, very often gradually straying farther and
farther from the original topic. This continued until the electric gong of
the chairman sounded. The journalists did not even work up their notes or
inject any hyperbolas, all that was needed was to cite verbatim.
I took at random one of the clippings and read:
"PROFESSOR O'MELLY (Northern Ireland):
I suggest an amendment to the formulation of Professor MacEdou:
ammonium and fluorine.
PROFESSOR MACEDOU (USA). I agree. That was mentioned at the press
conference.
PROFESSOR TAINE (Great Britain). As I remember it, at the press
conference it was suggested that the rose clouds were visitors from a cool
planet. For fluorine beings, a temperature of minus one hundred degrees
would be only a pleasant frost. I do not want to put it strongly but any
first-year college student would be able to correct the colleague who made
that statement. The problem of fluorine proteins....
VOICE FROM THE BACK OF THE AUDITORIUM. There's no such problem.
TAINE. No, there isn't, but there easily could be. The commission here
is one of conjectures and not scientific facts,
VOICE FROM PRESS CENTRE. Boy, this is boring.
TAINE. Why don't you go to a variety show if you don't like it?
Organo-fluorine compounds are activated only at very high temperatures. Or
has my colleague forgotten the difference between plus and minus? Fluorine
life is life based on a background of sulphur and not water. On 'hot'
planets, professor, and not cold planets.
MACEDOU (jumping to his feet). Who's that talking about water or
sulphur? Professor Dillinger, who is absent, had in view hydrogen flouride.
I am not surprised that he was misunderstood by newspaper reporters, but
what surprises me is the incomprehension of an outstanding scientist. It is
precisely hydrogen fluoride or fluorine oxide that can be the 'viable
solvent' at temperatures of not plus but minus one hundred and more degrees.
The rose clouds might also be visitors from a cold planet, gentlemen.
VOICE FROM BACK OF AUDITORIUM (speaker hides behind the man in front of
him). At what temperature, Professor, do they cut kilometre-thick layers of
ice?
TAINE. Another point in favour of the hot planet.
PROFESSOR GWINELLI (Italy). More likely in favour of the hypothesis of
gas-plasma life.
TAINE. It is difficult to believe that even in extraterrestrial
conditions gas could serve as a medium for biochemical reactions.
GWINELLI [heatedly). What about the famous experiments of Miller who
succeeded in synthesizing elementary organic compounds in a gaseous medium?
And the investigations of the Soviet Academician Oparin? Carbon, nitrogen,
oxygen and hydrogen are to be found in any corner of the universe. And these
elements, in their turn, form compounds that carry us up the ladder of life,
including the jump from the nonliving to the living. Then why should we not
conjecture that it is precisely in a gaseous medium that a life originated
that has risen to the heights of a supercivilization?
CHAIRMAN. Can you formulate your idea within the framework of the
hypothesis?
GWINELLI. Of course.
CHAIRMAN. Let us hear Professor Gwinelli at our next session....
VOICE FROM BACK OF AUDITORIUM (interrupting)... and Dr. Schnellinger
who is now in Vienna. He has a well worked out hypothesis of
intercommunications of the cosmic beings, something in the nature of direct
frequency modulation, irradiation of ultrashortwave impulses and even the
possibility of telepathic transmission via gravitational waves... .
LAUGHTER NEARBY. Nonsense!
VOICE FROM BACK OF AUDITORIUM
(persistently.) Excuse me for any inaccuracy in the formulations,
specialists will understand.
Professor Janvier in black silk cap rises. He is the oldest professor
of the famous French Poly-technical School. He holds on to his hearing aid
and speaks into the microphone.
JANVIER. Esteemed ladies and gentlemen. I would leave Dr.
Schnellinger's report until we have heard the hypotheses about those with
whom we are dealing: with living beings or highly organized biocybernetical
systems. In the former instance, direct telepathic communications might be
possible.
"I am not in possession of them, but there are apprehensions that all
these hypotheses are simply ingenious fabrications," concluded the Parisian
observer. "The number of hypotheses presented at the sessions of the
commission has already topped the hundred mark...."
I took another clipping from another verbatim report, but chosen with
the same humorous intentions and commented on in the same style. In the
third one, the author recalled Gulliver and condescendingly pitied people
who could not be like Lilliputians that do not concoct hypotheses. However,
after Zernov spoke, there was not a trace of any ironic condescension. When
I opened up the evening papers Irene brought me, their solidarity this time
was quite different.
"Riddle solved!", "Russians Penetrate Mystery of Rose Clouds," "Anokhin
and Zernov Establish Contact with Visitors", "Soviets Again Surprise the
World". Such were the headlines on the story about the conversion of modern
Paris into the provincial town of St. Disier of the time of Nazis
occupation, about the marvellous materialization of the movie plots of a
famous producer and about my clash with the first swordsman of France. The
latter was what captivated Paris completely. An ordinary cameraman and
amateur fencer crossed swords with Mongeusseau himself. And stayed alive,
that's what's important. That evening Mongeusseau was interviewed a number
of times and got his salary doubled for participation in the film. Newspaper
reporters squeezed Mongeusseau and Carresi dry and then attacked Peletier's
clinic; only the strict monastery regime there relieved me of yet another
press conference. Zernov was lucky. Taking advantage of the ritual
accompanying the opening and closing of Congress sessions, he slipped away
and grabbed the first available taxi to get out of town and visit a
communist Mayor, an acquaintance of his.
I did not find anything new in his report, which was given in detail
and with commentary. Everything had emerged clear-cut from our discussions
about what we had experienced. Yet the comment of even the most conservative
portion of the press was extremely flattering to us all.
On the first page of the "Paris Jour", next to photographs of myself,
Zernov and Martin, I read: "Two Russians and one American lived through a
fantastically thrilling night in a Paris hotel, a night that recalled to
life all the nightmares of a Gothic novel. By far not every person
instantaneously jerked out of the present world and plunged into the world
of materialized dreams and apparitions extracted from the depths of someone
else's memory would behave with such fearlessness, orientation in his new
surroundings and reasonable sequence of actions. This can be said of all
three participants of this fantastic Odyssey. But Zernov must be singled out
as the one who did the most. Boris Zernov was the first of the scientists of
the world to give the only possible answer to the query that has been
exciting thousands of millions of people on this planet Earth: why the
visitors ignore our attempts at contact and they themselves do not seek
communication with us. Zernov's answer is that there is a far greater
difference between our physical and psychical life and theirs (perhaps
immeasurably greater) than, say, between the organization, the biological
organization, and the psychic make-up of a man and a bee. What would happen
if we attempted to contact bees-they with their media and we with ours? Then
is contact possible between two still more diversified forms of life? We
have not found it, they have. They need not have shown us the models of
their world, yet they did. Why? In order to get to know our physical and
psychic reactions, the nature and the depth of our thought processes, our
capacity for understanding and evaluating their actions. They chose worthy
Argonauts, but only Zernov proved to be Odysseus: he comprehended the gods
and out-tricked them."
