Noon: 22nd Century tnu-1

by Boris Strugatsky

  “What do you mean ‘alien’?”

  “Alien… you know, Sergei, as a spacer, you would probably be interested in what we are doing now. I made up a little lecture especially for you, and if you like, I’ll give it to you now. Okay?”

  “It sounds fascinating.” Kondratev leaned back in the chair. “Please.”

  Gorbovsky stared at the ceiling and began, “Depending on tastes and inclinations, our spacers are usually working on one of three problems, but I myself am personally interested in a fourth. Many consider it too specialized, too hopeless, but in my view a man with imagination can easily find a calling in it. Even so, there are people who assert that under no circumstances will it repay the fuel expenditure. This is what the snobs and the utilitarians say. We reply that—”

  “Excuse me,” Kondratev interrupted. “What exactly does this fourth problem consist of? And the first three, while you’re at it.”

  Gorbovsky was silent for a while, looking at Kondratev and blinking. “Yes,” he said finally. “The lecture didn’t come out right, it seems. I started with the middle. The first three problems—planetological, astrophysical, and cosmogonic research. Then verification and further elaboration of the D-principle, id est, taking a brand new D-ship and driving it up against the light barrier until you can’t stand any more. And finally, attempts to establish contact with other civilizations in space—very cautious attempts, so far. My own favorite problem is connected with nonhuman civilizations too. Only we aren’t looking for contacts, but for traces. Traces of the visits of alien space travelers to various worlds. Some people maintain that under no circumstances can this mission be justified. Or did I already say that?”

  “You did,” said Kondratev. “But what sort of traces do you mean?”

  “You see, Sergei, any civilization must leave a great number of remains. Take us, the human race. How do we treat a new planet? We place artificial satellites around it, and a long chain of radio buoys stretches from there to the Sun—two or three buoys a light-year—beacons, universal direction-finders… If we manage to land on the planet, we build bases, science cities. And we don’t exactly take everything along when we leave! Other civilizations must do likewise.”

  “And have you found anything?” asked Kondratev.

  “Well, of course! Phobos and Deimos—you must know about that; the underground city on Mars; the artificial satellites around Vladislava… very interesting satellites. Yes… that’s more or less what we do, Sergei.”

  “Interesting,” said Kondratev. “But I still would have chosen research into the D-principle.”

  “Well, that depends on tastes and inclinations. And anyhow, now we’re all ferrying volunteers. Even proud researchers of the D-principle. Now we’re like the streetcar coachmen of your time.”

  “There weren’t any streetcars left by my time,” Kondratev said with a sigh. “And streetcars were driven not by coachmen, but by… they called it something else. Listen, Leonid, have you had dinner?”

  Gorbovsky sneezed, excused himself, and sat up. “Hold it, Sergei,” he said, extracting an enormous multicolored handkerchief from his pocket. “Hold it. Have I told you what I came for?”

  “To talk spacer to spacer.”

  “Right. But I didn’t say anything more? No?”

  “No. Right away you got very interested in the couch.”

  “Aha.” Gorbovsky blew his nose thoughtfully. “Do you by any chance know Zvantsev the oceanographer?”

  “The only person I know is Protos the doctor,” Kondratev said sadly. “And now I’ve just met you.”

  “Wonderful. You know Protos, Protos knows Zvantsev well, and I know both Protos and Zvantsev well. Anyhow, Zvantsev is dropping by shortly. Nikolai Zvantsev.”

  “Wonderful,” Kondratev said slowly. He realized there was an ulterior motive lurking around here somewhere.

  They heard the song of the door signal. “It’s him,” Gorbovsky said, and lay down again.

  Zvantsev the oceanographer was enormously tall and extremely broad-shouldered. He had a broad copper-colored face, close-cropped thick dark hair, large steel-blue eyes, and a small straight mouth. He silently shook Kondratev’s hand, cast a sidelong glance at Gorbovsky, and sat down.

  “Excuse me,” said Kondratev, “I’ll go order dinner. What would you like, Comrade Zvantsev?”

  “I like everything,” said Zvantsev. “And he likes everything.”

