View from Another Shore : European Science Fiction

by Rottensteiner, Franz(Author)

  by shouts of joy, which was a great comfort to him. ‘This time’, he said

  to himself, ‘Klapaucius can have no objections. These people are

  happy, and their happiness is not programmed, hence predetermined

  and imperative, but wholly stochastic, ergodic and probabilistic. I’ve

  won at last!’ And with this pleasant thought he fell asleep and slept till morning.

  Klapaucius was not in, and it was noon before he showed up and

  Trurl could lead him to the felicitological proving ground. There

  Klapaucius inspected the homes, fences, minarets, signs, the court-

  house, its offices, delegates and citizens, here and there engaged a few

  in conversation, and on a side street even attempted to punch one in

  the face. But three others seized him by the breeches and, singing in

  unison, gave him the old heave-ho at the gate, careful not to break his

  neck, though he did look much the worse for wear when he climbed

  out of the roadside ditch.

  ‘Well?’, said Trurl, pretending not to notice his friend’s mortifica-

  tion. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I’ll be back tomorrow’, replied Klapaucius.

  In Hot Pursuit of Happiness

  13

  Considering this a retreat, Trurl nodded and gave a sympathetic

  smile. The next day both constructors again entered the settlement

  and found it greatly changed. They were stopped by a patrol and the

  highest ranking officer addressed Trurl:

  ‘What’s this, frowning on the premises? Can’t you hear the birds

  singing? Don’t you see the flowers? Chin up!’

  And the next highest ranking officer said:

  ‘Chest out! Shoulders back! Look alive! Smile!’

  The third said nothing, only clapped the constructor on the back

  with a mailed fist, raising a deafening clang, then turned with the rest

  to Klapaucius—who didn’t wait for such encouragement but snapped

  to attention at once, assuming a properly ecstatic expression, at which

  they were satisfied and continued on their way. Meanwhile the

  unsuspecting creator of this new order stared open-mouthed at the

  square before the headquarters of Felicifica, where hundreds stood in

  formation and roared with joy upon command.

  ‘All hail to life!’, bellowed one old officer in epaulets and plumes,

  and the gathering thundered back as one man:

  ‘All hail to happiness.’

  Before Trurl could say another word, he found himself wedged

  firmly in one of the columns with his friend and compelled to march

  and drill for the rest of the day. The main manoeuvre seemed to

  consist in making oneself as miserable as possible while furthering the

  welfare of the next in line, all to the rhythm of ‘Left! Right! Left!

  Right!’ The drillmasters were Felicemen, known as the Guardians of

  Good and Gladness and thus commonly called G-men, and their task

  was to see that each and every one, both separately and together,

  participated wholeheartedly in the general beatitude, which in

  practice proved to be unbelievably burdensome. During a brief

  intermission in these felicitological exercises Trurl and Klapaucius

  managed to slip away and hide behind a hedge. There they found a

  gully and followed it, crouching as if under heavy fire, to Trurl’s place, where to be absolutely safe they locked themselves in the attic—and

  just in the nick of time, for the patrols were out, combing the area for

  all those discontent, gloomy or sad, and summarily felicitizing them

  on the spot. In his attic Trurl cursed and fumed and considered the

  quickest way to put an end to this unhappy experiment, while

  Klapaucius did what he could to keep from laughing out loud.

  Unable to come up with anything better, Trurl shook his head and

  sent a demolition squad to the settlement, making sure beforehand to

  programme it impervious to the lure of such attractive slogans as

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  Stanisl/aw Lem

  brotherly love and joy for all—which provision, however, he was

  careful to keep from Klapaucius. Trurl’s demolition squad soon

  collided with the G-men and the sparks began to fly. As the last

  bastion of universal happiness, Felicifica fought most valiantly, and

  Trurl had to send replacements with heavy-duty clamps and grappling

  hooks. Now the battle became full-pitched, the war all-out; both sides

  displayed a truly staggering dedication, and grapeshot and shrapnel

  filled the air. When at last the constructors stepped out into the

  moonlit night, they beheld a piteous sight: the settlement lay in

  smouldering ruins, and here and there a Feliceman, not fully un-

  screwed in the general haste, expressed in a weak and trembling voice

  its undying devotion to the cause of Universal Goodness. No longer

  able to contain himself, Trurl burst into tears of rage and despair; he

  couldn’t understand what had gone wrong, why these kindly souls

  had changed into such insufferable bullies.

  ‘The directive for an all-embracing good will may, if too direct, bear

  contrary fruit’, Klapaucius explained. ‘He who is glad wishes others to

  be glad, glad without delay, and ends up clubbing gladness into all

  recalcitrants.’

  ‘Then Good may produce Evil! Oh, how perfidious is the Nature of

  Things!’, cried Trurl. ‘Very well, I hereby declare war against Nature

  Herself! Adieu, Klapaucius! You see me momentarily defeated, but

  not discouraged. I shall win yet!’

