The Time Wanderers Part 6

Gorbatsky [End of Doc.u.ment 5.]

DOc.u.mENT 6: Fleming to Kammerer

DOc.u.mENT 7: Burgermayer to Kammerer

DOc.u.mENT 8: Glumov Memorandum: Theme 009: "A Visit From an Old Lady"

COMCON-2 to Kammerer.From Fleming Maxim!

I know everything about the incident in Little Pesha. The case, in my opinion, is extraordinary and enviable. Your boys posed very precise questions, which we should all answer. That's what I'm doing, dropping everything else. When something becomes dear, I'll be sure to let you know.

Fleming Lower Pesha. 15:30 P.S. Maybe you've learned something through our channels? If you have, let me know immediately. For the next three days, I'll be in Lower Pesha.

P.P.S. Could it be the Wanderers after all? d.a.m.n it, wouldn't that be fine!

Kammerer [End of Doc.u.ment 6]

The EMBRYOMECHANICS Manufacturing SocietyDirectorateEarth, Antarctic Region, ErebusA 18/03/62Index: O/T: KK 946239Code: SKTs-76BURGERMAYER, ADOLF-ANNA,GENERAL DIRECTORS-283, 7 May 99To: COMCON-2 Urals-North, EU DepartmentCode: SR3-23CHIEF OF ACCIDENT DEPARTMENT M. KAMMERER Contents: Reply to your query of 6 May 99.

Dear Kammerer!

Regarding the characteristics of modem embryoph.o.r.es that interest you, I can report the following: 1. The general ma.s.s of exuded biomechanisms is up to 200 kg. Their maximum number is 8. The maximal size of a single unit can be determined by the program 102 ASTA/M, R, Rsh K/, where M is the ma.s.s of the original material, R the density of the material, Rsh the density of the environment, and 1 the number of exuded mechanisms. The correlation with high accuracy is performed in temperature ranges between 200 and 400 K and in pressure ranges of 0 to 200 SE.

2. The time for the development of the embryoph.o.r.e is an uncharacteristic number that depends on many parameters, which are all totally under the control of the initiator. However, for the fastest-acting embryoph.o.r.es there is a lower limit of time for development, which is approximately one minute.

3. The time of existence of now-known biomechanisms depends on their individual ma.s.s. The critical ma.s.s of a biomechanism is Mo = 12 Kg.

Biomechanisms whose ma.s.s M does not exceed M, theoretically have limitless life spans. The time of existence for biomechanisms with a greater ma.s.s decreases with the growth of ma.s.s on the exponent, so that the time of existence of ma.s.sive models (around 100 kg) cannot exceed several seconds.

4. The goal of creating a fully dissolving embryoph.o.r.e has existed a long time, but unfortunately it is still far from being resolved. Even the most modern technology is helpless to create sh.e.l.ls that could fully become part of the development cycle.

5. Microscopic biomechanisms in general have high mobility (up to 1,000 times their own size per minute). As for 6led models, the record holder for now is model KS-3, "Hoppity," which can develop directed and stimulated speeds of up to 5 m/sec.

6. It can be maintained with complete accuracy that any of the existing biomechanisms will react acutely and unambivalently (negatively) to a natural biofield. That is built into the genetic system of every biomechanism -- and not out of ethical considerations, as one might think, but because any natural biofield with an intensity of more than 0.63 GD (the biofield of a kitten) creates irreparable glitzes in the signaling network of a biomechanism.

7. Regarding energy balance, the release of embryoph.o.r.es or biomechanisms with the parameters described in your query would undoubtedly have led to a violent release of energy (an explosion), if the picture you described is at all possible. However, that picture, as follows from what was written above, is totally fantastic given the present level of scientific and technological capabilities.

Respectfully, General Director Burgermayer [End of Doc.u.ment 7]

REPORT COMCON-2No.016/99 Urals-North Date: 8 May 99FROM: T. Glumov, InspectorTHEME: 009 "A Visit from an Old Lady"RE: The visit of the Wizard (Saraksh) to the Kharkov branch of the Inst.i.tute of Metapsychic Research (Inst.i.tute of Eccentrics) In accordance with your orders, yesterday morning I arrived at the Kharkov branch of the Inst.i.tute of Eccentrics. The deputy director of the branch, Logovenko, gave me an appointment at ten; however, I was not brought into his office immediately, but was subjected first to a check up in a chamber of sliding frequency KSCH-S, also called "How To Catch an Eccentric." It turns out that every new visitor to the inst.i.tute is subjected to that procedure. The aim is to discover the person's "latent metapsychic capabilities" -- in other words, the so-called hidden eccentricity.