  “Yes, I like everything,” said Gorbovsky. “Only please, not oatmeal kissel.”

  “Right,” Kondratev said, and went into the dining room.

  “And not cauliflower!” Gorbovsky shouted.

  As he punched out the numbers by the delivery-line cube, Kondratev thought, They had some reason for coming. They’re intelligent people, so they didn’t come out of simple curiousity—they came to help me. They’re energetic and active people, so they scarcely dropped by to console me. But how do they plan on helping? I need only one thing…. Kondratev narrowed his eyes and stood still for a moment, with his hand braced against the lid of the delivery cube. From the living room came:

  “You’re lying around again, Leonid. There’s something of the mimicrodon in you.”

  “Lolling is an absolute necessity,” Gorbovsky said with deep conviction. “It’s philosophically unassailable. Useless motions of the arms and legs steadily increase the entropy of the universe. I would like to say to the world, ‘People! Lie around more! Beware the heat death!’”

  “I’m surprised you haven’t yet taken up crawling.”

  “I thought about it. Too much friction. From the entropic point of view, locomotion in the vertical position is more advantageous.”

  “Blatherer,” said Zvantsev. “Get up, and now!”

  Kondratev opened the lid and set the table. “Dinner is served!” he shouted in a violently cheerful voice. He felt as if he were facing an exam.

  There was noise of horseplay in the living room, and Gorbovsky answered, “I’m being brought.”

  He appeared in the dining room, however, in a vertical position.

  “You must excuse him, Comrade Kondratev,” said Zvantsev, who appeared close behind. “He’s always lying around. First in the grass, and later, without even cleaning himself up, he lies on the couch!”

  “Where’s the grass stain? Where?” Gorbovsky shouted, and began looking himself over.

  With difficulty, Kondratev smiled.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Zvantsev said as he sat down at the table. “I see by your face, Sergei, that preambles are superfluous. Gorbovsky and I came to recruit you for work.”

  “Thank you,” Kondratev said softly.

  “I am an oceanographer and am working in an organization called the Oceanic Guard. We cultivate plankton—for protein—and herd whales—for meat, fat, hides, chemicals. Doctor Protos has told us that you are forbidden to go offplanet. And we always need people. Especially now, when many are leaving us for the Venus project. I’m inviting you to join us.”

  There was a moment of silence. Gorbovsky, not looking at anyone, assiduously ate his soup. Zvantsev also began eating. Kondratev crumbled his bread. “Are you sure I’ll be up to it?” he asked.

  “I’m sure,” said Zvantsev. “We have many former spacemen.”

  “I’m about as former as you can get,” said Kondratev. “You don’t have any others like me.”

  “Give Sergei a little more detail about what he could end up doing,” said Gorbovsky.

  “You could be a supervisor on a laminaria plantation,” said Zvantsev. “You could guard the plankton plantations. There’s patrol work, but for that you need special qualifications—that will come with time. Best of all, there’s whale herding. Get into whale herding, Sergei.” He laid down his knife and fork. “You can’t imagine how fine that is!”

  Gorbovsky looked at him with curiosity.

  “Early, early in the morning… quiet ocean… reddish sky in the east. You rise up to the surface, throw open the hatch, climb
out onto the turret and wait and wait. The water below your legs is green, clear; up from the deep rises a jellyfish—it turns over and goes off under the minisub… A big fish swims lazily past… It’s really fine!”

  Kondratev looked at his dreamy, satisfied face, and suddenly, so unbearably that he even stopped breathing, he wanted to be on the ocean, in the salt air, instantly.

  “And when the whales move to new pasture!” Zvantsev continued. “Do you know how it looks? In front and in back go the old males, two or three to a herd—they’re enormous, bluish-black, and they surge forward so evenly that it seems that they’re not moving, it’s the water rushing past them. They go in front, and the young ones and pregnant females after them. We’ve got the old males tamed—they’ll lead wherever we want, but they need help. Especially when young males are growing up in the herd—they always try to split it up and take part off with them. That’s where we have our work. This is where the real business begins. Or all of a sudden grampuses attack.”

