“Harrumph,” said Lavr Fedotovich. “Any one else have an opinion?”
“I do, if I may,” said Farfurkis. “Comrade Khlebovvodov has given a correct picture of the situation in general. However, it seems to me that despite our work load, we should not dismiss our comrade. I feel that we should treat this one instance with a more individualized approach. I am for a more thorough examination of the problem. No one should be able to accuse us of hastiness, bureaucracy, and heart-lessness, on the one hand, or of negligence, exuberance, or a lack of vigilance, on the other hand. With Lavr Fedotovich’s permission, I would like to recommend a supplementary interview with Citizen Konstantinov with the aim of determining his identity.”
“Why should we try to replace the police?” said Khlebovvodov, feeling that his vanquished enemy was inexorably scaling the heights once again.
“I beg your pardon!” Farfurkis said. “We will not replace the police, but we will be complying with the spirit and letter of the regulations, where in Paragraph 9, Chapter i, Part 6, it says in this regard …” He raised his voice to a solemn peal. “ ‘In cases when the identification made by the scientific consultant with the representative of the administration, who knows well the local conditions, produces doubt among the Troika, a supplementary investigation into the case with the aim of determining the identification is called for either by a plenipotentiary of the Troika or at one of the sessions of the Troika.’ And that’s what I’m suggesting.”
“The regulations, the regulations,” said Khlebovvodov nasally. “We’ll follow the law and he’ll waste our time, the four-eyed crook, he’ll steal our time. The people’s time!” he shouted, casting a martyred eye in Lavr Fedotovich’s direction.
“Why am I a crook?” Konstantin demanded. “You are insulting me, Citizen Khlebovvodov. And I can see that you don’t give a fig whether I’m a visitor or not, all you want to do is to undermine Citizen Farfurkis and make yourself look good in the eyes of Citizen Vuniukov.”
“Slander!” yelled Khlebovvodov, turning deep red. “He’s libeling me! What’s this, comrades? For twenty-five years I’ve gone where they sent me. Not one reprimand. Always with a promotion.”
“You’re lying again,” Konstantin said calmly. “You were kicked out twice without any promotion.”
“This is calumny! Lavr Fedotovich! Comrades! You’re taking on a big responsibility, Citizen Konstantin! We’ll see just what your hundred parents did, what kind of parents they were. He’s collected himself a whole institute of relatives.”
“Harrumph,” Lavr Fedotovich muttered. “There is a motion to end the debate and to conclude the session. Are there any other motions?”
There was silence. Farfurkis barely hid his glee. Khlebovvodov was mopping himself with his handkerchief. Konstantin was staring deep into Lavr Fedotovich, vainly trying to read his thoughts or at least get a glimpse of his soul, but it was obvious that all his efforts were wasted. His four-eyed, noseless face displayed the growing disillusionment of a professional archaeologist who rolls back an ancient stone, sticks his arm into the age-old treasure trove, and feels nothing there but insubstantial dust, sticky cobwebs, and some blobs of indeterminate origin.
“Since there are no other motions before the floor,” Lavr Fedotovich announced, “we shall proceed to the investigation of the case. The floor goes to …” He paused for a long time, during which Khlebovvodov grew faint. “Comrade Farfurkis.”
Khlebovvodov found himself at the bottom of the pit and followed with wild eyes the narrowing circles of the buzzard flying in the official skies now beyond his reach. Farfurkis was in no rush to begin. He circled a few more times, splattering Khlebovvodov with his droppings, and then perched on the peak, preened and, casting a coquettish glance at Lavr Fedotovich, began speaking.
“You maintain, Citizen Konstantinov, that you are a visitor from another planet. What documents do you have to substantiate this claim?”
