possible. I can’t go back without it. You don’t understand...”
He said this very quickly, in one breath, and then suddenly stopped, as
though for some reason he couldn’t or didn’t want to continue. A pleading
look came into his eyes.
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65
“I do understand,” I replied after a short pause. “You want to find a specific
work of science fiction and you are in a hurry. I certainly want to help you, but
you have made only very scanty data available to me. All that I know is that it is
some new work and that you didn’t find it on the shelf over there. If you could
tell me something more about it, I might recognize it. I read a lot, almost
everything that comes out. Particularly new things. Could you at least give me
some idea of what the work is about?”
A smile played on the man’s lips. “That I can do, yes. Certainly. It is about
my world.”
We stood there several moments looking at each other without speaking. I
was smiling too.
“Your world?” I repeated, breaking the silence first.
“Yes, but you on Earth know nothing about it. Or rather, nothing was
known until recently. Until the work I am searching for was written. Our star
doesn’t even have a name here, just a number, although it is relatively close,
less than eleven and a half light years away. But it’s a small star, much less
conspicuous than those around it, so there’s nothing strange in it being
anonymous.”
I slowly nodded my head to indicate understanding, as if he were telling me
something quite commonplace. So that was it. One more of those. Yet he
hadn’t the look of one. Quite the contrary. But appearances can be deceptive,
as had been proved often enough. Clothes alone do not the eccentric make.
All kinds of oddballs visit my bookshop. They seem to be irresistibly drawn
to it, and they constitute an ineluctable hazard of my chosen genre. I am most
often visited by those who have had first-hand experience with extraterrestrials,
and for some reason feel this is the right place to bare their souls. At first I
entered into discussions with them, explaining that I class science fiction as
imaginative prose. Their real-life experiences had no place in this category, for
the very reason that they were real. As a rule, however, this distinction was too
fine for them.
Then, in my naivete and inexperience I tried to talk them out of it. Why go
to the inconvenience and expense of shooting across from the other side of the
cosmos, only to subject some commonplace citizen in an isolated house to
unusual lights or sounds? That was when I got into serious trouble. Not only
did they turn a deaf ear to the reasons I cited, they resolutely interpreted my
unwillingness to believe them as reliable confirmation that I, too, was part of
the great conspiracy to hush up visits by extraterrestrials. That was the milder
version. Several flying saucer fans accused me openly and rather peevishly of
being an extraterrestrial myself.
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Z. Živkovic
There is no complete defense against such accusations. Indeed, how can
anyone prove he is not an extraterrestrial to someone who can see antennae
sprouting from his forehead? What arguments can ever shake the believer’s
blind conviction? But to me the primary difficulty stemmed from my profes-
sion. As the owner of a bookshop I could hardly draw distinctions among my
customers based on their view of the world, so my hands were tied. Should I
meet this type of person in some other context, I could solve the problem
simply by raising my voice. A slightly sharper tone has a truly amazing effect on
them. They fall silent at once and withdraw, often in embarrassment. But here,
that would be out of the question. How would it look if a bookshop-owner
yelled at those customers who just happened to take a somewhat unusual view
of his ancestry?
And so I resorted to the last means still at my disposal. Whenever an
eccentric like this one drops in, I listen to his story with utmost patience,
regardless of how far-fetched it is, taking great care to speak as little as possible.
My most frequent reaction is to nod or shake my head from time to time, as
befits the situation, to demonstrate that I am carefully following the story. This
technique has often proved useful. First of all, the whole affair is concluded far
more quickly than if one were to start a discussion; second, after baring his soul
almost every single visitor of this kind ends up buying a book.
Over time this proved adequate compensation for approximately a quarter
hour of my attention. I could almost have made this part of my price list: “The
purchase of a book gives the buyer the right to squander fifteen minutes of the
owner’s time in any way he sees fit”. At first my conscience bothered me a bit,
feeling this partook of prostitution; then my business sense over-rode such
improvident moral purism.
Furthermore, over time I came to see myself as a psychiatrist—a rather
poorly paid psychiatrist, it’s true, but at least there was never a shortage of
patients. Quite the contrary. There were so many of them I could no longer
rely on memory alone, and had had to buy a notebook in which to write down
what each one of them bought, so they would not accidentally buy the same
book twice. This, to be sure, didn’t bother them in the least, since most of the
books were never read—occasionally I even found them discarded next to a
nearby trashcan—but for me this was a matter of professional attitude towards
my work. Every customer deserves the best possible treatment, and the
handicapped get a bonus to boot.
