Fiasco

by Stanisław Lem

  "Very well."

  The picture did not change; only the geodesic lines coiled up in the center, a skein of tangled threads.

  "Microgravs! DEUS, you know what I mean!"

  "Very well."

  DEUS spoke, as always, in an unemotional voice, and yet it seemed to the pilot that there was a touch of impertinence in the tone. As if the machine, superior to him in quickness of thought, was carrying out its orders uncooperatively, to make him feel this superiority.

  In the clump of tangled lines there was an almost imperceptible flutter; it cut through the thick of the grid and was gone. The geodesic knot straightened out. Against the background of the white planet with the crater in the clouds like the eye of a giant cyclone once again stood a rectangular array of gravitational coordinates.

  "The Gabriel shot nucleons into itself, nucleons having a tera-voltage?" asked the pilot.

  "Correct."

  "Tangentially, with an accuracy to one Heisenberg?"

  "Correct."

  "Where did it get the additional energy? Wasn't its mass too small to bend space into a microhole?"

  "The teratron, shorted, acts as a sidereal generator. It pulls in energy from outside."

  "Creating a deficit?"

  "Yes."

  "In the form of negative energy?"

  "Yes."

  "Over what range?"

  "At greater-than-light speed in hyperspace, the Gabriel drew energy over a radius of a million kilometers."

  "Why didn't Quinta detect this, or the Moon? Why didn't we?"

  "Because it is a quantum borrowing in the Holenbach interval. Should I explain?"

  "No need," the pilot answered. "Since the collapse took place in less than a millionth of a nanosecond, two concentric event horizons formed, of the Rahman-Kerr type."

  "Yes," said DEUS. It could not feel surprise, but the pilot sensed respect in the word.

  "Which means that the singularity, left after the Gabriel, no longer exists in this world. Calculate it out, see if I'm right."

  "I did the calculation," said DEUS. "It does not exist, with a probability of 1:10,000."

  "Then why did you give the captain that harangue about the colliding flies?" asked the pilot.

  "The probability is not zero."

  "Judging by the movement of the geodesies, the collapse showed strong buckling away from the sun. If one reduces all the bodies of the system to point-masses, one should be able to find the focus where those rockets of theirs were thrown—by the macrotunneling effect. True?"

  "True."

  "The blur cannot have the dimensions of a parsec. It must be shorter. You can calculate it?"

  "Yes."

  "Well?"

  "The tunneling takes place probabilistically, and the independent variables of the probabilities multiply."

  "Let's translate that into common sense. Besides Zeta there are nine planets in this system. The result is a nonlinear set of equations impossible to integrate, but the planets took their angular momentum from the protosun; therefore one can reduce the mass of the whole system to its center."

  "That is very imprecise."

  "Imprecise, but not by a parsec."

  "Are you one of those phenomenal number wizards?" asked DEUS.

  "No. I come from a time when calculations were also made without computers. Or sometimes one had to proceed 'not by π but by eye.' Anyone who couldn't do that in my profession died young. Why are you silent?"

  "What am I supposed to say?"

  "That you are not infallible."

  "I am not."

  "And that you have no business being called DEUS."

  "I did not name myself."

  "Even a woman wouldn't get in the last word, with a computer. DEUS—you are to calculate the probability distribution along that parsec of yours. It should be bimodal. You will mark this region on a star map and early next morning show it to the captain, with the explanation that you didn't feel like working it out before."

  "No one told me to do that."

  "I'm telling you now. Understand?"

  "Yes."

  And with this the midnight dialogue in the control room was concluded.

  X

  The Attack

  That which mathematically has an extremely low probability also has this characteristic: that it may nevertheless sometimes happen. Of three of the chase craft that were sucked into the compressed space and then expelled—with the gravitational return to equilibrium—away from the sun, there was no trace found; but the fourth was found and taken on board, barely eight days later. DEUS explained this truly remarkable coincidence with sophisticated topological analysis, using the transfinite derivatives of ergodics. But Nakamura, who heard from Steergard about the midnight argument between the pilot and DEUS, remarked that for what happened in reality one could always come up with a calculation, using tricks known to anyone who ever engaged in applied mathematics. As the shattered, crumpled wreck was being drawn into the ship by cranes, Nakamura, curious, asked the pilot how he had reached his conclusion. Tempe laughed.

