The Time Wanderers Part 12

His eyes grew accustomed to the twilight. Leonid Andreyevich's living room had Spartan furnishings: the floor lamp (the shade was clearly homemade), the large couch, and the low table. In the far corner, several seats of non-terrestrial backsides production and meant for non-terrestrial backsides. In the other corner, either an exotic plant or an ancient hatrack. That was all the furniture. But the bar was open, and I could see that there were bottles there for every taste. And there were paintings over the bar in transparent casings, the biggest the size of an alb.u.m.

Toivo went over to examine them. They were children's drawings.

Watercolors. Gauche. Pen and ink. Little houses and big girls, pine trees reaching to their knees. Dogs (or Golovans?). An elephant. A Takhorg... Some s.p.a.ce thing -- either a fantastic starship or a hangar... Toivo sighed and went back to the couch. I watched him closely.

There were tears in his eyes. He wasn't thinking about the lost battle anymore. Gorbovsky was dying -- an era was dying, a living legend was dying.

Starpilot. Paratrooper. Discoverer of civilizations. Creator of Big COMCON.

Member of the World Council. Grandpa Gorbovsky... Most of all: Grandpa Gorbovsky. Exactly. He was out of a fairy tale: always kind and therefore always right. That was his era, when kindness always won. "Of all possible choices, always pick the kindest" Not the most promising, not the most rational, not the most Progressorist, and certainly not the most effective -- the kindest! He never said those words, and he always enjoyed taking a dig at those biographers of his who credited him with those words. He certainly never thought in those words; yet the essence of his life was in those words. And of course, those words are not a recipe; not everyone is given to be kind; it is a talent just like an ear for music or clairvoyance, only rarer. And he wanted to cry, because the kindest man in the world was dying. And on the scone will be carved: "He was the kindest..."

I think Toivo was thinking just that. Everything I was planing depended on Toivo's thinking just that.

Forty-three minutes pa.s.sed.

The door flew open. It was like in a fairy tale. Or the movies.

Gorbovsky, unimaginably tall in his striped pajamas, skinny, merry, stepped unsteadily into the living room, dragging the plain behind him, for the fringe had caught on one of his b.u.t.tons.

"Aha, you're still here!" he said in a joyous satisfaction to Toivo, who sat stunned on the couch. "Everything is ahead of us, my boy! Everything is ahead! You're right!"

And having spoken those mysterious words, he hurried, reeling slightly, to the nearest window and opened the blind. It grew blindingly bright, and we squinted, and Gorbovsky turned and stared at Toivo, frozen by the lamp at attention. I looked over at Komov. Komov was openly radiant, his sugar-white teeth gleaming, smug as a cat who swallowed a goldfish. He looked like a sociable fellow who had just drank a toast to a good thing. Which was in fact the fact.

"Not bad, not bad!" Gorbovsky said. "Even excellent!"

c.o.c.king his head, he moved closer to Toivo, looking him over from head to toe, moved right up to him, put his hand an his shoulder, and clenched his bony fingers.

"Well, I think you'll forgive my harshness, my lad," he said. "Bur I was also right... And the harshness was from irritability. I'll tell you something, dying is a really rotten business. Don't pay any attention."

Toivo was silent. Of course, he didn't understand a thing. Komov had thought it all up and arranged it. Gorbovsky knew only as much as Komov felt he should be told. I could imagine the conversation they had in the bedroom.

But Toivo Glumov understood nothing.

I took him by the elbow and told Gorbovsky, "Leonid Andreyevich, we're leaving."

Gorbovsky nodded.

"Go, of course. Thanks. You were a big help. We'll be seeing each other, and more than once."

When we got out on the porch, Toivo said, "Perhaps you will explain the meaning of this?"

"You see, he's changed his mind about dying," I said.

"Why?"

"That's a stupid question, Toivo. Forgive me, please..."

Toivo paused and then said, "I am a fool. That is, I never felt like such a fool in my life... Thanks for your concern, Big Bug."

I grinned. We went down the stairs to the landing square in silence.

Some man was going up the stairs slowly.

"All right," Toivo said. "But should I continue work on the theme?"

"Of course."

"But they laughed at me!"

"On the contrary. You were a hit"

Toivo muttered something to himself. At the first landing, we found ourselves with the man who had been going up the stairs. It was deputy director of the Kharkov branch of IMI, Daniil Alexandrovich Logovenko, rosy and very worried.

"Greetings," he said. "I'm not too late?"

"Not too," I replied. "He's waiting for you."

And here D. A. Logovenko gave Toivo Glumov a conspiratorial wink and then hurried up the stairs, now in a rush. Toivo, squinting meanly, watched him go.

[End of Doc.u.ment 21.]