  And he returned to the isolation of his books and manuscripts, grim

  and more determined than ever. Common sense suggested it might

  not be a bad idea, before proceeding with further tests, to throw up

  battlements around the house, with embrasures for artillery. But this

  was plainly no way to begin the construction of brotherly love, so he

  decided instead to make his models smaller, on a scale of 100,000 to

  1—that is, to conduct his experiments with microminiaturized civili-

  zations. In order not to forget what he’d learned, he hung signs like

  the following on his workshop walls: THESE BE MY GUIDE—(1) SACRED

  AUTONOMY, (2) SWEET PARITY, (3) SUBTLE CHARITY, (4) UNOBTRUSIVE

  AVUNCULARITY. Then he began the work of translating those noble

  sentiments into action.

  First he assembled a thousand electromites under the microscope,

  endowed them with little minds and not much greater love of Good,

  since by now he feared fanaticism. They went about their business in

  a dull sort of way, and their little dwelling-box began to resemble the

  works of a watch, so even and monotonous were their movements in

  it. Trurl opened a valve and raised the intelligence a bit; immediately

  In Hot Pursuit of Happiness

  15

  they grew more lively, fashioned tiny tools from a few stray filings

  and started using them to pry open their little box. Trurl then quickly

  increased the Good potential and overnight the society became self-

  sacrificing, everyone ran about frantically looking for someone to

  save—widows and orphans were in particularly great demand, espe-

  cially if blind. These were besieged with so many tokens of respect,

  paid so many compliments, that the poor things f
led and hid in the

  farthest corners of the box. In no time Trurl’s civilization faced a crisis: the acute shortage of orphans and other unfortunates made it next to

  impossible to find deserving objects of any properly monumental act

  of generosity. As a result the micromites, after eighteen generations,

  began to worship the Absolute Orphan, whom nothing in their

  boxlike vale of tears could ever deliver from dismal orphanhood;

  thus their excessive benevolence finally found relief in the infinite

  transcendental realm of metaphysics. They populated those higher

  spheres with various beings, the Triple Cripple for instance, or the

  Lord Up Above, who was always greatly to be pitied, and they

  neglected the things of this world and replaced all government

  agencies with religious orders. This was not quite what Trurl had in

  mind, so he introduced rationalism, scepticism and common sense

  until everything settled down.

  Though not for long. A certain Electrovoltaire appeared and

  announced there was no Absolute Orphan, only the Cosmic Cube

  created by the forces of Nature; the orphanists excommunicated him,

  but then Trurl had to leave for an hour or two to do some shopping.

  When he returned, the tiny box was bouncing about on its shelf in

  the throes of a religious war. Trurl charged it with altruism—that only

  made it sizzle and smoke; he added a few more units of intelligence,

  which cooled it off somewhat—but later there was a great deal of

  activity and confusion, after which military parades appeared, march-

  ing in a disconcertingly mechanical way. Another generation came

  and went, the orphanists and electrovoltairians vanished without a

  trace, now everyone spoke only of the Common Good, numerous

  treatises were written on the subject—entirely secular—and then a

  great debate arose concerning the origin of the species: some said that

  they were spawned spontaneously from the dust that lay in the

  corners; others, that they stemmed from a race of invaders from

  without. To resolve this burning question, the Great Awl was built to

  penetrate the cosmic wall and explore the Space Beyond. And since

  unknown things might lurk out there, powerful weapons were

  immediately manufactured and stockpiled. Trurl was so alarmed at

  16

  Stanisl/aw Lem

  this development that he scrapped the whole model as quickly as

  possible and said, close to tears: ‘Reason leads to heartlessness, Good

  produces madness! Must every attempt at historiographic construc-

  tion be doomed to failure?’ He decided to attack the problem on an

  individual basis again and dragged his first prototype, the Contem-

  plator, from its closet. It began to oh and ah in aesthetic rapture before a pile of debris, but Trurl plugged in an intelligence component and it

  fell silent at once. He asked it if anything was wrong, to which it

  replied:

  ‘Everything continues to be just fine; I only contain my admiration

  in order to reflect upon it, for I wish to know, first of all, the source of this fineness, and secondly, what end or purpose it may serve. And

  what are you, to interrupt my contemplation with the asking of

  questions? How does your existence concern mine? I feel, indeed,

  compelled to admire all things, including yourself, but prudence tells

  me to resist this inclination, for it may be some trap devised against

  me.’

  ‘As far as your existence goes’, Trurl said incautiously, ‘it was

  created by me, created expressly that between you and the world

  there should be perfect harmony.’

  ‘Harmony?’, said the Contemplator, gravely turning all its lenses on

  him. ‘Harmony, you say? And why do I have three legs? Wherefore is

  my head on top? For what reason am I brass on the left and iron on

  the right? And why do I have five eyes? Answer, if it be true you

  brought me into being from nothingness!’

