The Investigation

by Stanisław Lem

  Sciss spoke faster and faster. Gregory sensed that he had already forgotten everything, including to whom he was speaking. He poured some wine. Sciss played with his glass for a while, moving it back and forth along the tablecloth and tipping it over precariously. Suddenly, he picked it up and drained it in one gulp. Downstairs, the dance floor was immersed in yellow light and mandolins were crooning a Hawaiian melody.

  “Strategic considerations dictate the construction of bigger and bigger machines, and, whether we like it or not, this inevitably means an increase in the amount of information stored in the brains. This in turn means that the brain will steadily increase its control over all of society’s collective processes. The brain will decide where to locate the infamous button. Or whether to change the style of infantry uniforms. Or whether to increase production of a certain kind of steel, demanding appropriations to carry out its purposes. Once you create this kind of brain you have to listen to it. If a Parliament wastes time debating whether or not to grant the appropriations it demands, the other side may gain a lead, so after a while the abolition of parliamentary decisions becomes unavoidable. Human control over the brain’s decisions will decrease in proportion to the increase in its accumulated knowledge. Am I making myself clear? There will be two growing brains, one on each side of the ocean. What do you think a brain like this will demand first when it’s ready to take the next step in the perpetual race?”

  “An increase in its capability,” Gregory said in a low voice, watching the scientist through half-closed eyelids. An unexpected silence prevailed downstairs for a moment, followed by an outburst of applause. A woman’s voice began singing. A young man in tails set up a small side table on which the waiters placed a tray full of silver serving dishes: carefully heated plates, napkins, and silverware followed.

  “No,” Sciss answered. “First it demands its own expansion — that is to say, the brain becomes even bigger! Increased capability comes next.”

  “In other words, you predict that the world is going to end up a chessboard, and all of us will be pawns manipulated in an eternal game by two mechanical players.”

  Sciss’s facial expression was arrogant. “Yes. Only I’m not predicting, I’m drawing conclusions. We are already at the end of the first stage and the rate of escalation is beginning to increase. All this smacks of the improbable, I admit. But it’s happening, believe me. It is.”

  “Yes…” Gregory murmured. He leaned across his plate. “Uh… what would you suggest… about all this?”

  “Peace at any price. You may find this odd, but all things considered it seems to me that even extermination would be a lesser evil then the chess game. I’m only drawing conclusions. I don’t have any illusions. That’s pretty awful, you know… not to have illusions.” Sciss poured himself some more wine. Reluctantly, almost compulsively, he kept drinking. Gregory didn’t have to worry about keeping his glass filled. Downstairs, the orchestra started playing again. A couple walked past their table: the man was swarthy with a thin mustache, the paleness of his face emphasized by the bluish streaks of his beard. The girl, very young, had a white stole over her bare shoulders; it was embroidered with gold threads the same color as her hair. Sciss watched as they went by, staring at the girl with his lips contorted in a pained expression. He pushed his plate away, closed his eyes, and hid his hands under the tablecloth. It looked to Gregory as if he was checking his own pulse rate.

  “And what shall we do next on this lovely evening that began so splendidly?” Sciss said after a while, raising his eyelids. Smoothing down his gray hair around his ears, he straightened up in his chair. Gregory crossed the silverware on his plate. The waiter came over at once.

  “Would you like some coffee?” Gregory asked.

  “Yes, good idea,” Sciss agreed. He kept his hands hidden under the tablecloth.

  “I think I’m drunk…” he smiled in embarrassment, looking around with a surprised, uncertain expression.

  “It does you good every once in a while,” Gregory said, pouring only for himself.

  The coffee was hot and strong. They drank it in silence. It was stuffy and getting stuffier. Gregory looked around for the waiter and, not seeing him, stood up. He found him behind a column near the bar and asked to have the windows opened. By the time he got back to the table a cool, delicate whiff of air was already moving the steam rising above their coffee cups. Sciss was still in his chair, leaning against the railing, his red eyes drooping. He was breathing heavily and the small hard veins of his temple were protruding.

  “Do you feel all right?” Gregory asked.

  “I can’t take alcohol,” Sciss said with his eyes closed. “That is, my organism can’t. My insides are all muddled, simply muddled, that’s all.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Gregory.

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” Sciss kept his eyes closed. “Let’s not talk about it.”

  “Were you against a preventive war? I mean back in ‘46.”

  “Yes. But no one really believed it would work, even the people who were advocating it. There wasn’t any psychological readiness at the time. We were all under the spell of a universal peace euphoria. You know, if you proceeded gradually, you could lead anyone — even the College of Cardinals — into the practice of cannibalism. But you must move slowly, step by step. Exactly like now.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “Various things. I started many things but actually wasn’t able to finish any of them. I was the proverbial stone on which the scythes were sharpened, you see, and nothing much ever comes from that. I won’t finish this last case either. I always run into a dead end. Bah, if only I believed in determinism… but with me it’s all due to a character defect — I can’t compromise.”

  “You’re not married, are you?”

  “No.”

  Sciss gave Gregory a suspicious look.