I read that article with such relish that Irene couldn't contain
herself any longer and said:
"I wanted to punish you for hiding things. Well, okay, I'll show it to
you."
And she showed me an opened cable from Umanak, Greenland.
"PARIS. Congress. Zernov. Heard your report by radio, staggering.
Perhaps here in Greenland you will make a new discovery. Expecting you and
Anokhin next flight. Thompson."
That was my happiest day in Paris.
And most likely not only mine. Particularly when I told Irene.
At first she did not believe me. She grinned like a girl on her first
date.
"You're just joking."
I said nothing, then asked her:
"Your mother was in the Resistance movement. Where?"
"Our Foreign Office asked the French, and they don't know for sure. Her
whole group perished. And it's not known where or how."
"In St. Disier," I said. "Not so far from Paris. She was an interpreter
in the officer's casino. That's where she was captured."
"How do you know?"
"She told me so herself."
Irene slowly took off her glasses and folded the bows.
"You don't joke about things like that."
"I'm perfectly earnest. Martin and I saw her that night in St. Disier.
We were taken for English pilots; their plane had been shot down in the
night on the outskirts of the town."
Irene's lips were trembling. She couldn't even ask the question she
wanted to.
Then I related the whole story from beginning to end, about Etienne and
Lange, about the burst of gunfire Martin fired on the staircase of the
casino, the explosion that we heard in the dark town.
She was silent. I got angry, realizing all the helplessness of words
that were powerless to reproduce life, even a model of life.
"What did she look like?" Irene asked of a sudden.
"Who?"
"You know."
"She continually changed depending on the person that recalled her.
Etienne, or Lange. She was young, about your age. They both admired her,
though one betrayed her and the other killed her."
She said very softly:
"Now I understand Martin."
"That's much too little as punishment."
"I understand." She thought for a moment and then asked, "Am I like her
in any way?"
"A real copy. Remember the surprise on the face of Etienne in the
hotel? And the concentrated attention of Lange? Ask Zernov, he'll tell you."
"And what happened afterwards?"
"Then I walked up the stairs of the Hotel Homond."
"And everything vanished?"
"Yes, as far as I was concerned."
"And as far as she was concerned?"
I spread my arms in a helpless gesture. How could I answer?
"I do not get it," she said. "There's the present and the past. And
life and what else?"
"A model."
"A living one?"
"Don't know. It might be recorded in some way or another. On their
film." I laughed.
"Don't laugh. This is terrifying. Living life. Where? In what kind of
space? In what kind of time? And do they carry it away with them? Why?"
"Listen," I said, "I haven't enough imagination to keep up with you."
But there was a person who had all the necessary imagination. We met
him the following day.
In the morning I was discharged from the clinic and said a masculine
farewell to the as-always stern Peletier ("You saved my life, Professor, I
am in your debt"), embraced the senior nurse-my white angel with the
devilish needle ("It makes me sad to have to say goodbye, Mademoiselle") and
in response came the highly non-nunish, almost Maupassant, "Naughty boy" and
I went out onto the Voltaire Embankment where I was to meet Irene. The first
thing she told me was that Tolya Dyachuk and Vano had left Copenhagen and
were flying to Greenland direct, and that my visa and Zernov's were being
processed in the Danish Embassy. I could still be present at the plenary
session of the Congress.
The heat outdoors was awful, the asphalt melted under one's feet, but
in the corridors and halls of the Sorbonne where the Congress was being held
since all the students were away on vacation, it was cool and as quiet as a
church after services. And just as empty. There were no late comers or eager
smokers or avid gossipers or argumentative thinkers. All the smoking rooms
and refreshment places were empty. Every one was gathered in the auditorium
where there wasn't room for even one more person- never so packed. People
were sitting everywhere, even on the floor in the aisles, on the steps of
the uprising amphitheatre. That's the only place we could find.
At the lectern was an American. I gathered that from the way he
swallowed separate letters and put too much stress on "o" and "a" just like
my English teacher at the institute. She had studied at Princeton or
Harvard. I knew his name, like all the reading world; but this was no
statesman, not even a scientist, which would have been in full accord with
the composition of the assembly and the list of its speakers. This one was a
writer and not even a very fashionable one-simply a science-fiction writer
that had made a name for himself. Actually, he did not take any great pains
to substantiate scientifically his amazing concoctions, and even here, in
front of a galaxy of prominent scientists, had the nerve to state that he
personally was not interested in scientific information about the cosmic
visitors that the Congress was putting together bit by bit with great
difficulty (those were the words he used), but the fact of an encounter
between two utterly different worlds with what are actually two incompatible
civilizations.
It was this statement and the hum of the auditorium that followed it
signifying either agreement or disagreement (hard to say) which we heard as
we found our seats on the steps in the aisle.
"Don't be offended by the word 'bit', gentlemen," he continued with a
slight grin, "you will collect tons of information of the highest value in
the commissions of glaciologists and climatologists, in special expeditions,
at scientific-research stations, in institutes and scientific papers, all of
which will be concerned with problems of new formation of ice, climatic
changes and the meteorological consequences of the phenomenon of the rose
clouds. Yet the mystery of them still remains a mystery. So far we do not
know a thing about the nature of the force field that has paralysed all our
attempts at an approach to them, or about the character of the life that we
have encountered, or about its location in the universe.
"The conclusions of Boris Zernov about an experiment of the newcomers
to establish contact with earth-dwellers are interesting, but that is their
experiment and not ours. Now I can offer a counter-proposal, if the occasion
arises. To consider the world that they create as a direct channel to their
consciousness, to their thinking process. To speak with them via the
'doubles' and 'spirits' which they create. And use every one of their
models, every ultimate substance (structure) that they materialize, use them
as a microphone for direct or indirect communication with the cosmic people.
