The Time Wanderers Part 1

Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky.

The Time Wanderers.

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. Glumova13 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 Inst.i.tute for the Research of s.p.a.ce 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 partic.i.p.ant 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 partic.i.p.ating 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 doc.u.ments. 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 doc.u.ments that relate to the case are not in the memoir, while I could have managed without some of the doc.u.ments 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 circ.u.mstances 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 pa.s.sed 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 partic.i.p.ants. 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 superst.i.tious 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 a.s.sume 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.

DOc.u.mENT 1: The Bromberg Memorandum.

To COMCON-2Sector Ural-NorthTo Maxim KammererPersonal 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 att.i.tude 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 a.s.sure 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 doc.u.ment. 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! d.a.m.n 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 a.s.sure 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 quant.i.ty, 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 a.n.a.log 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 "a.s.skickers" who tried to force progress with great enthusiasm among the Tagorians and Leonidians. By now me know that kicking a.s.s 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 a.s.skickers, 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 h.o.m.o sapiens into Wanderers.

Second: most likely; far from every h.o.m.o 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 surpa.s.s 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 surpa.s.s 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 a.n.a.lysis.

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 ma.s.s 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 Doc.u.ment 1].

DOc.u.mENT 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 UEDTHEME: 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 Doc.u.ment 2]

It was in this order that my young probationer, Toivo Glumov, read these doc.u.ments in early 95, and naturally, these doc.u.ments 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 phosph.o.r.escent 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 circ.u.mstances 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 circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.sume, 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 doc.u.ments 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.