  “Why do you ask?”

  Gregory shrugged his shoulders.

  “Simply… I wanted to know. Excuse me if—”

  “Outmoded institution…” Sciss muttered. “I don’t have any children either, if you want all the details. Well, maybe if they could be created intellectually… I don’t care too much for this genetic lottery, you see. It looks like I’m your guest — shall we leave now?”

  Gregory paid. As they were going down the stairs the orchestra bid them farewell with some ear-piercing jazz. They had to slip around the edge of the dance floor, jostled by the dancing couples. Once through the revolving doors, Sciss, with a sigh of relief, took a deep breath of cool air.

  “Thank you… for everything,” he said languidly. Gregory followed him to the cars. Sciss had some trouble finding the key in his pocket. He opened the door, unbuttoned his coat, then took it off and threw it onto the back seat. He sat down behind the steering wheel. Gregory stood beside the car.

  Sciss didn’t close the door and didn’t move.

  “I can’t drive…” he said.

  “Move over, I’ll drive you,” Gregory offered.

  He bent down to get in.

  “But what about your car?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I can come back for it.”

  Gregory got in, slammed the door, and quickly pulled away from the parking spot.

  7

  Leaving the empty car in the courtyard, Gregory returned to the lobby. Sciss was leaning on the bannister of the staircase with his eyes half-closed, a vague, pained smile playing about his lips. Gregory waited without saying good night. Breathing deeply — it sounded like a sigh — Sciss suddenly opened his eyes. The two men stared at each other.

  “I don’t know,” Sciss said at last. “Do you have… time?”

  Gregory nodded his head and quietly followed him up the stairs. Neither spoke. Outside his apartment Sciss stopped with his hand on the doorknob as if he wanted to say something; finally he swung the door open.

  “It’s dark inside, let me go first,” he said.

  There was a light on in the foyer. The k
itchen door was open but there was no one there, only a tea kettle whistling quietly on a low flame. They hung up their coats.

  The living room, bathed in light from a white globe on the ceiling, had a neat, festive look. The wall behind the desk was lined with bookshelves; pens and pencils were arranged symmetrically on the desk; a glass table stood just below the bookshelves, with two low green club chairs, their bluish cushions decorated in a geometric pattern, pushed next to it. The table was set with cups, whiskey glasses, trays of fruit and pastries. Spoons, forks — everything was arranged for two people. Sciss rubbed his bony, arthritic hands.

  “Why don’t you sit down next to the shelves where it’s more comfortable,” he said with perhaps a little too much liveliness. “I had a guest this afternoon — let me offer you some of the leftovers.”

  Gregory wanted to say something lighthearted to help Sciss out, but nothing came to mind. He moved one of the chairs and sat down on the arm, turning toward the books.

  He found himself facing an impressive multilingual collection of scientific literature — one shelf was filled with works on anthropology, a plastic card attached to the next shelf had the word “Mathematics” written on it. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed some photographs in an open drawer of the desk, but when he turned in their direction, Sciss moved — or, rather, practically hurled himself across the room on his long legs — hitting the drawer with his knee and noisily slamming it.

  “A mess, it’s a mess,” he explained with a tense look. He rubbed his hands again and seated himself on the radiator next to the window.

  “Your new attempt to find me guilty is just as half-baked as your last one,” he said. “You try too hard…”

  “You’ve had several bad experiences,” Gregory commented. He picked a thick volume at random and flipped the pages; algebraic formulas leaped past his eyes.

  “Quite true. Do you prefer coffee or tea?” Sciss remembered his responsibilities as a host.

  “I’ll take whatever you’re having.”

  “Good.”

  Sciss went into the kitchen. Gregory put back the book, which was entitled Principia Mathematica, and stared at the closed desk drawer for a moment. He was tempted to take a look inside but didn’t dare. The sound of Sciss bustling about in the kitchen could be heard through the open door. After a few minutes the scientist came back with the tea, poured it into the cups in a high, narrow stream, and sat down opposite Gregory.

  “Be careful, it’s hot,” he cautioned. “Are you saying that I’m no longer under suspicion?” he asked Gregory after a moment. “You know something? I could have had motives you never even considered. Let’s say I was trying to get rid of a body — someone I killed, just for the sake of argument. In order to bring about a situation in which it was easy to dispose of it, I got hold of a whole batch of bodies, began moving them around, and created a general confusion in which my victim was lost completely. What do you say to that?”

  “Too literary,” Gregory replied. He was browsing through a thick, glossy-paged volume on psychometrics. “One of Chesterton’s stories has the same plot.”

  “I never read it. I don’t like Chesterton. In your opinion, then, what made me do all this?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t think of any possible motive. That’s why I don’t suspect you anymore.”

  “Did you dig into my past? Did you draw up a chronology and a map showing all my movements? Did you look for clues and fingerprints? With only one exception, I wasn’t at all inconvenienced by your investigation — I didn’t even notice it.”