Something in the nature of a telephone conversation without mathematics,
chemistry or other codes. And in simple human speech, English or Russian, it
makes no difference, they will understand. You may say that that is science
fiction, and I say it is too. But the Congress has already risen-note that I
say 'risen' and not 'come down'-to the level of genuine scientific fiction;
actually, I do not insist on the word 'science', it is the fiction, the
fantastic portion that I stress, when the imagination foreshadows the future
(noise in the hall). Scientists are polite people! Say it louder: sacrilege
in the temple of science! {Cries of 'sacrilege, of course'). Just a bit of
fairness, gentlemen. Now tell me, was it really scientists that predicted
television, the videophone, lasers, Petrucci's experiments and cosmic
nights? Those were all the inventions of science fiction to begin with.
"I did not miss a single session of the conjecture commission and at
times I was truly amazed at what I heard, for it was fantasy of the purest
water. Explosions of imagination. The hypothesis of a hologram, wasn't that
imagination? The visual perception, by the spacemen, of any object by means
of reflected light waves? This kind of photorecording is perceived as a
three-dimensional representation and has all the optical peculiarities of a
natural landscape. Yesterday's report about painted icebergs in the Bay of
Melville at the shores of Greenland corroborates this hypothesis. The
icebergs were painted red by a Danish expedition vessel, the 'Queen
Christina' in full view of the 'horsemen' galloping across the sky. They
were moving at an altitude of several kilometres, yet from shipboard the
unaided eye could not detect the slightest trace of colour at a distance of
a hundred metres, yet the 'horsemen' went into a dive, first washed away the
paint, and then extracted from the water the chunk of pure blue ice. In this
way, the conjecture that the spacelings have super-vision became a
scientific fact.
"Not all imagination represents prediction or foreshadowing of events,
and not every hypothesis is reasonable. For instance, I wish to reject the
hypothesis of the Catholic Church that the newcomers are supposedly not
living beings endowed with reason, but artificial creations of our brethren
'in the image and being of God'. Actually, that is the same religious
formula concerning God, the Earth and Man, in which the concept 'Earth' is
extended to encompass the whole Universe. Philosophically speaking, this is
simply playing up to naive anthropocentrism, which can readily be refuted
even on the basis of those 'bits' of knowledge that we have already gathered
concerning the rose clouds. If their creators were humanoids, then when
sending their cybernetic constructs into cosmic scouting expeditions, they
would undoubtedly be trained for the possibility of an encounter with beings
of outward similarity if not humanlike intelligence. Properly programmed,
these biorobots would readily find a common language with earthlings, and
human life would not appear to them to be such a deep mystery. No, no matter
what the theologians and anthropocentrists claim, we have come face to face
with a different form of life, an unfamiliar form that we have yet to
comprehend. Most likely, this is a mutual necessity, but that does not
alleviate our situation in any way. Try to answer, for example, the question
touched you. So don't be angry."
"Honestly, I don't even remember you at the table dhoti," added
Mongeusseau.
"False life," Zernov reminded me of our talk on the stairs. "I allowed
for modelling of suppositions or imagined situations," he explained to
Carresi.
"And I didn't allow for anything," Carresi objected impatiently. "I
didn't want to have anything to do with that world-wide scandal. At first I
simply refused to believe it, like those flying saucers, then I saw your
film and was petrified: that was it! For a whole week I could not think of
one single thing except that. Then I got used to the idea, like you get used
to something unusual and quite far-fetched but repeated a sufficient number
of times. Professional interests took me away from common sense and a good
heart: even on the eve of the Congress I could think of nothing except my
new picture. I wanted to revive an historical film, not Hollywood syrup and
not a museum piece, but something re-evaluated by the eyes and minds of
people of today. I chose the age, the heroes and, as you people put it, the
socio-historical background. Then at the restaurant I found a 'star' and
convinced him. There was only one thing he didn't like: fighting with his
left hand. But, you see, that was my lookout, strange as it may seem. I
remember him at fencing contests. The sword in his right hand-it would be
too professional, he wouldn't be able to enter the image. Now in the left
hand, he was a God! There were threats and mistakes and anger with himself
and a miracle of naturalness. I convinced him. We parted. Then I lay down in
my hotel room, thinking. A red light bothered me. The hell with it, I closed
my eyes. And I imagined the whole scene, the road high above the sea, the
rocks, the vineyards, the white wall of the Count's park. And then this
craziness: the hirelings of Gaston-he's Bonnville in the play-stop some bums
on the road. Well, not bums, tourists, if you like, outsiders, in a word.
The age is changed and the plot too. I want to throw them out but I can't,
they're just stuck there. So then I switch round and include them too. This
produces a new plot, very original: say, the bums are wandering actors. Now
Gaston, quite naturally, at home is thinking about the film, not about the
plot but about himself, his dilemma of fighting either with his left or his
right. Mentally, I get into an argument with him: I get excited, try to
convince him, then demand subordination. Period!"
"I saw that," I recalled. "A pile of crimson foam near the road, and
then you stepped out like a devil from a box."
Carresi closed his eyes, obviously trying to visualize what he had
heard and was again pleased.
"Now that's an idea! A marvellous angle for the plot. Let's restore
everything that happened and exactly the way it occurred. In short, do you
want to play together with Gaston?"
"Thanks a lot," I said hoarsely, "I don't want to die a second time."
Mongeusseau smiled politely but with a certain amount of guile.
"In your place, I would refuse too. But drop in to see me on Rivoli for
a friendly visit. We'll cross swords. Don't be afraid, they're only for
training. Everything according to regulations, outfit and masks. I want to
try you out a bit, and find out how you stood up so long. I'll work with my
left on purpose."
"Thanks," I repeated, but knew that I would never again see him.
When the producer and the swordsman had left, a strange uncomfortable
silence set in. I contained myself with difficulty exasperated by this
unneeded visit. Zernov laughed, waiting to find out what I would say. Irene,
noticing at once the import of the pause, remained silent as well.
"Angry?" asked Zernov.
"Positively," I said. "You think it's fun being polite to that
murderer?"
"Mongeusseau is not to blame, even indirectly," Zernov continued.
"That's what I have just figured out."
"Presumption of innocence," I taunted.
He did not respond.
"It's my fault, I got you two together on purpose, don't be angry. I
wanted to correlate the model with the source. For my paper I had to have a
perfect check on what was modelled, whose psyche. And what is more
important-the memory or imagination. Now I know. They have dipped into both.
The other one simply wanted to go to sleep, probably going over Carresi's
proposition lazily: not too much work, it would seem, and the pay not so
bad. But Carresi created, he was the one who contrived the conflicts, the
dramatic situations, in a word, the illusion of real life. It was the
illusion that they modelled. And rather exactly, incidentally. Remember the
landscape? Vineyards on the background of the sea. More exact than a
photograph."