  He suddenly came to himself again and looked at Kondratev with a completely sober glance. “To put it briefly, the job has everything. Wide-open spaces, and depths, and being useful to people, and having good comrades-and adventures, if you especially want that.”

  “Yes,” Kondratev said with feeling.

  Zvantsev smiled.

  “He’s ready,” said Gorbovsky. “Well, that’s a spacer for you. Like you, I want to be on the turret… and with the jellyfish

  “That’s how it is,” Zvantsev said in a businesslike manner. “I’ll take you to Vladivostok. The course in the training school there begins in two days. Have you finished eating?”

  “Yes,” said Kondratev. Work, he thought. Here it is—real work!

  “Then let’s be on our way,” said Zvantsev, rising.

  “Where?”

  “To the airport.”

  “Right now?”

  “Well, of course right now. What is there to wait for?”

  “Nothing,” Kondratev said confusedly. “Only…” He recollected himself and quickly began clearing away the dishes.

  Gorbovsky helped him while finishing a banana. “You go on,” he said, “and I’ll stay here. I’ll lie down and read a bit. I have a flight at twenty-one thirty.”

  They went out into the living room, and the navigator looked around. The thought came distinctly that wherever he would go on this planet, he would find at his disposal the same sort of quiet little house, and kind neighbors, and books, and a garden out the window. “Let’s go,” he said. “Goodbye, Leonid. Thank you for everything.”

  Gorbovsky had already oozed onto the couch. “Goodbye, Sergei,” he said. “We’ll be seeing a good deal of each other.”

  Part Three: The Planet with All the Conveniences

  10. Languor of the Spirit

  When Pol Gnedykh appeared on the streets of the Volga-Unicorn Farm early one morning, people stared after him. Pol was deliberately unshaven and barefoot. On his shoulder he carried a many-branched stick, with a dusty pair of shoes tied with twine dangling from the end. Starting near the latticed tower of the microweather installation, a litter robot began dogging his footsteps. From behind the openwork fence of one of the cottages came the laughter of many voices, and a pretty girl standing on a porch with a towel in her hand inquired of the whole street, “Hail pilgrim! Returning from some holy shrine?” Immediately, from the other side of the street came a question, “Don’t we have any opium for the masses?” The venture was working out gloriously well. Pol assumed a dignified air and began to sing loudly:

  Oh, what a hero I,

  Who cold or frost fear not!

  Hung from a stick

  For a thousand kliks

  Of barefoot track,

  Or stuck in a sack

  Or wrapped in a pack

  For the cobbler man

  To fix if he can

  My shoes

  Ta-ra-ta-ta

  I’ve brought.

  Into the astounded silence came a frightened voice: “What is he?” Then Pol stopped, shoved the robot with his foot, and asked into space, “Does anyone know where I can find Aleksandr Kostylin?”

  Several voices vied with each other to explain that Kostylin must be in the laboratory now, right over in that building.

  “On thy left,” a single voice added after a short pause.

  Pol politely thanked them and continued on. The lab building was low, round, light blue. A towheaded, freckled youth in a white lab coat stood in the doorway, leaning against the doorpost, with his arms folded across his chest. Pol went up the steps and stopped. The towhead looked at him placidly.

  “Can I see Kostylin?” Pol asked.

  The youth ran his eyes over Pol, looked over Pol’s shoulder at the shoes, looked at the litter robot, which was rocking on the step below Pol, its manipulators gaping greedily, and then turning his head slightly, he called softly, “Sasha, hey Sasha! Come out here a minute. Some castaway is here to see you.”

  “Have him come in,” a familiar bass rumbled from the depths of the laboratory.

  The towheaded youth looked Pol over again. “He can’t,” he said, “he’s highly septic.”

  “So disinfect him,” came the voice from the laboratory. “I’ll be happy to wait.”

  “You’ll have a long wait—” the youth began.

  And here Pol appealed plaintively, “Zow, Lin! It’s me, Polly!”

