Peace on Earth it-5

by Stanisław Lem

  CONTACT

  It was the end of August already, and before turning on my desk lamp in the evening, I had to close the window because of moths. Except for ladybugs I don’t much care for insects. Butterflies I can take or leave but moths for some reason frighten me. That August there were a lot of them and they kept fluttering outside my window. Some were so big I could hear their thuds against the glass. Since even looking at them bothers me, I got up to pull the curtains, when I heard a sound. A clear, sharp sound, as if someone was touching a pane with a metal rod. I approached the window, the lamp in my hand. Among the fluttering moths I saw one that was all black, larger than the others, and it gleamed in the reflected light. It backed away, then came at the window again and hit it with such force that I felt the frame shake. What’s more, the moth had a small beak instead of a head. I stood fascinated because it wasn’t hitting the glass at random but in regular intervals, groups of three; three dots, a pause, three dots, a pause, repeated until I realized it was the letter S in Morse code. I hesitated about opening the window. It wasn’t a live thing but I didn’t want to let real moths into the room either. I finally got up my nerve and I opened the window a crack, and it flew in immediately. I shut the window and looked around. The moth had lit on the papers covering the desk. It had no wings and now didn’t resemble a moth at all or any other bug. It looked most like a black olive. Then it was hovering above the desk and humming. I reached for it, and it let me take it between my fingers. It was hard, made of metal or plastic. Again I heard the humming, three dots, three dashes, three dots. I held it to my ear and heard a weak, distant, but distinct human voice.

  “Owl here. Owl here. Do you read me?”

  I put the olive in my ear and answered:

  “Mouse here. Mouse here. I read you, Owl.”

  “Good evening.”

  “Greetings.” Expecting a long conversation, I pulled the curtains and double-locked the door. Now I could hear the professor perfectly. I recognized his voice.

  “This way we can talk freely,” he said and chuckled. “Don’t worry, I’m using a scrambler of my own invention. No one will understand us. But let’s stay Owl and Mouse to be safe.”

  “Fine,” I replied and turned off the lamp.

  “It was not that hard,” said Lax-Gugliborc. “You did the right thing. I understood immediately.”

  “But how…?”

  “Better for the mice not to know. In the vernacular of criminals, the mouse should know that his accomplice is not a double-crosser. We have before us different pieces of a puzzle. The owl will go first. The dust isn’t dust. It’s silicon micropolymers of very curious structure doped with selenium so that they superconduct at room temperature. Some joined with the remains of our poor molecular remote on the moon.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Too soon for a definite answer. I have a few ideas. I was able to obtain a pinch of the powder through a friend. We have half an hour before the thing enabling our connection goes behind the mouse’s horizon. I couldn’t get in touch with you during the day. We would have had more time then, but the risk would have been greater.”

  I was dying to know how the professor sent me this metal insect, but I realized I shouldn’t ask.

  “Continue, Owl, I’m listening.”

  “My fears were confirmed, but in an opposite way. I figured that something on the moon would arise out of the chaos, but I never dreamed it would be something able to make use of our messenger.”

  “Can’t you be a little more clear?”

  “Not without getting very technical. I’ll make it as simple as I can. It was an immune response. Not on the whole surface of the moon, of course. At one location, and from there the antibodies spread. What we’re calling the dust.”

  “Where did these antibodies come from and what do they do?”

  “From the rubble of bytes and logic circuits. Some draw their energy from the sun. Which is not that surprising because there were plenty of photoelectric materials there to begin with. How should I put it? The moon gradually built up an immunity to any kind of invasion. I’m not talking about intelligence. We conquered gravity, we conquered the atom, but we haven’t conquered the common cold. If self-regulating ecosystems developed on Earth, you could say that one developed on the moon, albeit nonliving, out of that whole tangle of attacks and tunnelings. In other words the strategies of sword and shield indirectly gave rise, in their mutual destruction, and this without the intention or knowledge of the programmers, to these cybernetic antibodies.”

  “But what exactly do they do?”

  “Well, in the first place I think they acted like the most ancient bacteria on Earth and simply multiplied, and there must have been many varieties of them and the majority perished, as in natural evolution. After a while, symbiotic species emerged. The kind that work together for their mutual benefit. But I repeat: this is not intelligence. They are merely capable of an enormous number of metamorphoses or mutations, like the flu virus, for example. But unlike earthly bacteria, they are not parasites, for they have no host, if you don’t count the computer ruins that first nourished them and let them breed. The situation was complicated by the fact that meanwhile the weapons being produced by the programs still functional underwent a division.”

  “Yes, a division into weapons directed against living opponents and weapons directed against nonliving opponents.”

  “The mouse is quick. Correct. From the first antibodies that arose many years ago probably nothing remains. They evolved into — let us call them selenocytes. These joined into multicellular forms to survive, to become more versatile, much as ordinary germs increase in virulence by growing resistant to the antibiotics used against them.”

  “But what played the role of antibiotics on the moon?”