DOc.u.mENT 22: A Confidential Memorandum CONFIDENTIAL:FOR MEMBERS OF THE PRESIDIUM OF THE WORLD COUNCIL!No. 115 CONTENTS: Transcript of the conversation which took place at Leonid's house (Kraslava, Latvia) 14 May 99.PARTIc.i.p.aNTS: L. A. Gorbovsky, member of the World Council; G. Yu.

Komov, member of the World Council, Acting President of Urals-North Section of COMCON-2; D. A. Logovenko, Deputy Director, Kharkov Branch IMI.

KOMOV: You mean to say that you do not differ in any way from an ordinary man?

LOGOVENKO: The difference is enormous, but... Now, when I am sitting here talking to you, I differ from you only in the awareness that I am not like you. That is one of my levels... rather wearying, incidentally. It is hard to do, but I'm used to it, but the majority of us have grown accustomed to that level forever... But on this level, my differences can be discovered only with the aid of special apparatus.

KOMOV: You want to say that on other levels...

LOGOVENKO: Yes. On other levels, everything is different. Different consciousness, different physiology... different image, even...

KOMOV: You mean, on other levels you are no longer human?

LOGOVENKO: We aren't human. Don't let it confuse you that we are born human from humans...

GORBOVSKY: Forgive me, Daniil Alexandrovich. Could LOGOVENKO: ... interfere. And not only because of that. We a.s.sumed that the secret should be kept first of all in your own interests, in the interests of humanity. I would like you to be fully clear on that issue. We are not people. We are Ludens. Do not fall into error. We are not the result of biological evolution. We appeared because humanity has reached a certain level of sociotechnological organization. We could have discovered the third-impulse system in the human organism even a hundred years ago, but it only became possible to initiate it at the beginning of this century, while keeping a Luden on the spiral of psychophysiological development, to lead him from level to level to the very end... that is, in your concepts, to bring up a Luden, only became possible quite recently -- GORBOVSKY: Just a minute! Does that mean that the third impulse exists in every human organism?

LOGOVENKO: Unfortunately not, Leonid Andreyevich. That's the tragedy.

The third impulse is found with a probability of no more than one one-hundred-thousandth. We still don't know where it came from or why. Most likely, it is the result of some ancient mutation.

KOMOV: One one-hundred-thousandth... that's not so little when translated to our billions. So, it means a schism?

LOGOVENKO: Yes. And that's why it was secret. Don't get me wrong.

Ninety percent of Ludens are totally uninterested in the fate of humanity or in humanity. But there is a group of those like me. We do not want to forget that we are flesh of our flesh and that we have one homeland, and for many years we have been working on how to soften the consequences of the inevitable schism... For it looks as if humanity is being divided into a higher and a lower race. What could be more revolting? Of course, the a.n.a.logy is superficial and at its root incorrect, but you can't avoid the feeling of humiliation at the thought that one of you has gone far beyond the limits that are impa.s.sable for a hundred thousand. And that one can never lose the guilt over it. And incidentally, the worst part is that this schism goes through families, through friendships...

KOMOV: Does that mean that the metagom loses his former ties?

LOGOVENKO: That varies. It's not as simple as you think. The most typical model of the Ludens' att.i.tude toward man is the att.i.tude of an experienced and very busy adult for a cute but terminally annoying kid. Then picture the relationship: Luden and his father, Luden and his best friend, Luden and his teacher...

GORBOVSKY: Luden and his girlfriend...

LOGOVENKO: It's a tragedy, Leonid Andreyevich. A real tragedy...

KOMOV: I see you take the situation to heart. Then perhaps it would be easier to stop all this? After all, it's in your hands.

LOGOVENKO: Doesn't it seem amoral to do that?

KOMOV: Doesn't it seem amoral to subject humanity to a shock like that?

To create an inferiority complex in ma.s.s psychology, to give youth knowledge of the limits of its possibilities?

LOGOVENKO: That's why I came to you -- to seek a way out.

KOMOV; There is only one way. You must leave Earth.

LOGOVENKO: Excuse me. Who exactly is "we"?

KOMOV: You metagoms.

LOGOVENKO: Gennady Yurevich, I repeat: in the great majority of cases, Ludens do not live on Earth. All their interests; their lives, are beyond Earth. d.a.m.n it, you don't live in bed! Only the midwives like me and the h.o.m.opsychologists have permanent ties with Earth... and a few dozen of the most miserable of us, those who cannot tear themselves away from family and loved ones!

GORBOVSKY: Ah!

LOGOVENKO: What did you say?

GORBOVSKY: Nothing, nothing. I'm listening to you attentively.

KOMOV: Then you mean to say that interests of metagoms and earthlings do not coincide?

LOGOVENKO: Yes.

KOMOV: Is cooperation possible?

LOGOVENKO: In what area?

KOMOV: That's for you to say.