But never before had I encountered a case like this. This was the first time
that an extraterrestrial had visited my bookshop! Perhaps I should have been
jealous. Up till that moment the role had been reserved for myself. Granted,
the situation hadn’t changed essentially. It was just a matter of nuances. My
The Bookshop
67
basic strategy remained the same: don’t question anything and encourage the
speaker to tell his story without holding back.
“Eleven and a half light years,” I said. “Why, that’s really not so small. You
had to travel quite a distance! It must have taken you a long time.”
The man shook his head. “No time at all. It’s hard even to call it travelling.”
“I see. Did you spend the flight in hibernation, then? Is that why it seemed
so short?”
“No, hibernation wasn’t necessary.”
“Oh. Then that means you must have a very fast spaceship. Judging by how
quickly you got here, it must travel considerably faster than the speed of light.”
He looked at me the way a teacher looks at a student who has blurted out an
absurdity. “No spaceship can travel faster than the speed of light.”
“Of course it can’t,” I said, hastening to correct myself. “How silly of me. I
forgot that for a minute. Then how did you get here so fast? Excuse me for not
being able to figure it out for myself—space travel is not one of my strong
points.”
&nbs
p; “In the only way possible. Using the fifth force.”
It’s not easy to carry on a conversation like this. One must keep a straight
face, and there is great temptation to poke fun. It’s even harder to suppress the
laughter that is ready to bubble to the surface. But through long experience I
have become very skilled in self-control.
“The fifth force?” I repeated, expressing the mild surprise I felt appropriate.
“That’s what we call it. You know about it, too, but haven’t yet recognized it
as a force, so you use another name. Actually, it has several names. One of
them, for example, is imagination.”
This time I didn’t have to feign surprise. “Imagination?”
“Yes. Imagination, fantasy, daydreams, whatever you like. The ability to
conceive of something that does not seem to exist.” He indicated the shelves
around us with a broad, sweeping gesture. “All these are the fruit of imagina-
tion, aren’t they?”
I could only confirm that they were.
“And you are convinced that they are pure fantasy. You feel that there’s no
way the worlds of science fiction could ever be real. Isn’t that right?”
“Well...yes...” I mumbled, finding myself in a spot. “I mean, for the most
part... Although sometimes, of course, there might be certain coincidences...
It’s not out of the question... But very rarely...”
“Tell me,” he said, putting a stop to my stammering, “how does a work of
science fiction originate?”
I didn’t reply at once. The conversation had taken a completely unexpected
turn. Who would have thought that we’d wind up discussing the problem of
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Z. Živkovic
literary creation? I have discussed many unusual subjects with the eccentrics
who visit me, but never this.
“Well, I don’t know exactly. My experience in this regard is quite limited. I
have only written a few stories. I suppose the writer cogitates, and then an idea
flashes in his mind and...”
“An idea flashes, yes! Do you know what actually happens at that
moment—when, as you say, an ‘idea flashes’, seemingly out of nowhere?”
Of course I didn’t know, so I shrugged my shoulders.
“The fifth force is activated!”
The pause that followed was deliberate, a dramatic effect calculated to
ensure that the revelation would make the strongest possible impression on
me. To demonstrate enlightenment, I nodded sagely.
“Unlike the four fundamental forces that exist on the level of the very
simple, the fifth force appears solely on the level of the very complex. It can
take effect throughout the cosmos, but in only a single class of locale: in centers
of awareness of sufficiently developed species. In your species this center is
obviously the brain.” The visitor tapped his head with his middle finger.
“Obviously,” I readily agreed, tapping my head in fellowship.
“The fifth force is unrestricted by space or time: it acts instantly, by
completely cancelling the distance between you, the emitter, and whatever
point elsewhere in the cosmos towards which you have directed it. For
instance, by activating the fifth force, you are able to see another world as
clearly as if you were actually in it.”
“I see.” The most important thing in such conversations is to give the
impression that you accept what you are being told easily and without
skepticism. The more outlandish the matter, the more easily you should
appear to go along with it.
“That is the idea that flashes. If you don’t really know what’s going on, that
the fifth force has been activated, it will seem that you have made it all up, that
nothing is real. But actually, nothing has been invented. The world that
suddenly appears in your consciousness is no less real than your own, regard-
less of how unusual it may appear.”
“Very interesting,” I commented.