“I could show you my ship’s log,” said Konstantin. “But first of all, it can’t be moved, and second, I would not like to be bothered or to bother you with proofs. I came here to ask for help. Any planet that subscribes to the cosmic convention is obligated to help accident victims. I have already told you what I need, and now I await your answer. If perhaps you are incapable of giving me that help, then it would be better to tell me straight out. There is nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Just a minute,” Farfurkis interrupted. “We’ll set aside the question of the competence of the present committee to aid representatives from other planets. Our problem now is to verify your identity as that visitor. Just a minute, I haven’t finished. You mentioned your log and said that unfortunately it could not be transported. Then perhaps the Troika could have the opportunity to examine the log on board your ship?”
“No, that is impossible as well,” Konstantin sighed. He was studying Farfurkis carefully.
“Well, that’s your right,” Farfurkis said. “But in that case, perhaps you could offer some other document to certify your identity and background?”
“I see that you actually do want proof that I am an alien,” said Konstantin with some surprise. “True, your motives aren’t clear to me. But let’s not talk about that. As for proof, surely my physical appearance must lead you to think that I am from space?”
Farfurkis sorrowfully shook his head.
“Alas,” he said, “nothing is that simple. Science does not give us a clear enough concept of what man is. That is natural. If, for instance, science defined man as a creature with two arms and two eyes, then certain elements of the population who have only one arm or no arms at all would find themselves in a tenuous position. On the other hand, contemporary medicine is performing miracles. I myself recently saw a dog with two heads and six legs on TV and I have no right …”
“Then, perhaps, seeing my ship. It is not typical of your earth technology.”
Farfurkis shook his head again.
“You must understand,” he said softly, “that in our atomic age it would be difficult to impress the members of an authoritative organ, who have top-priority clearance, with any technological contraption.”
“I can read minds,” Konstantin offered. He was clearly interested.
“Telepathy is unscientific,” Farfurkis said softly. “We don’t believe in it.”
“Is that so?” Konstantin was surprised. “That’s strange. But listen to this. You are about to tell me of the special case of the Nautilus, and Citizen Khlebovvodov …”
“Calumny!” shouted Khlebovvodov, and Konstantin stopped.
“Understand us correctly,” said Farfurkis, pressing his hands to his plump chest. “We do not maintain that telepathy doesn’t exist. We only maintain that telepathy is unscientific and that we don’t believe in it. You mentioned the case of the submarine Nautilus, but it is well known that this was just a bourgeois decoy to divert the attention of the peoples of the world from the pressing problems of the day. Thus your telepathic abilities, whether actual or imagined by you, are merely a fact of your personal biography, which at this moment in time is the object of our research. Do you see the logical fallacy?”
“I do,” agreed Konstantin. “What if I were to fly around for you a bit?”
“That would be very interesting, of course. But unfortunately we are at work now and can not expend time on performances, no matter how absorbing they might be.”
Konstantin looked at us quizzically. I felt that his position was hopeless and I had no time for jokes. Konstantin did not know it, but the Great Round Seal was suspended over him like the sword of Damocles. Eddie was still fooling around with his toy, and I didn’t know what to do. I had to stall for time.
“Go ahead, Konstantin,” I said.
Konstantin did. First he was rather tentative, afraid to break things, but then he got carried away and demonstrated a series of magnificently impressive exercises with the space-time continuum, with various transformations of a living colloid and with the critical
state of the reflective organs. When he had stopped, I was dizzy, my pulse was crazy, my ears were humming, and I could barely hear the space creature’s tired voice.
“Time is flying. I have no more time. Tell me what you have decided.”
No one answered him. Lavr Fedotovich was meditatively twirling the dictaphone mike with his long fingers. His intelligent face was calm and pensive. Khlebovvodov was not paying attention to anything, or making believe that he was not. He scribbled off a note and tossed it to Zubo, who read it carefully and let his fingers run silently over the keyboard of the computer. Vybegallo was suffering. He bit his lip, frowned, and even sighed quietly. A white card plopped out of the computer, and Zubo passed it to Khlebovvodov.