I involuntarily touched my throat.
"And this? Another illusion?"
"That's an accident. While experimenting they probably did not even
realize that it was dangerous."
"I don't get it," Irene interrupted, continuing her own thoughts,
"there must be something else to all this, and not life. Biologically it
can't be life, even if it reproduces life. Life can't be made out of
nothing."
"Why out of nothing? They probably have some sort of building material,
a kind of primary matter of life."
"The red fog?"
"Perhaps. So far nobody has found any explanation, nobody has even
advanced a hypothesis," Zernov sighed. "Don't expect hypotheses tomorrow
from me either. I'm simply going to express a supposition of what is
modelled and why. As to how it is done-that's beyond me.. .."
I laughed.
"Somebody will get to an explanation. Live and see."
"Where?"
"Where do you think? At the Congress naturally."
"You won't see anyone."
Zernov smoothed his straight light hair. He always did that before
saying something unpleasant.
"It won't work," I said maliciously. "You won't hold me here. I'm
well."
"I know. The day after tomorrow you will be discharged. And in the
evening you can pack your suitcases."
He said it so firmly and decisively that I jumped up out of bed.
"A recall?"
"No."
"So it's to Mirny again?"
"And not to Mirny either."
"Then where to?"
Zernov was silent, smiling, he gave a quick sidelong glance at Irene.
"Suppose I don't agree?" I said.
"You'll agree. You'll be all too eager. In fact, you'll grab at the
chance."
"Come on, Boris Arkadievich. Where to?"
"Greenland."
My face obviously spelled such disappointment that Irene burst out
laughing.
"He doesn't jump, Irene".
"No, he doesn't."
I lay back on purpose.
"There's no dope to make me jump. But why to Greenland?"
"There'll be dope enough," said Zernov and winked at Irene.
Irene, imitating the TV news announcer, began:
"Copenhagen. Our special correspondent reports that pilot observers of
the United States polar station at Soenre Stremfiorde (Greenland) have
detected a curious artificial or natural phenomenon to the north of the
seventy-second parallel of latitude, in the area of Simpson's expedition.
..."
I rose up on my pillows.
".. .over an extensive ice-covered plateau, blue kilometre-long
protuberances have been observed. Something in the nature of a diminished
Aurora Borealis, only along an enormous ellipse in a close band of blue
fire. The tongues of flame merge roughly at an altitude of one kilometre
forming the surface of an immense octahedron. That's it, isn't it, Boris
Arkadievich?"
I fell back on the bed.
"Now are you ready to jump, Anokhin?"
"I seem to be ready."
"Now listen. Reports of this 'aurora' have appeared in all the papers.
The octahedron shines for hundreds of kilometres. It cannot be approached
either on foot or on tractor: our familiar invisible wall repulses all
oncomers. Aircraft have been unable to come down from above, they are turned
aside. The suspicion is that this is a powerful field of force that the
space beings have set up. Now do you jump?"
"Definitely. Boris Arkadievich, that means they are already in
Greenland."
"Have been for some time. But deep in the interior of the plateau they
seem to have something new. Fire, yet instruments nearby do not register the
slightest increase in temperature. Neither is there any rise in atmospheric
pressure or in ionization. Radio communications are not interrupted even a
few metres away from the protuberances. Geiger counters are suspiciously
silent. Strange camouflage, rather like a kid's kaleidoscope. The flashing
of broken glass and that's all. The photos we have don't seem to make sense.
A clear sky on a sunny day reflected in enormous crystalline facets of a
crystal. But the 'horsemen' go through like birds into a cloud. But real
birds bounce back like tennis balls. Attempts were made with pigeons,
complete failure."
I was bitterly jealous of my colleagues for getting in to shoot that
scene!
Zernov was not so elated, he thought there might be great danger in the
whole affair. He said: "You know what the activities around this thing are
now called? 'Operation T' after our friend Thompson. He himself says that
this is a personal search for contact. He says that before he took over,
everything had been tried, and in vain: light signals, radio waves,
mathematical codes, and all manner of figures traced in the sky by jet
planes. The horsemen refuse to respond. But he says he'll make contact. So
far nobody knows with what media, and he isn't communicative either.
However, the core of the expedition has already been formed and has been
sent to Upernivik. That's where the Greenland expedition of Koch-Wegener
started out from in 1913. They are supported by a cargo-passenger aircraft,
a helicopter borrowed from the Tutie base, two tracked vehicles and
aerosleighs. Not so badly equipped, as you can see."
I still couldn't make out what sort of contact Thompson could expect to
make with the aid of helicopter and aerosleigh. Zernov smiled enigmatically.
"The news boys don't either. But Thompson is no fool. He didn't
corroborate a single statement attributed to him by the press concerning the
aims of the expedition or the means with which they hope to attain them.
Queried by journalists, not a single firm supplying him with equipment and
gear has responded. He has been asked whether he is taking along tanks with
gas of an unknown composition. Other questions: What are the instruments
recently loaded onto a vessel at Copenhagen to be used for? Does he intend
to explode, drill or break into the force field of the extra-earth-lings?
His reply is that the equipment of his expedition was checked by customs
officials and that nothing was found to violate the rules for bringing it
into Greenland. He knows nothing, he insists, about any special instruments
that were said to have been loaded at Copenhagen. The aims of the expedition
are scientific-research and he's going to count his chicks when they hatch."
"Where does he get the money?"
"Don't know? There's no big money here, even the 'mad men' of politics
aren't ready to place big sums at his disposal. He's not fighting communists
or Negroes. Of course, somebody is financing the thing, without a doubt.
Some newspaper syndicate they say. Like Stanley's expedition to Africa. A
sensational piece is playing, why not risk it."
I wanted to know whether his expedition was connected with some kind of
decision or recommendation of the Congress.
"He's broken with the Congress," Zernov explained. "Even before it
started he announced in the press that he does not consider himself bound by
its future resolutions. By the way, you don't even know what happened
there."
That was so, I didn't know what had happened at the Congress. I didn't
even know that it had taken place at the very time that I was being removed
from the operating table to my post-operative ward.
After the Security Council of the United Nations refused to discuss the
phenomenon of the rose clouds prior to a resolution of the Paris Congress,
correctly taking the view that the first word should come from science, the
atmosphere around the Congress became extremely heated.