LOGOVENKO: I'm afraid that you cannot be of help to us. As for us...

you know, there's an old joke. In our circ.u.mstances it sounds rather cruel, but I'll tell it. You can teach a bear to ride a bicycle, but will the bear derive any benefit or pleasure from it? Sorry about that. But you yourself said that our interests do not coincide. (Pause) Of course, if there were a threat to Earth and humanity, we would come to your aid without a second thought and with all our power.

KOMOV: Thank you for that at least.

(A long pause, with gurgling of liquid, gla.s.s tinkling against gla.s.s, gulps, sighs) GORBOVSKY: Yes, this is a serious challenge to our optimism. But if you think about it, humanity has accepted more frightening challenges. And I don't understand you, Gennady. You were such a serious adherent of vertical progress! Well, here it is, vertical progress! In the purest form! Humanity, spread out on the flowering plain beneath the clear skies, has made a surge upward. Of course, not the whole crowd, but why does that upset you so? It's always been that way. And always will, probably... Humanity always went into the future with the shoots of its best representatives. And as for what Daniil Alexandrovich tells us, that he is not a man but a Luden, that's all terminology... You're still people and, moreover, earthlings, and you can't get away from that. It's too soon.

KOMOV: You, Leonid Andreyevich, sometimes astonish me with your lack of seriousness. It's schism! Understand, schism! And you're just blathering kindly, forgive me for saying so...

GORBOVSKY: You're so... hot-tempered, dear fellow. Well, of course it's schism! I wonder where you've seen progress without schism? Where have you seen progress without stock, without bitterness, without humiliations?

Without those who move far ahead and those who stay behind?

KOMOV: Well, really! "And those who will destroy me I greet with a welcoming hymn!"

GORBOVSKY: That's not quite opposite... How above: "And those who surpa.s.s me, I see off with a welcoming hymn."

LOGOVENKO: Gennady Yurevich, permit me to try to console you. We have very serious reasons for supposing that this schism will not be the final one. Beside the third impulse in the human organism, we have discovered a fourth low-frequency one and a fifth -- for now unnamed.We -- even we! -- cannot imagine what the initiation of those systems could bring. And we cannot imagine how much more there is in man... And more than that, Gennady Yurevich. There is a schism beginning among us! It is inevitable. Artificial evolution is a scattered process. (Pause) What can you do? There are six scientific and technological revolutions behind us, two technological counterrevolutions, two gnoseological crises -- you come to evolution w.i.l.l.y-nilly...

GORBOVSKY: Precisely. If we sat around quietly like the Tagorians or Leonidians, we'd know no sorrow. Going into technology was our own choice.

KOMOV: All right, all right. But just what is a metagom, in fact? What are his goals, Daniil Alexandrovich? His stimuli? Interest? Or is that a secret?

LOGOVENKO: No secrets.

(the phonogram ends here. All the rest - 34 minutes 11 seconds been erased.) 15/05/99 M. Kammerer [End of Doc.u.ment 22.]

I'm ashamed to admit it but I spent the last few days in a state bordering on euphoria. It was as if an unbearable physical strain had ceased. Probably Sisyphus experienced something similar when the rock finally leaped out of his hands, and he had the blessed relief of sitting at the top of the mountain before starting all over.

Every earthling experienced the Big Revelation in his own way. But I swear that I had it worse than anyone else.

I've reread everything l had written, and I now fear that my feelings in relation to the Big Revelation could be misunderstood. It may create the impression that I was afraid for the fate of mankind. Naturally, there were fears -- for back then I knew absolutely nothing about Ludens except for the fact that they existed. So there was fear. And there were brief howls of panic: "That's it, the game is over!" And a feeling of a catastrophically sharp turn, when the wheel is going to fly out of your hands and you're going to fly off into nowhere, helpless like a savage during an earthquake.

But above all this prevailed the humiliating awareness of my total professional failure. We missed the boat. Blew it. Flopped. Useless dilettantes...

And then the whole wave receded. And not because Logovenko had convinced me of anything or made me believe him. It was something else.

I had gotten used to the feeling of professional failure over the month and a half. ("Pangs of conscience are tolerable" is one of the small unpleasant discoveries you make with age.) The wheel wasn't being pulled out of my hands anymore -- I had handed it over to someone else. And now, with a kind of distance, I noted to myself that Komov was exaggerating and Leonid Andreyevich, as usual, was too certain of a happy ending for any cataclysm...

I was back in my own place, and once more I was in the thrall of my usual cares. For instance: getting a steady flow of information to those who had to make the decisions.

On the evening of the fifteenth, I received an order from Komov to act as I saw fit.

On the morning of the sixteenth, I called in Toivo Glumov. Without any explanation, I let him read the record of the conversation at Leonid's House. Amazingly, I was practically certain of success.

Why should I have had any doubts?

DOc.u.mENT 23: Working Phonogram: T. Glumov and M. Kammerer

DOc.u.mENT 24: Fear of being transformed into a Luden