I looked at Eddie. He had the humanizer on his knee and was keeping an eye on the mirrored window while he fiddled with a tiny knob. I held my breath and watched.
“A thousand-year leap,” Vybegallo said softly. “A leap backward,”
Farfurkis muttered through his teeth. He was still leafing through a reference book.
“I don’t know how we’ll be able to work now,” Vybegallo said. “We have glimpsed the future, where all the answers are.”
“But you didn’t see the answers, did you?” Farfurkis mocked. “Do you want to see them?”
“What’s the difference once we see that they do exist? It’s dull and boring to go on searching for answers that we know someone else has already found.”
The visitor was waiting impatiently. He was uncomfortable in the low armchair and he had to sit up unnaturally straight. His large unblinking eyes glowed an unpleasant red. Khlebovvodov threw away the card, wrote another note, and Zubo bent over the keyboard again. “I know that we must refuse,” said Vybegallo, “and I know that we will curse ourselves twenty times over for having done so.”
“That’s not the worst thing that could happen to us,” said Farfurkis. “It would be worse if we were cursed twenty times over by others.”
“Our grandchildren and maybe even our children would simply take it for granted.”
“We should not be indifferent to what our children will take for granted.”
“The moral criteria of humanism,” said Vybegallo giving a short laugh.
“We have no other criteria,” Farfurkis countered. “Unfortunately.”
“Fortunately, my colleague, fortunately. Every time that mankind has turned to others, it suffered cruelly.”
“I know that. I would rather not know even that.” Vybegallo looked over at Lavr Fedotovich. “The problem before us has not been stated correctly. It is based on confused conceptions, vague formulations, and intuition. As a scientist I do not take it upon myself to solve it. That would not be serious or responsible. There is only one thing left: to be a man. With all the resulting consequences. I am against contact. But not for long!” he shouted excitedly. “You must understand us correctly. I am sure that this will not be for long. Give us time, we have been out of chaos for such a short time. We are still waist-deep in chaos.” He stopped and dropped his head to his hands.
Lavr Fedotovich looked at Farfurkis.
“I can only repeat what I said before.” Farfurkis said in a low voice. “No one has changed my mind about that. I am against any contact for a long period. I am absolutely sure,” he added, “that the other treaty-negotiating party would take any other decision on our part as proof of presumptuousness and social immaturity.” He bowed curtly in the direction of the visitor.
“You?” asked Lavr Fedotovich.
“I am categorically against any contact,” replied Khlebovvodov, still scribbling away. “Categorically and unequivocally.” He threw Zubo another note. “I will not state my reasons just yet, but ask to be able to say a few more words on the subject in ten minutes.”
Lavr Fedotovich carefully set down the dictaphone mike and rose slowly. The visitor also stood up. They stood opposite each other, separated by the huge table piled high with reference works, cases of microbooks, and reels of videotape.
“It is difficult for me to speak right now,” he began. “Difficult because, for one thing, circumstances demand lofty rhetoric and words that are not only precise but also solemn. However, here on earth, lofty words have suffered from inflation in the past century. So I will aim only for accuracy. You offer us friendship and cooperation in all aspects of civilization. This offer is unprecedented in the history of man, just as the fact of the arrival of a creature from another planet is unprecedented and our answer to your offer is unprecedented. We answer with a refusal on all points of the agreement you offer, we categorically refuse to offer any counteragreement, we categorically demand a complete end to any contact whatsoever between our civilizations and between individual representatives of them. We wish to announce that we find the idea of contact between two different civilizations in the cosmos to be fruitful and promising in principle. We wish to stress that the idea of contact has long been held as one of the most cherished and noble goals of our humanity. We wish to assure you that our refusal in no way must be seen by you as a hostile act, based on hidden enmity or connected in any way with physiological or other instinctual prejudices. We would like you to know the reasons for our refusal, and for you to understand and if not approve, then at least to keep them in mind.”