At 10:15, I presented myself to the deputy director for communications with public organizations.

(Logovenko, Daniil Alexandrovich, doctor of psychology, corresponding member of the Academy of Medical Sciences of Europe. Born September 18, 30 in Borispol. Education: Inst.i.tute of Psychology, Kiev; Control Department, Kiev U.; special course in higher and anomalous etology, Split; Basic works -- in the area of metapsychology, discovered the Logovenko Impulse, a.k.a.

"t-spike mentogram." One of the founders of the Kharkov branch of the Inst.i.tute of Metapsychic Research.) D. Logovenko told me that he personally had met the Wizard in the morning of March 25 on the cosmodrome at Mirza-Charle and accompanied him right into the Inst.i.tute building. With them were the department head Bogdan Gaidai and the Wizard's escort from COMCON-1, Borya Laptev, whom we know.

Arriving at the Inst.i.tute, the Wizard declined the traditional reception and expressed a desire immediately to begin getting to know the work of the Inst.i.tute and their clients. Then D. Logovenko turned over the Wizard to the care of B. Gaidai and never talked to the Wizard again.

I: What was the Wizard's goal at the Inst.i.tute, in your opinion?

LOGOVENKO: The Wizard didn't say anything about it to me. COMCON informed us that the Wizard allegedly wanted to familiarize himself with our work, and we were glad to offer him that opportunity. Not without our own interest, by the way: we hoped to study him. We had never worked on a psychocrat of such power, and from another planet to boot.

I: What did your study show?

LOGOVENKO: We did not study him. The Wizard cut short his visit totally unexpectedly.

I: Why do you suppose he did that?

LOGOVENKO: We are lost in conjecture. Personally, here is what I think He was introduced to Michel Desmond, a polymental. And the Wizard noted something in Michel that slipped past us. And whatever is was either frightened him or insulted him, in a word, shocked him so much thathe no longer wanted to deal with us. Don't forget, he's a psychocrat, an intellectual, but by birth, upbringing, and worldview, if you like, he's a typical savage.

I: I don't quite understand. What is a polymental?

LOGOVENKO: Polymentalism is a very rare metapsychic phenomenon, the existence in one human organism of two or more independent consciousnesses.

Don't confuse it with schizophrenia; it's not pathological. For instance, our Michel Desmond. He is an absolutely healthy, very pleasant young man, manifesting no deviations from the norm. But a decade ago, quite accidentally, it was discovered that he had a double mentogram. One was ordinary, human, simply related to the past and present life of Michel. But the other one was discovered at a specific, strictly precise depth of mentoscopy. This is a mentogram of a creature that had nothing to do with Michel, living in a world which we have not been able to identify.

Apparently, it is a world of incredibly large pressures and high temperatures... But that's inessential. The importantthing is that Michel has no idea about that world, or about that cohabiting consciousness, and that creature has no idea about Michel or our world. So this is what I think: we managed to discover a neighboring existence in Michel; but what if there are others in him, beyond the limits of our methods of discovery, and they shocked the Wizard?

I: This Desmond's second world doesn't shock you?

LOGOVENKO: I get your point. No. Not at all. But I must tell you that the mentoscopist who first looked into the world experienced a profound shock. Primarily because he thought that Michel was a secret agent for the Wanderers, a Progressor from an alien world.

I: How did you determine that this wasn't the fact?

LOGOVENKO: You can relax on that score. There is no correlation between Michel's behavior and the functioning of the second consciousness. The neighboring consciousnesses of a polymental do not interact. In principle, they cannot interact, because they function in different planes. Here is a crude a.n.a.logy. Imagine a shadow show. The shadows projected on the screen cannot interact. Of course, there are various fantastic ideas, but they are merely fantastic.

My conversation with D. Logovenko ended here, and I was introduced to B. A. Gaidai.

(Gaidai, Bogdan Arkhipovich, master of psychology. Born June 10, 55 in Middle Buda. Education: Inst.i.tute of Psychology, Kiev; special courses in higher and anomalous etology, Split; Basic works in the metapsychoiogy.

Since 89 has been working in the Department of Psychoprogaostics, since 93 head of the laboratory of Instrument Control, since 94 chief of the Department of Intrapsychic Technology.) An excerpt Gem the conversation: I: In your opinion, what interested the Wizard most at the Inst.i.tute?