  "I'm no mathematician. If I did any reasoning, I couldn't tell you what it was. I don't recall who proved this to me, or when, but if a man wants to determine the probability of his own birth, by going down the genealogical tree past parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, he can obtain a value as near zero as he likes. If the parents didn't meet by accident, then the grandparents did, and by the time one gets to the Middle Ages the set of perfectly possible events that would rule out all the conceptions and births necessary for one to be born becomes greater than the set of all the atoms in the Universe. In other words, each of us has no doubt whatever that he exists, despite the fact that no stochastics could have predicted him a couple of hundred years earlier."

  "Of course—but what does that have to do with effects from singularities in the Holenbach interval?"

  "I have no idea. Probably nothing. I'm no expert on singularities."

  "No one is. Our apostolic delegate would say that it was divine inspiration."

  "Divine, I don't think so. I simply took a good hard look at the Gabriel's demise. I knew that it didn't wish to destroy its hunters. Thus it did what it could to avoid pulling them under the Kerr horizon. I saw that the pursuing craft were not in a perfect row behind the Gabriel. If they differed in distance, then they might differ, too, in what happened to them."

  "And it was on that basis…?"

  The Japanese now laughed, too.

  "Not only. There are limits to calculation. It's called limes computibilitatis. DEUS stands on that boundary. DEUS won't touch problems that it knows are transcomputable and therefore insoluble. Which is why it didn't even make the attempt, and I was lucky. What does physics have to say about luck?"

  "The same as about one hand clapping," said Nakamura.

  "That's Zen?"

  "Yes. And now come with me—this catch belongs to you."

  In the glare of many lights, in the middle of the hall, on a duraloid slab, the dark wreck lay like a charred and split-open fish. Dissection revealed the now familiar cellular structure, luminal engines of considerable power, and a melted device in the head, which Polassar thought was a laser gun but Nakamura believed was a kind of light-throttle for the drive, since the object had been to capture the Gabriel and not destroy it. Polassar suggested that this forty-meter corpse be removed from the ship, because, along with the earlier finds, it took up almost half the hall. Why turn the hall into a junkyard? El Salam disagreed. He wanted to hold on to at least one specimen, preferably the last, though when asked by the captain he could not come up with a rational reason.

  The question did not concern Steergard. The situation was radically changed, he felt, and he wanted to hear from the men what line of action they now considered appropriate or best.

  After the satellite scrap was cast overboard, a council was to be held. The two physicists went first to Rotmont, in order, as Polassar said sourly, to "draft a statement and back
it with a bibliography."

  And, in fact, those three did want to coordinate their stand—because in the conversations among the crew since the destruction of the Gabriel one could detect the signs of a lurking split.

  It is not known who was the first to use the expression "show of strength." Harrach immediately declared himself in favor of such a tactic; El Salam also, but with reservations; the physicists and Rotmont were opposed, and Steergard, though he only listened, seemed to be on their side. The others did not take the floor. During the council, the views of both groups came into sharp conflict. Kirsting, surprisingly, joined the advocates of "strength."

  "Force is indeed an irrefutable argument," Steergard finally said. "I have three cautions regarding this strategy, and each is a question. Do we in fact have the upper hand? Can such blackmail lead to the establishment of contact? And will we be prepared to carry out our threats if they do not submit to them? These are rhetorical questions. None of us can answer them. The consequences of a strategy based on shows of strength are incalculable. If anyone disagrees with me, let him speak."

  The ten men in the captain's cabin looked at one another.

  "As for El Salam and me," Harrach said, "we would like the captain to present his alternative. We see no alternative. Our situation gives us no choice. Surely that is obvious. Threats, force, blackmail: these are unappetizing words. Put into action, they can lead to catastrophe. The question of who has the upper hand is the least important. It doesn't matter whether or not we do, but whether or not they think we do, and submit without a struggle."