It opened up like a world football championship. Trumpets, flags of the
nations, greetings from all scientific associations of the world. True, the
wiser ones kept quiet while the less cautious participants came out with
statements that the mystery of the rose clouds would be clarified in the
near future. Of course, there was no discovery of any kind, with the
possible exception of Academician Osovets' report. He advanced and
substantiated the thesis that the visitors were peace-loving beings from
space, and this set the course for other scientists. Pieces of wisdom were
bandied about. Zernov told roe some of them with hardly containable
disappointment. Opinions collided and hypotheses rose and fell. Some of the
conferees even took the 'clouds' to be varieties of flying saucers.
"Yuri, if you only knew how many dopes there are in science, people who
have long since lost the right to be called scientists!" said Zernov.
"Naturally, there were some well-thought-out speeches, and original
hypotheses, some bold conjectures. But Thompson left after the very first
meetings. 'A thousand shy oldsters won't cook up anything worth while,' he
said to waiting newspaper men."
Out of the entire Congress, he invited to this expedition only Zernov
together with the crew of the 'Kharkovchanka' and Irene. "We began together,
we'll continue together," said Zernov.
"I didn't begin," interrupted Irene.
"But you continued."
"Where?"
"On that same night in the hotel Homond."
"I don't get it."
"Ask Anokhin. He'll tell you a thing or two."
"About what?" Irene was concerned.
"That you are not you but your model created by the 'clouds' on that
ill-fated night."
"Quit joking, Boris Arkadievich."
"I'm not joking. Simply Anokhin and Martin saw you in St. Disier."
"Not her," I put in, "you've forgotten."
"I haven't forgotten, but I figured it would be better not to tell."
A nervous extended pause set in. Irene took off her glasses, collapsed
the bows automatically and again opened them-the first sign of nerves.
"Now I understand," she said accusingly to Zernov, "that you and Martin
were hiding something from me. What was it?"
Zernov evaded the question this time as well.
"Let Anokhin tell you. We believe that he is the only one who has the
right to tell you."
I replied to Zernov with a glance the force of a sword stroke by
Bonnville. Irene turned to him, then to me in a state of complete confusion.
"Is that true, Yuri?"
"Yes, it is," I sighed and said nothing.
To tell her what had happened in the officer's casino in St. Disier I
had to be alone with her, not here.
"Something unpleasant?"
Zernov smiled. The pause continued. I was really pleased to hear the
familiar creak of the door.
"The most unpleasant thing is to begin right now," I said and nodded in
the direction of the opening door, through which my angel in white with
hypodermic needle in hand was coming. "This is part of the treatment that
even friends are not supposed to view."
And the curative therapy of Professor Peletier again pushed me down
into the abyss of sleep.
I woke up the next morning, promptly recalled everything and got mad as
hell: I still had another day in the hospital. The appearance of my white
angel with a wheeled table containing my breakfast did not console me in the
least.
"Turn on the radio."
"We have no radio here."
"Then get me a transistor set."
"Out of the question."
"Why?"
"Everything is prohibited that can interfere with the normal well-being
of a convalescent patient."
"I'm already well."
"You will know about that only tomorrow morning."
The white angel was fast turning into a demon.
"But I've got to know what is taking place at the Congress. Zernov is
speaking. Don't you understand? Zernov!"
"I do not know Monsieur Zernov."
She handed me a folder in red morocco.
"What's this?"
"Newspaper clippings that Mademoiselle Irene left for you. The
Professor allowed them."
That was bread for a person starving from lack of information. I opened
the folder, forgetting about breakfast and listened. Yes, I listened.
It was the voice of the world coming through to me, through nickel and
glass, through the white brick of the hospital walls, through the murk of
bottomless sleep and the beatitude of getting well. It was the voice of the
Congress with the opening speech of Academician Osovets that set the right
course for a reasonable and consistent stand of humanity relative to the
visitors from space.
"What is already clear?" said the Academician. "That we are dealing
with an extraterrestrial civilization, one from another planet. That its
technical and scientific level far surpasses our own. That neither they nor
we have been able to establish contact with one another. And also that its
attitude towards us is friendly and peaceful. During these three months the
visitors have collected and transported out into space the ice of all the
continents and we have not been able to intervene. What does this action
spell for humanity? Nothing but good. Climatologlsts will establish the
precise consequences of what has been done, but even now we can speak of a
considerable amelioration in the climate of the polar and adjacent moderate
latitudes, about the mastering of vast earlier inaccessible areas and of a
free settling of the population of the world. What is more, the extraction
of the terrestrial ice was accomplished without geological catastrophes,
Hoods or other natural calamities. Not a single expedition or ship or
scientific research station operating in these areas of glaciation suffered.
More, the guests presented humanity, as a by-product, with newly discovered
riches that were soon located. In the foothills of the Yablonevy Range, they
discovered vast deposits of copper ore, in Yakutia fresh diamond deposits.
In the Antarctic they discovered oil and in their own way drilled and put up
rigs of a very peculiar design quite unfamiliar to any of us." He concluded
in a burst of applause with the following words. "I can say to you that
right now in Moscow an agreement is being signed among interested countries
on the establishment of an industrial and trade stock company, with the code
name SJEAP, which stands for Society for the Joint Exploitation of Antarctic
Petroleum."
Academician Osovets also summarized the events connected with the
spacelings' modelling of phenomena in terrestrial life in which they were
interested. The list was so long that the speaker did not read it. It was
simply issued as a printed supplement to the report. I will cite only what
was commented on by the journalists at Paris.
In addition to Sand City/the "horsemen" modelled a resort town in the
Italian Alps, the French beaches in the morning, when they resemble the
mating grounds of seals, the square of St. Mark in Venice and a portion of
the London underground railway. Passenger transport systems attracted their
attention in many countries. They dived into trains, ocean and air liners,
police helicopters and even balloons participating in some kind of sporting
contest at Brussels.
In France they penetrated to some kind of racing event at the Parisian
cycle racetrack, in San Francisco, it was a boxing match of heavyweights for
champion of the Pacific Coast, in Lisbon, at a football game for the Cup of
European Champions (the players later complained that the red fog around
them was so thick that they could not see the opponent's goal). The fog was
the same during the games of the first round at the interzonal chess
tournament in Zurich, and for two hours at the Government Cabinet meeting in
the South African Republic, and for forty minutes the animals in the London
Zoo dined. The newspaper gibed that both events occurred on the same day and
that in both cases the fog did not disperse either the beasts or the
racists.
The Academician's list included a detailed enumeration of all the
factories and plants modelled by the cosmic visitors completely or
partially: sometimes a department, or a conveyor line, or simply a few
machines and tools characteristic of a given type of production and chosen
with unerring precision. Parisian journalists commenting this choice came to
some curious conclusions. Some said that the "clouds" were interested mostly
in outmoded types of machines that had not changed fundamentally over the
past century, and therefore least comprehensible to them, such as the
filigree working of precious stones or the designations of kitchen utensils.