GAIDAI: You know, I have the impression that the Wizard had been misinformed. It's not surprising; even here on Earth many people don't understand our work, so what can you say about the Progressors with whom the Wizard deals in Saraksh? I remember that I was immediately surprised that the Wizard, an extraterrestrial, wanted .to see only our inst.i.tute out of the whole planet Earth... I think this is why. Back on Saraksh be is king of the mutants, so to speak, and he, probably has many problems as a result: they degenerate, get sick, they need treatment, support. While our "eccentrics" are also a type of mutant, and he imagined that he could pick up useful information at the Inst.i.tute, he probably thought we had something like a clinic here.

I: And seeing his mistake, he turned and left?

GAIDAI: Exactly. He turned a bit too sharply, I guess and left a little too fast. But alter all, maybe that's how they behave there.

I: What did you talk about with him?

GAIDAI: We didn't talk about anything. I only heard his voice once. I asked him what he would like to see, and he replied, "Everything you'll show me." His voice, I might add, was rather repulsive, like that of a crotchety witch.

I: By the way, what language did you speak?

GAIDAI: Just imagine, Ukrainian!

According to Gaidai, the Wizard met only three clients at the Inst.i.tute. I've managed to speak with two of them.

Ravich, Marina Sergeyevna, age 27, a veterinarian by education, now a consultant to the Leningrad Embryosystem Factory, the Lausanne Workroom on Realizing P-abstractions, the Belgrade Inst.i.tute of Laminary Positronics, and the chief architect of the Yakutsk Region. A modest, very shy and sad woman. She has a unique and still unexplained ability. (They haven't even given this ability a scientific name yet.) If you set a clearly formulated problem that she can understand before her, she begins to solve it pa.s.sionately and with pleasure, but as a result, completely beyond her control, obtains the answer to another problem, which has absolutely nothing to do with the problem at hand and which, as a rule, is beyond her professional interests. The posed problem acts as a catalyst on her consciousness to solve another problem, which she either glanced at in some popular scientific journal or accidentally overheard in the conversation of specialists. It is impossible to determine ahead of time which problem she will solve; there is something like the Cla.s.sic Uncertainty principle in physics at work here. The Wizard came to her office at the moment when she was working. She vaguely remembers his ugly, large-headed figure, dressed in green, and has no other impressions of the Wizard. No, he didn't say anything. Bogdan made the usual noises about her "gift," and she didn't remember any other voices. According to Gaidai, the Wizard was there for only two minutes, and she did not interest him any more than he had her.

Michel Desmond, 41, a granular engineer by education, a professional athlete, European tunnel hockey champion for 88. A jolly man, very pleased with himself and the world. He treats his polymentalism with humor and total indifference. He was on his way to the stadium when they brought in the Wizard. The Wizard, according to him, looked sickly and was silent, didn't get jokes; he probably didn't understand where he was and what was being said. Of course, there was an instant -- which Michel will remember for the rest of his life -- when the Wizard raised his huge pale eyelids and looked right into Michel's soul, or maybe even deeper, into the bowels of the world where the creature lives with whom Michel must share his mental s.p.a.ce. That was an unpleasant but astonishing moment. Soon after that the Wizard left, without even saying a word. Or good-bye.

Susumu Hirota, a.k.a. Senrigan, which means "He who sees a thousand miles," 83, religion historian, professor of the religious history at Bangkok University. I did not manage to speak with him. He will return to the inst.i.tute tomorrow or the day after. According to Gaidai, the Wizard did not like chat clairvoyant at all. At least, it is known that the Wizard exited precisely during their meeting.

According to all the witnesses, the exit looked like this. The Wizard had been standing in the middle of the mentoscopy room, listening while Gaidai lectured him on the extraordinary abilities of Senrigan, while Senrigan interrupted the lecturer from time to time with exposure of the lecturer's personal circ.u.mstances, and suddenly, without a word, without a warning gesture or glance, that green gomne turned sharply, b.u.mped into Borya Laptev with his elbow, walked down the corridors at a fast clip, without stopping anywhere for a second, toward the exit. That was it.

Several other people had seen the Wizard at the Inst.i.tute: scientific workers, lab a.s.sistants, and a few of the administrative personnel. None of them knew whom they were looking at. And only two newcomers to the Inst.i.tute paid any attention to the Wizard, stunned by his looks. I did not learn anything of significance from them.

Then I met with Boris Laptev. Here it the most important part of our conversation: I: You're the only man who was with the Wizard all the time from Saraksh to Saraksh. Did you notice anything strange?

BORIS: A fine question! You know, that's like when they asked the camel why his neck was crooked. And he said, "What do I have that's straight?"

I: Still. Try to recall his behavior for that whole period. Something must have happened to make him kick up a fuss.