  "Struggle…?" echoed the monk.

  "Encounter. Confrontation. Does that sound better, Father? But we should avoid euphemisms. The threat of force—putting aside the question of what kind—must be real. Threats not backed by the possibility of action are tactically and strategically worthless."

  "Yes, let's avoid euphemisms," agreed Steergard. "Though it would also be possible to bluff…"

  "No," said Kirsting. "Bluffing assumes a minimum familiarity with the rules of the game. We don't know the rules."

  "All right," said Steergard. "Suppose we have a genuine superiority, and we can display it without causing them any direct harm. An open threat. If such persuasion proves futile, Harrach, then according to you we will have to attack, or at least repulse an attack. Hardly an auspicious prelude to mutual understanding."

  "Hardly," Nakamura supported the captain. "It would be the worst way to begin. Though, true, we are not the ones who created this situation."

  "May I say something?" asked Arago. "We do not know why they tried to catch the Gabriel. Most likely it was in order to do to it what we did to two of their satellites near Juno and now with their chasers. Yet we do not consider that we acted as aggressors. We desired to examine products of their technology; they desired to examine our product. It's simple symmetry. There is no need, therefore, to speak of shows of strength, demonstrations of destruction, attacks. A mistake doesn't have to be equivalent to a crime. Though it can be."

  "There is no symmetry," Kirsting objected. "All together, we sent out eight million bits of information. We signaled from the Ambassador for over seven hundred hours in a circle, on all bands. We lasered. We transmitted the codes and the instructions for their decoding. We sent a lander that carried not a gram of explosives. As for the information transmitted—we gave them the location of our solar system, pictures of Earth, an outline of the evolution of our biosphere, the facts of anthropogenesis, a whole encyclopedia. And the physical constants, which are universal throughout space and of which they must be fully cognizant."

  "But of sidereal engineering, of the Holenbachian foramina, of the Heisenberg units there was no mention, was there?" said Rotmont.

  "Nor of our drive systems and gravitational ranging, of the whole SETI Project, of the Eurydice, the gracers, Hades…"

  "No. You know best what wasn't included, since you made the programs for the Ambassador yourself," said El Salam. "Nor was there mention of the death camps, of the world wars, of the witches burned at the stake. But when someone goes visiting for the first time, he doesn't put everything out on the table—his sins, Daddy's sins, Mommy's sins, etc. If we, in a general way and most politely, informed them that we were able to turn a mass larger than their moon into a thing that could fit inside a keyhole, then Father Arago would tell us that this smacked of criminal blackmail."

  "I offer myself as mediator," Tempe cut in. "Inasmuch as they don't sit in caves and light fires by striking flints, but have space travel at least out to the diameter of their system, they know that we didn't get here by rowboat, kayak, or schooner. And the simple fact that we are here, from a distance of hundreds of parsecs, means more than any flexing of huge biceps."

  "Recte. Habet," whispered Arago.

  "Tempe is right," agreed the captain. "Our very arrival may have alarmed them, particularly if they are technologically incapable of galactic flight but know what orders of power are required for it… Up until the activation of the Ambassador we assumed that they knew nothing about us. But if they became aware of the Hermes much earlier—and we have been in orbit here three months—then our silence, our camouflage, could seem ominous to them…"

  "You exaggerate." Harrach shrugged in irritation.

  "Not at all. Imagine that it is the year 1950, or 1990, and above the Earth galactic cruisers hover, a mile long. Even if they rained down only chocolates, there would be tremendous confusion, panic, not to mention political crises, since every civilization in the multistate phase must have internal conflicts. No show of strength is needed from us, because the crossing of a hundred parsecs itself is such a demonstration—to those who cannot accomplish it…"

  "Very well, then, Captain—what do you suggest we do? How are we to show our good-natured, mild-mannered, peaceful, friendly intentions? How do we assure them that we present no threat to them in any way, that we are just a group of boy scouts on a hike, headed by a priest—when four of their best fighting machines, each fifty times heavier than our archangel, were blown out of the continuum by it like specks of dust? El Salam and I, I see now, were mistaken. The guests arrived with flowers; in the garden, the host's dog attacked them; one guest, attempting to drive the beast away with his parasol, inadvertently impaled the host's auntie. Why talk of a show of strength? It's the snows of yesteryear, it already took place!"