Then a diamond-cutting shop in Amsterdam was modelled and a primitive
manufactory of toys in Nuremberg.
Other observers, commenting on the list of Osovets, noted the interest
displayed in services for the consumer. Wrote the correspondent of the
"Paris-Midi": "Have you noticed the quantity of modelled barbershops,
restaurants, fashion houses and television studios? Note the attention paid
to the choice of shops, stores, market places, fairs and even show windows.
And note the variation of modes of modelling. At times a "cloud" will dive
onto a site and leave immediately before there is time for a natural panic
to develop. At other times the cloud envelopes the objective slowly,
imperceptibly penetrating to every nook and cranny, and people do not notice
anything until the density of the gaseous cloud turns into visibility. And
even then there is something that prevents them from altering their
customary behaviour, something that represses the mind and will power.
Nobody experienced fear: barbers cut hair, clients leaf through illustrated
journals, movie cameramen make takes or conduct TV shows, the goalkeeper
snatches a difficult ball, and a waiter politely hands you the bill in the
restaurant. Everything round about has become red like the light of a red
lamp, but you continue your activities, only later realizing what has
occurred after the ''horsemen' have passed beyond the horizon carrying with
them your live imagination. Most of the time you don't even have a chance to
see it: the cosmic visitors demonstrated it to humans only during the first
experiments in fixation of terrestrial life. afterwards everything was
confined to films of red gas of varying consistency and tonality."
"Nobody has suffered during all of this, and nobody has even had any
material losses of any kind," thus the Academician summarized. "With the
exception of a stool that vanished together with a double at a meeting of
polar men at Mirny, and the automobile of pilot Martin who rashly left it in
the modelled city, no one can name a single thing destroyed or damaged by
our cosmic friends. There was talk of a cycle that was left by a Czech
cyclist and disappeared near Prague during a race, but it was later found in
a parking lot during a rest period. Then there was an alpenstock taken away
from a Swiss guide, Fred Schomer, by his double who suddenly appeared in
front of him on an Alpine pathway. But Fred Schomer wrote to the editors
saying that nothing of the kind had taken place, that firstly, he was so
frightened he threw it away, and secondly, the same stick was returned to
him by the rose cloud that dived to the front door of his house. All of the
other cases reported in the press turned out to be simply the idle
imaginings of self-styled 'victims' or of the newspaper men themselves. The
rose clouds returned to space without having done any harm to humanity and
without taking anything with them except terrestrial ice and the conjectured
recordings of terrestrial life coded in some fashion in red fog. This,
incidentally, is a hypothesis that has not been proven in any way by
anybody."
Academician Osovets' speech met the approval of far and away the bulk
of the delegates. I did not read Thompson's speech, it had found no support,
and actually the debate turned into an exchange of queries and replies, not
in the least polemical and not even very bold or confident. There were
apprehensions for example that the peaceful nature of the newcomers was only
a manoeuvre and that they would return with quite different intentions.
"What kind?" the Academician would like to know.
"Aggressive."
"With the technological facilities at their disposal what purpose is
there in camouflage?"
"But suppose it's reconnaissence?"
"The very first encounters have demonstrated to them the difference in
our technical potentials."
"But have we shown them our potential?" Thompson asked.
"They've modelled it already."
"But we didn't even attempt to direct it against their attack."
"How can you call that an attack?"
"However, can you risk asserting that it will not follow?"
"In support of my assertions I cited numerous proven facts, while in
support of your contentions I hear only hypotheses."
After that ignominious discussion-that is, for the opponents of the
Soviet Academician-the "doubters", as they were dubbed, fought back in the
commissions, especially in the Commission for Contact and Conjecture that
soon became famous for its tempestuous sessions. Here, all manner of
hypotheses were advanced and straightway venomously countered. One
discussion merged into another, very often gradually straying farther and
farther from the original topic. This continued until the electric gong of
the chairman sounded. The journalists did not even work up their notes or
inject any hyperbolas, all that was needed was to cite verbatim.
I took at random one of the clippings and read:
"PROFESSOR O'MELLY (Northern Ireland):
I suggest an amendment to the formulation of Professor MacEdou:
ammonium and fluorine.
PROFESSOR MACEDOU (USA). I agree. That was mentioned at the press
conference.
PROFESSOR TAINE (Great Britain). As I remember it, at the press
conference it was suggested that the rose clouds were visitors from a cool
planet. For fluorine beings, a temperature of minus one hundred degrees
would be only a pleasant frost. I do not want to put it strongly but any
first-year college student would be able to correct the colleague who made
that statement. The problem of fluorine proteins....
VOICE FROM THE BACK OF THE AUDITORIUM. There's no such problem.
TAINE. No, there isn't, but there easily could be. The commission here
is one of conjectures and not scientific facts,
VOICE FROM PRESS CENTRE. Boy, this is boring.
TAINE. Why don't you go to a variety show if you don't like it?
Organo-fluorine compounds are activated only at very high temperatures. Or
has my colleague forgotten the difference between plus and minus? Fluorine
life is life based on a background of sulphur and not water. On 'hot'
planets, professor, and not cold planets.
MACEDOU (jumping to his feet). Who's that talking about water or
sulphur? Professor Dillinger, who is absent, had in view hydrogen flouride.
I am not surprised that he was misunderstood by newspaper reporters, but
what surprises me is the incomprehension of an outstanding scientist. It is
precisely hydrogen fluoride or fluorine oxide that can be the 'viable
solvent' at temperatures of not plus but minus one hundred and more degrees.
The rose clouds might also be visitors from a cold planet, gentlemen.
VOICE FROM BACK OF AUDITORIUM (speaker hides behind the man in front of
him). At what temperature, Professor, do they cut kilometre-thick layers of
ice?
TAINE. Another point in favour of the hot planet.
PROFESSOR GWINELLI (Italy). More likely in favour of the hypothesis of
gas-plasma life.
TAINE. It is difficult to believe that even in extraterrestrial
conditions gas could serve as a medium for biochemical reactions.
GWINELLI [heatedly). What about the famous experiments of Miller who
succeeded in synthesizing elementary organic compounds in a gaseous medium?