Vybegallo and Farfurkis had their eyes fixed on Lavr Fedotovich. Khlebovvodov received an answer to his last note, put the cards together in a neat pile, and also looked at Lavr Fedotovich.
“The inequality between our two civilizations is enormous,” continued Lavr Fedotovich. “I’m not speaking of biological differences—nature bestowed a greater wealth upon you than upon us. There’s no need to speak of social inequalities—you have long passed the stage of social development that we are just entering. And of course, I do not speak of scientific and technological inequalities—even the most conservative estimates put you several centuries ahead of us. I will speak about the direct result of these three aspects of inequality—about the gigantic psychological inequality that in fact is the major reason for the failure of our negotiations.
“We are separated by a gigantic revolution in mass psychology, preparations for which we have only begun and which you have probably already forgotten. This psychological gulf does not allow us to obtain a correct understanding of the aims of your arrival. We do not understand how our friendship and cooperation could benefit you. We have only emerged from a state of constant warfare, from a world of bloodshed and violence, from a world of lies, baseness, and greed; we have not yet washed off the dirt of that world. When we come up against a phenomenon that our reason cannot yet grasp, when all we have at our command is our vast but as yet not assimilated experience, our psychology prompts us to create a model of the phenomenon in our own image. Crudely put, we do not trust you the way that we still do not trust each other.
“Our mass psychology is based on egotism, utilitarianism, and mysticism. The establishment and development of contact with you first of all threatens unthinkable complications of the already complex situation on our planet. Our egotism, our anthropocentrism, the thousand years of education by religions and naive philosophers who taught us to trust in our primordial superiority, in our uniqueness, and in our privileged position in the universe—all this suggests that there will be a monstrous psychological shock, an irrational hatred of you, a hysterical fear of the unimaginable possibilities that you present, a feeling of sudden debasement, and a dread that the rulers of nature have been dethroned.
“Our utilitarianism will lead to a desire in the majority of our people to participate in the wealth of material progress, obtained without effort, for free, and will turn many to parasitism and consumerism, and God knows, we have trouble enough struggling against this as a result of our own scientific and technological progress. As for our ingrained mysticism, for our age-old hope for benevolent gods, benevolent tsars, and benevolent heroes, our hopes for the intervention of a trustworthy authority who would relieve us of all our cares
and responsibilities, as for this reverse side of the coin of our egotism, I think that you cannot even imagine what the results of your appearance on our planet would be.
“I hope that you can see now that permission for contact would destroy what little we have managed to do to prepare the way for a revolution in psychology. And you must understand that the cause of our refusal lies not in you, not in your good points or in your bad—the cause is only in our unpreparedness. We understand this perfectly well, and while categorically turning from contact with you today, we do not plan to make this position permanent. Therefore, on our part, we propose …”
Lavr Fedotovich raised his voice, and everyone stood.
“We propose that exactly fifty years after your takeoff a meeting be held between authorized representatives of both civilizations on the north pole of the planet Pluto. We hope that by that time we will be better prepared to undertake a thought-out and fruitful cooperative venture between our civilizations.”
Lavr Fedotovich finished, and we all sat down. Only Khlebovvodov and the visitor remained standing.
“While subscribing wholly and completely to the content and form of the statement of the chairman,” Khlebovvodov said harshly and drily, “I feel it my duty, however, to leave no doubt in the mind of the other party of our determination to use all our might to resist contact until the agreed-upon time. While completely acknowledging the technological, and therefore military, superiority of your civilization, I nevertheless feel it is my duty to leave no room for misunderstanding: any attempt to force contact upon us will be seen from the moment of your takeoff as an act of aggression and will be met with the entire power of earth’s armaments. Any ship that appears in the range of our military might will be destroyed without warning.”
“Is that enough?” asked Eddie in a whisper.
Everyone froze, as if in a photograph.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It seems a pity. I could listen forever.”
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