  Harrach, with a broad grin, and not without malice, addressed this to the captain but kept his eyes on the monk.

  "The asymmetry does not lie where you think it," said the Dominican. "To those who do not understand us we cannot be the bearers of good tidings. Saintly intentions cannot be demonstrated as long as they remain only intentions. Evil, on the other hand, can be demonstrated, by causing harm. It is a circulus vitiosus: in order to communicate with them, we must convince them of our peaceful intentions, but to convince them of our peaceful intentions, we first need to communicate with them…"

  "How is it that everything that's happened here wasn't taken into account by our great thinkers, the planners-directors of CETI and SETI?" asked Tempe angrily. "All this just fell on us out of the blue? It's unbelievably stupid."

  The cabin was filled with raised voices arguing. Steergard said nothing. He thought that in this fruitless debate—he saw the futility of it—the men, without fully realizing it, were giving vent to the frustration that had mounted in the course of the repeated attempts to communicate with Quinta. This was the result of sleepless nights, the unrewarded zeal of the investigation of the Moon, the building of hypotheses that, instead of giving insight into the alien civilization, fell apart like a house of cards. The frustration made some feel that they were surrounded by riddles without solutions, or were lost in a maze without an exit, and it made others suspect "them," more and more, of collective paranoia.

  If indeed there was paranoia on Quinta, it was contagious. Steergard noted that the indicator light above the shelf by his bunk, in the back of the cabin, was off. Someon
e had thrown the switch in the control room, cutting off the central brain of the ship from this cabin, someone who apparently did not want the cold, rational, logical presence of DEUS at this meeting. Steergard did not ask who had done it. He knew his men; among them there was no coward or liar who would deny the action—but it might have been done unconsciously, like covering one's nakedness before a stranger, in a reflex quicker than modesty.

  So he said nothing, but turned the terminal back on and requested DEUS to make an optimal decision prognosis.

  DEUS replied that it lacked sufficient data to optimize moves. In the request, besides, there was implicit an inevitable anthropocentrism. People spoke about themselves and others in terms of good or bad. The same applied to their general history. Many considered history an accumulation of cruelties, of senseless subjugations—senseless even without considering ethics, since neither the aggressors nor their victims derived anything but the breakup of culture, the fall of empires, on whose ruins new empires rose. In a word, many held human history in contempt, but as a rule no one thought that it was some hideous, horrible psychozoic aberration in the Universe—that the Earth was a planet of brutal murderers, unique among millions of globes, a place where intelligence yielded blood and pain, contrary to the cosmic norm. As a rule, people, in their heart of hearts, without thinking about it overmuch, considered Earth's history—in its whole course, from the paleopithecus and australopithecus up to the modern day—to be "normal," a type frequently encountered in the set of cosmic civilizations.

  But in this matter nothing was known, and no method existed whereby from that informational zero anything more than zero could be extracted. The Ortega-Nilssen chart indicated only the average time separating the birth of the protoculture from the technological explosion. The curve of the diagram—the so-called main road of the psychozoics—did not reflect either biological or sociological (cultural, political) factors, which together shaped the specific history of the Intelligent Beings. Such an omission was justified by terrestrial experience, because the clashes between different faiths and cultures, between different forms of government and ideology—colonializations and decentralizations, the rise and fall of empires—in no way interfered with the pace of technological advances. This was a parabolic curve unaffected in its course by such historical disturbances and shocks as invasions, plagues, and genocides, because technology, once it gained momentum, became a variable independent of the civilizational substructure. It became, in integration, a logistic curve of an autocatalytic process.