BORIS: Listen, I've known the Wizard for two of our years. He is an inexhaustible creature. I gave up a long, long time ago and don't even try to figure him out. What can I tell you? He had a depression that day, as I call it. From time to time, it comes upon him without any visible causes. He grows taciturn, and if he does open his mouth, it's only to my something nasty. That's how it was that day. While we were flying in from Saraksh, everything was fine, he intoned aphorisms, joked with me, even hummed... But by the time we reached Mirza-Charle he grew grim, almost didn't talk at all with Logovenko, and when we started going around the Inst.i.tute with Gaidai, he was blacker than a thundercloud. I was afraid that he would insult someone, but he must have felt that he couldn't go on like that, and fled from temptation. He was silent all the way back to Saraksh. He did look around in Mirza-Charle as if in farewell, and in a disgusting, whiny voice he squeaked: "He sees mountains and forests, clouds and skies, but he doesn't see what's right under his nose."

I: What's that supposed to mean?

BORIS: Children's verse. Ancient.

I: How did you interpret it?

BORIS: I didn't. I saw that he was mad at the world, he was ready to bite. I saw that I had to keep quiet. He and I didn't utter a word all the way back.

I: And that's it?

BORIS: That's it. Just before landing, he muttered, "Neither fish nor fowl. Let's wait for the blind to see the seeing." And when we got out in Blue Snake, he waved good bye and, as they say, vanished into the jungle. He didn't thank me, by the way, or invite me to his place.

I: You can't tell me anything more?

BORIS: What do you want from me? Yes, there was something that really displeased him on Earth. But he didn't deign to tell me what. I'm telling you he is an inexplicable and unpredictable creature. It may not have anything to do with Earth at all. Maybe he just had stomach ache that day -- in the broad sense of the word, of course, in a very broad sense, a cosmic one...

I: You think it's not a coincidence that someone doesn't see anything in the child's poem and then the line about the blind and seeing?

BORIS: You see, the stuff about the blind and the seeing is a saying on Saraksh. Like "on a cold day in August" or "once in a blue moon." He must have wanted to say that something would never happen. And the poem came from general nastiness. He quoted it with obvious sarcasm; I just don't know what he was mocking. Maybe that boring, bragging j.a.p.

PRELIMINARY CONCLUSIONS:.

l. I could not obtain any data that could help find the Wizard on Saraksh.

2. I cannot give any recommendations for continuing the search.

T. Glumov [End of Doc.u.ment 8]

DOc.u.mENT 9: Narrative: Toivo Glumov and the Wanderers.

On the evening of May 6, I was seen by our President, Athos-Sidorov. I took along the most interesting materials, and I gave him the essence of the matter and my proposals, orally. He was very sick by then, his face was sallow, and he was short of breath. I had put off this visit too long: he didn't have the strength to be truly amazed. He said that he would familiarize himself with the materials, think it over, and call me tomorrow.

I spent all of May 7 in my office, waiting for his call. He did not call. In the evening, I was told that he had suffered a severe attack, had barely been revived, and was now in the hospital. Once again, everything was dumped on my shoulders, and so hard that the poor little bones of my soul cracked.

On May 8, I received -- among other things -- Toivo's report on his visit to the Inst.i.tute of Eccentrics. I checked off his name, entered his report in the registrator, and began cooking up an a.s.signment for Petya Siletsky. By then, only Petya Siletsky and Zaya Momzova from my staff had not been to the Inst.i.tute.

At approximately that time in his room, Toivo Glumov was talking to Grisha Serosovin. I bring a reconstruction of their conversation below, primarily to demonstrate the mind-set of my coworkers at that time. But only in terms of quality. In terms of quant.i.ty, the relationship was the same: on one side there was only Toivo Glumov, and on the other, all the rest.

U.E. DEPARTMENT, ROOM D. 8 May 99. EVENING.

Grisha Serosovin walked in, as usual, without knocking, stopped in the doorway, and asked, "May I come in?

Toivo put aside Vertical Progress (the work by the anonymous K Oxovu), bent his head, and looked over at Grisha.

"You may. But I'm going home very soon."

"Is Sandro out again?"

Toivo looked at Sandro's desk. The desk was empty and impeccably clean.

"Yes. Third day."

Grisha sat down at Sandro's desk and crossed his legs.

"Where were you yesterday?" he asked.

"Kharkov."

"Ah, so you've been to Kharkov, too!"

"Who else?"

"Almost everyone. In the last month, almost the entire department's been in Kharkov. Listen, Toivo, here's why I dropped by. You've worked on 'sudden geniuses,' right?"

"Yes. A long time ago. The year before last."

"Do you remember Soddi?"

"I do. Bartholomew Soddi: A mathematician who became a confessor."