And the investigations of the Soviet Academician Oparin? Carbon, nitrogen,
oxygen and hydrogen are to be found in any corner of the universe. And these
elements, in their turn, form compounds that carry us up the ladder of life,
including the jump from the nonliving to the living. Then why should we not
conjecture that it is precisely in a gaseous medium that a life originated
that has risen to the heights of a supercivilization?
CHAIRMAN. Can you formulate your idea within the framework of the
hypothesis?
GWINELLI. Of course.
CHAIRMAN. Let us hear Professor Gwinelli at our next session....
VOICE FROM BACK OF AUDITORIUM (interrupting)... and Dr. Schnellinger
who is now in Vienna. He has a well worked out hypothesis of
intercommunications of the cosmic beings, something in the nature of direct
frequency modulation, irradiation of ultrashortwave impulses and even the
possibility of telepathic transmission via gravitational waves... .
LAUGHTER NEARBY. Nonsense!
VOICE FROM BACK OF AUDITORIUM
(persistently.) Excuse me for any inaccuracy in the formulations,
specialists will understand.
Professor Janvier in black silk cap rises. He is the oldest professor
of the famous French Poly-technical School. He holds on to his hearing aid
and speaks into the microphone.
JANVIER. Esteemed ladies and gentlemen. I would leave Dr.
Schnellinger's report until we have heard the hypotheses about those with
whom we are dealing: with living beings or highly organized biocybernetical
systems. In the former instance, direct telepathic communications might be
possible.
"I am not in possession of them, but there are apprehensions that all
these hypotheses are simply ingenious fabrications," concluded the Parisian
observer. "The number of hypotheses presented at the sessions of the
commission has already topped the hundred mark...."
I took another clipping from another verbatim report, but chosen with
the same humorous intentions and commented on in the same style. In the
third one, the author recalled Gulliver and condescendingly pitied people
who could not be like Lilliputians that do not concoct hypotheses. However,
after Zernov spoke, there was not a trace of any ironic condescension. When
I opened up the evening papers Irene brought me, their solidarity this time
was quite different.
"Riddle solved!", "Russians Penetrate Mystery of Rose Clouds," "Anokhin
and Zernov Establish Contact with Visitors", "Soviets Again Surprise the
World". Such were the headlines on the story about the conversion of modern
Paris into the provincial town of St. Disier of the time of Nazis
occupation, about the marvellous materialization of the movie plots of a
famous producer and about my clash with the first swordsman of France. The
latter was what captivated Paris completely. An ordinary cameraman and
amateur fencer crossed swords with Mongeusseau himself. And stayed alive,
that's what's important. That evening Mongeusseau was interviewed a number
of times and got his salary doubled for participation in the film. Newspaper
reporters squeezed Mongeusseau and Carresi dry and then attacked Peletier's
clinic; only the strict monastery regime there relieved me of yet another
press conference. Zernov was lucky. Taking advantage of the ritual
accompanying the opening and closing of Congress sessions, he slipped away
and grabbed the first available taxi to get out of town and visit a
communist Mayor, an acquaintance of his.
I did not find anything new in his report, which was given in detail
and with commentary. Everything had emerged clear-cut from our discussions
about what we had experienced. Yet the comment of even the most conservative
portion of the press was extremely flattering to us all.
On the first page of the "Paris Jour", next to photographs of myself,
Zernov and Martin, I read: "Two Russians and one American lived through a
fantastically thrilling night in a Paris hotel, a night that recalled to
life all the nightmares of a Gothic novel. By far not every person
instantaneously jerked out of the present world and plunged into the world
of materialized dreams and apparitions extracted from the depths of someone
else's memory would behave with such fearlessness, orientation in his new
surroundings and reasonable sequence of actions. This can be said of all
three participants of this fantastic Odyssey. But Zernov must be singled out
as the one who did the most. Boris Zernov was the first of the scientists of
the world to give the only possible answer to the query that has been
exciting thousands of millions of people on this planet Earth: why the
visitors ignore our attempts at contact and they themselves do not seek
communication with us. Zernov's answer is that there is a far greater
difference between our physical and psychical life and theirs (perhaps
immeasurably greater) than, say, between the organization, the biological
organization, and the psychic make-up of a man and a bee. What would happen
if we attempted to contact bees-they with their media and we with ours? Then
is contact possible between two still more diversified forms of life? We
have not found it, they have. They need not have shown us the models of
their world, yet they did. Why? In order to get to know our physical and
psychic reactions, the nature and the depth of our thought processes, our
capacity for understanding and evaluating their actions. They chose worthy
Argonauts, but only Zernov proved to be Odysseus: he comprehended the gods
and out-tricked them."
I read that article with such relish that Irene couldn't contain
herself any longer and said:
"I wanted to punish you for hiding things. Well, okay, I'll show it to
you."
And she showed me an opened cable from Umanak, Greenland.
"PARIS. Congress. Zernov. Heard your report by radio, staggering.
Perhaps here in Greenland you will make a new discovery. Expecting you and
Anokhin next flight. Thompson."
That was my happiest day in Paris.
And most likely not only mine. Particularly when I told Irene.
At first she did not believe me. She grinned like a girl on her first
date.
"You're just joking."
I said nothing, then asked her:
"Your mother was in the Resistance movement. Where?"
"Our Foreign Office asked the French, and they don't know for sure. Her
whole group perished. And it's not known where or how."
"In St. Disier," I said. "Not so far from Paris. She was an interpreter
in the officer's casino. That's where she was captured."
"How do you know?"
"She told me so herself."
Irene slowly took off her glasses and folded the bows.
"You don't joke about things like that."
"I'm perfectly earnest. Martin and I saw her that night in St. Disier.
We were taken for English pilots; their plane had been shot down in the
night on the outskirts of the town."
Irene's lips were trembling. She couldn't even ask the question she
wanted to.
Then I related the whole story from beginning to end, about Etienne and
Lange, about the burst of gunfire Martin fired on the staircase of the
casino, the explosion that we heard in the dark town.
She was silent. I got angry, realizing all the helplessness of words
that were powerless to reproduce life, even a model of life.
"What did she look like?" Irene asked of a sudden.
"Who?"
"You know."
"She continually changed depending on the person that recalled her.
Etienne, or Lange. She was young, about your age. They both admired her,
though one betrayed her and the other killed her."
She said very softly:
"Now I understand Martin."
"That's much too little as punishment."
"I understand." She thought for a moment and then asked, "Am I like her
in any way?"
"A real copy. Remember the surprise on the face of Etienne in the
hotel? And the concentrated attention of Lange? Ask Zernov, he'll tell you."
"And what happened afterwards?"
"Then I walked up the stairs of the Hotel Homond."