  Something in the laboratory fell with a crash; out from the doorway, as if from a subway tunnel, came a whiff of cold air, the towheaded youth stepped aside, and on the threshold appeared Aleksandr Kostylin, enormous, broad, in a gigantic white coat. His hands, with fingers spread wide, were thickly smeared with something, and he carried them off to the side, like a surgeon during an operation. “Zow, Polly!” he yelled, and the litter robot, driven out of its cybernetic mind, rolled down off the porch and rushed headlong through the street.

  Poi threw down his stick and, forgetful of self, darted into the embrace of the white coat. His bones crunched. What a way to go, he thought, and croaked, “Mercy… Lin… friend…”

  “Polly—Little Polly!” Kostylin cooed in his bass, squeezing Pol with his elbows. “It’s really great to see you here!”

  Pol fought like a lion, and at last managed to free himself. The towheaded youth, who had been following the reunion with fright, sighed with relief, picked up the stick with the shoes, and gave it to Pol.

  “So how are you?” asked Kostylin, smiling the whole width of his face.

  “All right, thanks,” said Pol. “I’m alive.”

  “As you can see, we till the soil here,” Kostylin said. “Feeding all you parasites.”

  “You look very impressive,” said Pol.

  Kostylin glanced at his hands. “Yes,” he said, “I forgot.” He turned to the towhead. “Fedor, finish up by yourself. You can see that Polly has come for a visit. Little Lieber Polly.”

  “Maybe we should just chuck it?” said Fedor. “I mean, it’s clear it’s not going to work.”

  “No, we’ve got to finish,” said Kostylin. “You finish up, will you please?”

  “Okay,” Fedor said reluctantly, and went off into the laboratory.

  Kostylin grabbed Pol by the shoulder and held him off at arm’s length to look him over. “Haven’t grown a bit,” he said tenderly. “Have you been getting bad feed? Hold it…” He frowned worriedly. “What happened, your pterocar crack up? What kind of a getup is that?”

  Pol grinned with pleasure. “No,” he said. “I’m playing pilgrim. I’ve walked all the way from the Big Road.”

  “Wow!” Kostylin’s face showed the customary respect. “Almost three hundred kilometers. How was it?”

  “Wonderful,” said Pol. “If only there’d been someplace to take a bath. And change clothes.”

  Kostylin smiled happily and dragged Pol from the porch. “Let’s go,” he said. “Now you can have everything. A bath, and milk…”

  He walked in the mi
ddle of the street, dragging the stumbling Pol after him, and passed sentence while waving the stick with the shoes: “… and a clean shirt… and some decent pants… and a massage… and an ion shower… and two or three lashes for not writing… and hello from Athos… and two letters from Teacher.”

  “That’s great!” exclaimed Pol. “That’s great!”

  “Yes, yes, you’ll have the works. And how about ignis fatuus? You remember ignis fatuus? And how I almost got married? And how I missed you!”

  The workday was beginning on the farm. The street was full of people, men and girls, dressed colorfully and simply. The people made way for Kostylin and Pol. The two could hear cries:

  “They’re bringing the Pilgrim!”

  “Vivisect it—it’s sick!”

  “Some new hybrid?”

  “Sasha, wait, let us have a look.”

  Through the crowd spread a rumor that during the night, near Kostylin’s laboratory, a second Taimyr had landed.

  “Eighteenth century,” someone stated. “They’re handing out the crew to researchers in comparative anatomy.”

  Kostylin waved the stick, and Pol gaily bared his teeth. “I love attention,” he said.

  Voices among the crowd sang, “O, what a hero I, / Who cold or frost fear not!”

  Pol the Pilgrim sat on a broad wooden bench at a broad wooden table amid currant bushes. The morning sun pleasantly warmed his antiseptically clean back. Pol luxuriated. In his hand he had an enormous mug of cranberry juice. Kostylin, also shirtless and with wet hair, sat opposite and looked at him affectionately.

  “I always believed that Athos was a great man,” said Pol, making sweeping motions with the mug. “He had the clearest head, and he knew best of any of us what he wanted.”

  “Oh, no,” Kostylin said warmly. “The Captain saw his goal best of any of us. And he moved straight toward it.”

  Pol took a sip from the mug and thought. “Maybe,” he said. “The Captain wanted to be a spacer, and he became a spacer.”