“All these books here are considered fanciful prose, while in my world they
would be regarded as commonplace documents of unimpeachable authentic-
ity. Your misconception will be rectified once you have mastered the fifth
force, instead of using it in the wild, uncontrolled manner you have until
now.”
“If I’ve understood properly, then this would no longer be a bookshop but
some sort of...archive?”
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69
“Yes, a place where data about other worlds are collected, stored and made
available. That is my field of work. I use the fifth force to investigate other
worlds and catalogue them. That is how I came across the Earth.”
“And so you decided to visit us?”
He shook his head abruptly. “No, no, you don’t understand. It wasn’t that
simple. The fifth force does not transport matter to distant places. Only
information. Whoever uses it does not move from his own world.”
“But you’ve come here to Earth, right?”
“That happened because of the interference.”
“Interference?”
“Yes. When two fifth force beams overlap.”
“Aha, so that’s it.”
The visitor did not continue right away. He took out his handkerchief again
and wiped his face. Several streaks of sweat were now streaming down his
forehead, winding their way downwards to lose themselves in his beard. The
vegetable smell emanating from him had become more powerful in the course
of our conversation, almost intoxicating.
“When I directed my beam towards Earth, something highly unexpected
happened. Another beam was heading outwards from here in the opposite
direction at the same time. Someone had just flashed an idea about my world.
A writer of science fiction, obviously, using the fifth force quite unskillfully,
because if he knew the slightest thing about it he would never have let it
happen. He would have known how dangerous it is when two beams interfere
with each other.”
“Dangerous?” I replied, properly aghast.
“Quite so. Two beams that interfere create a gap in the space-time contin-
uum. If this gap is not quickly closed, it will start to suck in everything around
it. First of all its two end points, Earth and my world in this case, then the
planetary systems to which they belong, and then neighboring star systems.
There is actually no end to its voracity. It’s as though a black hole has opened
up, eleven and a half light years long!”
I could only express appropriate horror. “Why, that’s terrible! Horrible! Is
there anything that can save us, or are we doomed to annihilation?”
“Yes, there is, if I am able to cancel the interference. It’s still not too late for that. But time is running out.”
“Then you must not hesitate,” I said in haste. “How do you cancel the
interference? What needs to be done?”
“I have to find the work about my world. Then go back with it and join it to
my documentation about Earth. When these two fifth force products are
joined together, the interference will disappear and the gap will close.”
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Z. Živkovic
“But how will you go back? Please don’t reproach me, but I still don’t
und
erstand how you got here.” This was not exactly in the spirit of my
strategy. I usually avoid unnecessary questions, if for no other reason than
because they are quite likely to be answered, which needlessly prolongs the
conversation. But I felt I owed it to this eccentric somehow. He had taken
pains to invent an admirable story, not some tedious inanity like most of the
others. Many science fiction writers would envy him for this.
“Through the gap, of course. It can be used as a shortcut until it slips out of
control. The crossing is instantaneous. I traversed all those light years in just
one move, ending up in front of your bookshop. It was like stepping through
to the other side of a kind of mirror, which was a new and very unusual
experience even for me. I never thought I would ever go through a fifth-force
interference zone. It may not look that way to you, but I am really no
adventurer. Although I spend most of my time investigating other worlds,
this is the first time I have physically left my own. Actually, I think I am more
of what you would call a bookworm.”
A rather uncomfortable smile appeared on the man’s lips, as though in
apology. I returned his smile, feeling suddenly sympathetic towards him. In
other circumstances, this could have been an interesting exchange of ideas
between two fellow writers, even somewhat kindred souls. I really liked his
story. Even the bit about the shortcut wasn’t bad. Not exactly original, but
convincing nonetheless. As far as I could see, there was only one weak spot in
the whole thing. I could have ignored it, but the hairsplitting critic in me
prevailed in the end.
“I had no idea,” I said, “that there were humans on other worlds, too. Yet so
you must be—at least, to judge by your appearance.”
“Of course there aren’t.”
“Well, then, how...?” I asked, indicating his body with my hand.
“Transformation,” he replied succinctly, as though this explained
everything.
“Ah, of course. I should have thought of it. Under the influence of the fifth
force, indubitably.”
“That’s right. It makes it possible, while it is in interference, if you know
how to manage it properly. But only for a short period. That is another reason
why I am in a hurry. I won’t be able to stay in this shape much longer. And I
don’t feel very happy in it. It’s very uncomfortable and clumsy. I don’t envy
Zoran Zivkovic - First Contact and Time Travel Page 11