"And everything vanished?"
"Yes, as far as I was concerned."
"And as far as she was concerned?"
I spread my arms in a helpless gesture. How could I answer?
"I do not get it," she said. "There's the present and the past. And
life and what else?"
"A model."
"A living one?"
"Don't know. It might be recorded in some way or another. On their
film." I laughed.
"Don't laugh. This is terrifying. Living life. Where? In what kind of
space? In what kind of time? And do they carry it away with them? Why?"
"Listen," I said, "I haven't enough imagination to keep up with you."
But there was a person who had all the necessary imagination. We met
him the following day.
In the morning I was discharged from the clinic and said a masculine
farewell to the as-always stern Peletier ("You saved my life, Professor, I
am in your debt"), embraced the senior nurse-my white angel with the
devilish needle ("It makes me sad to have to say goodbye, Mademoiselle") and
in response came the highly non-nunish, almost Maupassant, "Naughty boy" and
I went out onto the Voltaire Embankment where I was to meet Irene. The first
thing she told me was that Tolya Dyachuk and Vano had left Copenhagen and
were flying to Greenland direct, and that my visa and Zernov's were being
processed in the Danish Embassy. I could still be present at the plenary
session of the Congress.
The heat outdoors was awful, the asphalt melted under one's feet, but
in the corridors and halls of the Sorbonne where the Congress was being held
since all the students were away on vacation, it was cool and as quiet as a
church after services. And just as empty. There were no late comers or eager
smokers or avid gossipers or argumentative thinkers. All the smoking rooms
and refreshment places were empty. Every one was gathered in the auditorium
where there wasn't room for even one more person- never so packed. People
were sitting everywhere, even on the floor in the aisles, on the steps of
the uprising amphitheatre. That's the only place we could find.
At the lectern was an American. I gathered that from the way he
swallowed separate letters and put too much stress on "o" and "a" just like
my English teacher at the institute. She had studied at Princeton or
Harvard. I knew his name, like all the reading world; but this was no
statesman, not even a scientist, which would have been in full accord with
the composition of the assembly and the list of its speakers. This one was a
writer and not even a very fashionable one-simply a science-fiction writer
that had made a name for himself. Actually, he did not take any great pains
to substantiate scientifically his amazing concoctions, and even here, in
front of a galaxy of prominent scientists, had the nerve to state that he
personally was not interested in scientific information about the cosmic
visitors that the Congress was putting together bit by bit with great
difficulty (those were the words he used), but the fact of an encounter
between two utterly different worlds with what are actually two incompatible
civilizations.
It was this statement and the hum of the auditorium that followed it
signifying either agreement or disagreement (hard to say) which we heard as
we found our seats on the steps in the aisle.
"Don't be offended by the word 'bit', gentlemen," he continued with a
slight grin, "you will collect tons of information of the highest value in
the commissions of glaciologists and climatologists, in special expeditions,
at scientific-research stations, in institutes and scientific papers, all of
which will be concerned with problems of new formation of ice, climatic
changes and the meteorological consequences of the phenomenon of the rose
clouds. Yet the mystery of them still remains a mystery. So far we do not
know a thing about the nature of the force field that has paralysed all our
attempts at an approach to them, or about the character of the life that we
have encountered, or about its location in the universe.
"The conclusions of Boris Zernov about an experiment of the newcomers
to establish contact with earth-dwellers are interesting, but that is their
experiment and not ours. Now I can offer a counter-proposal, if the occasion
arises. To consider the world that they create as a direct channel to their
consciousness, to their thinking process. To speak with them via the
'doubles' and 'spirits' which they create. And use every one of their
models, every ultimate substance (structure) that they materialize, use them
as a microphone for direct or indirect communication with the cosmic people.
Something in the nature of a telephone conversation without mathematics,
chemistry or other codes. And in simple human speech, English or Russian, it
makes no difference, they will understand. You may say that that is science
fiction, and I say it is too. But the Congress has already risen-note that I
say 'risen' and not 'come down'-to the level of genuine scientific fiction;
actually, I do not insist on the word 'science', it is the fiction, the
fantastic portion that I stress, when the imagination foreshadows the future
(noise in the hall). Scientists are polite people! Say it louder: sacrilege
in the temple of science! {Cries of 'sacrilege, of course'). Just a bit of
fairness, gentlemen. Now tell me, was it really scientists that predicted
television, the videophone, lasers, Petrucci's experiments and cosmic
nights? Those were all the inventions of science fiction to begin with.
"I did not miss a single session of the conjecture commission and at
times I was truly amazed at what I heard, for it was fantasy of the purest
water. Explosions of imagination. The hypothesis of a hologram, wasn't that
imagination? The visual perception, by the spacemen, of any object by means
of reflected light waves? This kind of photorecording is perceived as a
three-dimensional representation and has all the optical peculiarities of a
natural landscape. Yesterday's report about painted icebergs in the Bay of
Melville at the shores of Greenland corroborates this hypothesis. The
icebergs were painted red by a Danish expedition vessel, the 'Queen
Christina' in full view of the 'horsemen' galloping across the sky. They
were moving at an altitude of several kilometres, yet from shipboard the
unaided eye could not detect the slightest trace of colour at a distance of
a hundred metres, yet the 'horsemen' went into a dive, first washed away the
paint, and then extracted from the water the chunk of pure blue ice. In this
way, the conjecture that the spacelings have super-vision became a
scientific fact.
"Not all imagination represents prediction or foreshadowing of events,
and not every hypothesis is reasonable. For instance, I wish to reject the
hypothesis of the Catholic Church that the newcomers are supposedly not
living beings endowed with reason, but artificial creations of our brethren
'in the image and being of God'. Actually, that is the same religious
formula concerning God, the Earth and Man, in which the concept 'Earth' is
extended to encompass the whole Universe. Philosophically speaking, this is
simply playing up to naive anthropocentrism, which can readily be refuted
even on the basis of those 'bits' of knowledge that we have already gathered
concerning the rose clouds. If their creators were humanoids, then when
sending their cybernetic constructs into cosmic scouting expeditions, they
would undoubtedly be trained for the possibility of an encounter with beings
of outward similarity if not humanlike intelligence. Properly programmed,
these biorobots would readily find a common language with earthlings, and
human life would not appear to them to be such a deep mystery. No, no matter
what the theologians and anthropocentrists claim, we have come face to face
with a different form of life, an unfamiliar form that we have yet to
comprehend. Most likely, this is a mutual necessity, but that does not
alleviate our situation in any way. Try to answer, for example, the question