  “The overall picture didn’t fall into place so I skipped the usual routine. Besides, I’m not a very systematic investigator. I improvise, or, you might say, I tend to be disorderly,” Gregory admitted. There was something stiff in among the pages of the book; he began turning them carefully. “I even have a theory to justify my careless work habits: until you have a specific theoretical structure to fit the facts into, there’s no point in collecting evidence.”

  “Are you an intuitionist? Have you ever read Bergson?”

  “Yes.”

  The pages opened. Between them there was a large photographic negative. It was transparent, but by pressing it against the white paper Gregory was able to make out the silhouette of a human figure bent backward. Very slowly he raised the book closer to his eyes, peeping over it at Sciss. With one finger he moved the negative along the blank area between two columns of print, continuing the conversation at the same time:

  “Sheppard told me you were at his place when the body in Lewes disappeared. So you have an alibi. I was acting like a dog looking for a buried bone — running from tree to tree and digging, even though there was nothing there. I was fooling myself. There was nothing for me to dig in, no grounds, nothing…”

  Gregory systematically moved the photo along the white strip between the columns until he could make out the image on the negative. It was a picture of a naked woman leaning back against a table. One arm, resting against a stack of black bricks that reached almost to her nipple, was partly covered by her dark, flowing hair — light-colored, in reality. Her long legs stretched down from the table, entwined in a string of white beads. In her other hand she was holding a blurred object of some kind, pressing it against her black, tightly closed thighs. Her lips were open in an indescribable grimace that exposed her dark pointed teeth.

  “I think I’ve already made myself enough of a fool in front of you,” Gregory continued.

  He glanced suddenly at Sciss. The latter, smiling faintly, nodded his head.

  “I don’t know. You present another point of view. If we were living at the time of the Inquisition you might have gotten what you wanted.”

  “What does that mean?” Gregory asked. He took another quick look at the negative and suddenly realized that the beads were really a small chain. The girl’s ankles were shackled. Frowning, he slammed the book shut, put it back in its place, and eased himself gently from the arm into the chair.

  “I have very little resistance to pain, you know,” Sciss continued. “Torture would squeeze every bit of evidence out of me. You would probably have broken every bone in my body to save your peace of mind — or, I should say, to maintain your mental equilibrium.”

  “I understand Sheppard about as much as I do this case,” Gregory said slowly. “He assigned me to a hopeless job, and at the same time, right from the beginning, he didn’t give me a chance. But you’re probably not interested in any of this.”

  “As a matter of fact, I’m not.” Sciss put his empty cup down on the table. “I did what I could.”

  Gregory stood up and began to walk around the room. On the opposite wall there was a framed photograph, a large-sized picture of a work of sculpture, a good amateur study of light and shadow effects.

  “Did you do this?”

  “Yes.”

  Sciss didn’t turn his head.

  “It’s very good.”

  Sweeping his eyes around the room, Gregory recognized the desk as the table in the negative. Those bricks — they were books, he thought. He checked the windows; quite ordinary, except that they were provided with black shades, now raised and tightly rolled.

  “I didn’t think you had any artistic interests,” he said, returning to the small table. Sciss blinked and got to his feet with a certain amount of difficulty.

  “I used to amuse myself with that kind of thing a long time ago. I have quite a few pictures like that one; would you like to see some of them?”

  “Very much so.”

  “Just a minute.” He looked through his pockets. “What did I do with my keys? Probably still in my coat.”

  He went out, leaving the door open, and turned on the light in the foyer. He was gone for the longest time. In his absence Gregory was tempted to look at the volume on psychometrics again, but he decided not to take the risk. All of a sudden, he heard a scuffling noise — it sounded like something ripping, a piece of material being torn; Sciss appeared i
n the doorway. He was completely transformed. Straightened up, taking unnaturally long steps, he rushed toward Gregory as if he wanted to attack him. He was breathing noisily. Two steps before he reached Gregory he opened his hand. Something white fell out of it — a crumpled scrap of paper. Gregory recognized the napkin. Floating gently downward, it fell onto the floor. The corners of Sciss’s narrow lips were contracted in an expression of unspeakable loathing. Gregory’s cheeks and face began to burn as if they had been scalded.

  “What do you want from me, you worm?” Sciss screamed in a falsetto voice, almost choking on the words. “A confession? Here’s your confession: it was me. Do you hear? It was me! All me! I planned it, set it up, and got rid of the bodies. I played with the corpses as if they were dolls — I felt like doing it, do you understand? Only don’t come near me, you worm, because I might vomit!!!” His face was livid. Backing up to the desk and supporting himself on it, he fell into a chair; with trembling hands he plucked a glass vial out of his watch pocket, pulled the cork out with his teeth, panting, and sucked in a few drops of the oily liquid. His breathing slowly eased and became deeper. Propping his head against a row of books on the shelf and spreading his legs apart, he forced himself to breathe more regularly. His eyes were closed. Finally he came to himself and sat up. Gregory’s face was burning; he watched without moving from his place.

  “Go away. Please go away,” Sciss said in a hoarse voice, not opening his eyes. Gregory couldn’t move — it was as if he had taken root in the floor. He stood silently, wailing for God knows what.