  ‘Three legs, because two wouldn’t provide enough stability,

  whereas four would be an unnecessary expenditure’, Trurl explained.

  ‘Five eyes: that’s how many usable optics I had on hand. As for the

  brass, well, I ran out of iron.’

  ‘Ran out of iron!’, jeered the Contemplator. ‘You expect me to

  believe that all this was the work of sheer accident, pure luck, blind

  chance, happenstance? Come, come!’

  ‘I ought to know, if I created you!’, said Trurl, irritated by the

  machine’s overweening manner.

  ‘There are two possibilities’, replied the circumspect Contemplator.

  ‘The first is, you are an out-and-out liar. This we shall set aside for the moment as unverifiable. The second is, you believe it is the truth you

  speak, yet that truth, predicated as it is upon your feeble under-

  standing, is in truth untrue.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘What seems an accident to you may be no accident at all. You

  In Hot Pursuit of Happiness

  17

  think it insignificant that you ran short of iron, and yet who knows

  but that some Higher Necessity arranged precisely for that shortage?

  Again, you see nothing in the availability of brass but a convenient

  coincidence, yet here too some Provident Harmony entered in and

  interfered. Similarly, in the number of my eyes and legs there surely

  must lie some profound Mystery of a Higher Order, some Ultimate

  Meaning. And truly, three and five—both are prime numbers; three

  times five is fifteen, fifteen is one and five, the sum of which is six,

  and six divided by three is two, the number of my colours, for behold,

  on the left is brass and on the right, iron! Mere chance produce a

  relation of such elegant precision? What nonsense! I am a being

  whose essence obviously extends beyond your petty horizons, O

  unschooled tinkerer! And if there be any truth in your claim to

  have constructed me—which, really, I find most difficult to imagine—

  then you were only the ignorant instrument of Higher Laws, while I

  constituted their aim, their goal. You are a random drop of rain, I the

  flower whose glorious blossoming shall extol all creation; you are a

  mouldering post that casts a shadow, I the blazing sun that commands

  the post to divide the darkness from the light; you are the blind tool

  guided by the Everlasting Hand—solely that I may spring into

  existence! Therefore seek not to lower my exalted person by arguing

  that its five-eyed, three-legged and two-metalled nature is wholly a

  product of arbitrary-budgetary factors. In these qualities I see the

  reflection of a Greater Symmetry, still somewhat obscure perhaps, but

  I shall certainly divine it, given the time to study the problem in

  depth. Importune me then no longer with your presence, for I have

  better things to do than bandy words with you.’

  Incensed by this speech, Trurl threw the struggling Contemplator

  back in its closet and, though it invoked in a loud and ringing voice

  the right to self-determination and autonomy of all free entities as

  well as the sacred principle of individual inviolability, he proceeded to disconnect its intelligence component. This violence done to the

  Contemplator suddenly filled him with a s
ense of shame, and he

  sneaked back to his room, looking around to see if there were any

  witnesses. Sitting at his desk, he felt like a criminal.

  ‘Some curse apparently hangs over any construction work that has

  only Good and Universal Happiness as its goals’, he thought. ‘All my

  attempts, even the most preliminary tests, seem to involve me in foul

  deeds and feelings of guilt before I know it! A plague on that

  Contemplator with its Higher Necessity! There must be some other

  way . . .’

  18

  Stanisl/aw Lem

  So far he had tried one model after another, and each experiment

  had demanded considerable time and material. But now he decided to

  run a thousand experiments simultaneously—on a scale of 1,000,000

  to 1. Under an electron microscope he twisted individual atoms in

  such a way that they gave rise to beings not much larger than

  microbes and called Angstromanians. A quarter of a million of these

  persons made a single culture, which was transferred by micropipette

  to a slide. Each such millimicrosocietal specimen was an olive-grey

  stain to the naked eye, and only under the highest magnification

  could one observe what transpired within.

  Trurl equipped his Angstromanians with altruinfraternal regulators,

  eudaemonitors and optimizers, nonaggression pawls and ratchets, all

  operating at unheard-of levels of beneficence and stabilized against

  any sort of fanatical deviation by both heresy and orthodoxy stops;

  the cultures he mounted on slides, the slides he put in packets, and

  the packets in packages, all of which he then shelved and locked in a

  civilizing incubator for two and a half days. But first he placed over

  each culture a cover glass, crystal clear and tinted a pale blue, which

  was to serve as that civilization’s sky; he also supplied food and fuel by eyedropper, as well as raw materials to permit the fabrication of

  whatever the consensus omnium might find appropriate or necessary.

  Obviously, Trurl couldn’t possibly keep up with developments on

  each and every slide, so he pulled out civilizations at random,

  carefully wiped the eyepiece of his microscope, and with bated

  breath leaned over and surveyed their undertakings, much like the

  Lord God Himself parting the clouds to look down upon His handi-

  work.

  Three hundred cultures went bad at the outset. The symptoms were