  “An interesting question. The main threat to the selenocytes must have been those products of the military self-evolution which were designed specifically to attack and destroy them.”

  “You mean, they treated them as an enemy.”

  “Or as good target practice. Think of the artillery with which the pharmaceutical companies bombard bacteria. This accelerated the selenocyte evolution. And the selenocytes won, because they proved to be more viable. A person can have a cold but a cold can’t have a person. Or can it? The persons on the moon were the great, complex systems.”

  “And then?”

  “A most curious and completely unexpected development. The resistance went from passive to active.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “From defense the selenocytes switched to offense. They hastened, and very quickly, the demise of the lunar arms race…”

  “That dust?”

  “That dust. And when only the expiring remnant of the vaunted Geneva project was left, the selenocytes received an unforeseen reinforcement.”

  “Which was?”

  “The dispersant. They made use of it. Not destroying it so much as assimilating it. Or, to put it better, an exchange of information took place. Hybridization took place. A crossbreeding.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “It’s not really all that strange. I too was working with semiconducting silicon polymers. Different, yes, mine were doped with rare-earth elements, but the adaptability of my dust was not unlike the adaptability of the lunar dust. There was an affinity. Similar starting materials, similar results.”

  “And now what?”

  “That I don’t know. The key could be your landing. Why did you land in the Mare Ignium?”

  “The Japanese sector? I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “And your right hemisphere?”

  “Also nothing. I can communicate with it now. But please keep that under your hat.”

  “I will. I’d love to know how you did it but won’t ask. What does it know?”

  “That when I returned to the ship I had a pocketful of that dust. H
ow it got there is a mystery.”

  “You could have scooped it up yourself. The question is why.”

  “And the Agency. What does the Agency think?”

  “The dust caused quite a sensation, and a panic especially when it followed you. You know about that?”

  “Yes. Professor S. told me. He came to see me a week ago.”

  “To get you to submit to tests? You refused?”

  “I played for time. There’s at least one other character here. He advised me not to be tested. I don’t know who he works for. He pretends to be a patient.”

  “There are more of them around you.”

  “You said, ‘Followed me.’ The dust is spying?”

  “Not necessarily. One can carry a disease without knowing it.”

  “And the part about the spacesuit?”

  “That’s a tough one. It was put into your pocket or you did that yourself. For some reason. Just as you landed for some reason. And found something. And someone erased your memory afterward. With the callotomy.”

  “Then there are at least three parties?”

  “It is not the number that matters but how to identify them.”

  “But why is this so important? Sooner or later the failure of the whole lunar project will become public knowledge. And even if those selenocytes are the moon’s ‘immune system,’ what does that have to do with Earth?”

  “It affects us in two ways. First, it means a return to the arms race, which is no surprise. Second — the surprise — the selenocytes have begun to take an interest in us.”

  “In the human race? Earth? Not just me?”

  “Precisely.”

  “What are they doing?”

  “At the moment, only multiplying.”

  “In the laboratories?”

  “Before our scientists knew what was happening, the dust had got out and spread to all four corners of the globe. Only a small amount has accompanied you.”

  “They’re multiplying? And?”

  “So far, nothing. They are the size of ultraviruses.”

  “And they get their energy —”

  “From the sun. It’s estimated that there are a few trillion of them now, in the air, in the oceans, everywhere.”

  “And doing nothing?”

  “So far. Which has caused great concern.”

  “Why?”

  “The sense that this was planned. If you landed, there must have been a reason. But what? They want to know.”

  “But I remember nothing, and likewise the other half of me…”

  “They are unaware that you are now talking to yourself. In addition, there are different kinds of amnesia. Under hypnosis or in certain other ways one can obtain things from a person that he cannot recall for the life of him. They have been careful with you lest some shock or trauma to your brain damage or wipe out completely what you may know though you can’t dredge it up. Anyway our people disagree about how to proceed with the examination… which until now has spared you much.”

  “Yes, I think I know where I stand in this game… But why didn’t the reconnaissance flights that followed yield results?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “My first visitor. The neurologist.”

  “What did he say exactly?”

  “That the scouts returned but they’d been shown stage sets. That’s how he put it.”

  “Not true. As far as I know, there were three more flights. Two teleferic, and all their remotes were destroyed. They didn’t use mine, only conventional remotes. Equipped with special rockets, however, to shoot samples of the soil up to the ship. But nothing came of that.”

  “Who destroyed them?”

  “Unknown, because communication was cut off early. When they landed, the area in a radius of several miles became covered with a fog opaque to radar.”

  “Something new. And the third scout?”

  “He went, landed, and returned. With complete amnesia. He woke up back on his ship. Or so I heard. It might not be the truth. I never saw him. The murkier this business becomes, the more secrecy surrounds it. I don’t know if he too brought back dust. I assume they’re examining the poor man but without success, since they’re still taking such good care of you.”

  “What should I do?”

  “The situation looks bad but is not hopeless. Very soon now the selenocytes will have paralyzed the last of the moon weapons. Shorting them all out. The moon project has already been written off, not officially yet but that’s not the point. A couple of top information scientists here believe that the moon has begun to take an interest in Earth. They say: ‘The selenosphere has entered the biosphere.’ “

  “An invasion, then?”

  “No, probably not, or at least not in any traditional sense. A multitude of genies were sent in well-corked bottles. They broke out, battled each other, and as a side effect microorganisms appeared, vital though not alive. It doesn’t have the look of a planned invasion. Rather of an epidemic, a pandemic.”

  “I don’t understand the difference.”

  “I can present this only in metaphors. The selenosphere reacts to an intruder the way the immune system reacts to a foreign body or an antigen. Even if that’s not quite right, we have no other way of conceptualizing it. The two scouts who went after you had at their disposal the very latest in weaponry. I don’t know the details, but it was not a conventional device, or nuclear. The Agency is keeping what happened on the moon hush-hush, but the dust clouds were so large that they could be seen and photographed by many observatories. What is more — when the clouds dissipated, the ground was changed. Holes had formed, craters, but completely unlike the moon’s typical craters. This the Agency was unable to keep secret, so it said nothing. It was only then that headquarters began to see that the more strong-arm the methods used for reconnaissance, the more strong-arm the counteroffensive would be.”

  “So there you are…”

  “No. Because we are dealing not with an adversary or enemy, but only with a kind of giant anthill. Such strange theories have occurred to me, I won’t even repeat them. But our time is up. Stay put. As long as they don’t go completely mad, they’ll leave you alone. I’ll be away for three days, will talk to you Saturday at this time if I can. Keep well, intrepid Missionary.”

  “Until then,” I said but don’t know if he heard me because there was no answer. I took the olive out of my ear and after a moment of thought wrapped it in tinfoil and hid it in a box of chocolates. I had plenty to think about. I opened the curtains before I got into bed. The moths had left, probably drawn by the bright windows of the other pavilions around the garden. The moon sailed through white, feathery clouds. “We’ve done it this time,” I said to myself, pulling the covers up to my head.

  Next morning Kramer knocked at my door while I was still in bed. He told me that yesterday Padderhorn had swallowed a fork. The man had swallowed cutlery before in order to kill himself. Last week he swallowed a shoehorn. They did an esophagoscopy on him — and gave him a new shoehorn a foot and a half long but he pinched someone’s fork in the dining hall.

  “You came to talk about flatware?” I asked politely.

  Kramer sighed, buttoned the top button of his pajamas, and sat in an armchair beside my bed. “No…” he said in a surprisingly weak voice. “It’s not good, Jonathan.”

  “Depends on for whom, Adelaide,” I replied. “In any case I have no intention of swallowing anything.”

  “It’s really not good,” Kramer said. He folded his hands over his stomach and twirled his thumbs. “I’m afraid for you, Jonathan.”

  “Don’t be,” I said plumping up my pillow behind my head. “I am well protected. Do you know about the selenocytes?”

  I took him by such surprise that his mouth fell open. Then his face grew stupid, the face of a millionaire who had nothing left to fantasize about.

  “I know you heard me. And perhaps you know about the selenosphere too? Yes? Unless your rank is not high enough for you to be privy
. Did they tell you about the sad fate of the quantum collapsar weapon in the last missions? About the clouds above the Mare Ignium? But no, that they wouldn’t tell you…”

  He sat staring at me wide-eyed and breathless.

  “Do me a favor, Adelaide, and pass that box of chocolates on the desk.” I smiled at him. “I like something sweet before breakfast…”

  As he didn’t move, I hopped out of bed and got the box myself. Getting back under the covers, I held it out to him, but keeping my thumb over the piece in the corner.

  “Go ahead.”

  “How do you know?” he asked in a hoarse voice. “Who…?”

  “No need to get upset,” I said, not too clearly because I had caramel on the roof of my mouth. “What I know, I know. And not only what happened to me on the moon but also the troubles of my colleagues.”

  He had difficulty breathing. He looked around the room as if he were there for the first time.

  “Transmitters, secret lines, antennas, modulators, yes?” I went on. “There’s nothing here except that the showerhead leaks a little. Needs a new washer. Why are you surprised? Can it be you don’t know that they are inside me?"

  He sat speechless. He wiped the sweat from his nose. He tugged on an earlobe. I watched him with sympathy.

  The chocolates were good. I had to be careful to leave enough in the box. Licking my lips, I said, “Adelaide, move, speak, you’re making me feel bad. You were afraid for me and now I’m afraid for you. You think you’ll be in trouble? Perhaps, if you behave, I can protect you, you know with whose help.”

  I was bluffing. But why shouldn’t I? The fact that these few words had so dismayed him proved the powerlessness of whatever power he represented.

  “I promise not to name names so I won’t get you into further trouble.”

  “Tichy…” he finally groaned. “For God’s sake. No, it’s not possible. That’s not how they work.”