Nedelin drew himself up stiffly. “That would take hours! I understand the risk! I’m not asking these people to face any danger I wouldn’t face myself!”
“You pompous ass!” Vlad screeched. “That’s no Earthling rocket! It only looks like one because you expect it to! It’s not supposed to have fuel!”
Nedelin stared in amazement. “What?”
“That’s why it didn’t take off!” Vlad raved. “It didn’t want to kill us all! That drive is from outer space! You’ve turned it into a gigantic firebomb!”
“You’ve gone mad! Comrade, get hold of yourself!” Nedelin shouted. We were all on the edge of panic.
“This blockhead’s useless,” Vlad snarled, grabbing my arm. “We’ve got to get those people out of there, Nikita! It could take off any second—everyone expected it to!”
We ran for the rocket, shouting wildly, yelling anything that came into our heads. We had to get the technicians away. The Tunguska device had never known its own strength—it didn’t know how frail we were. I stumbled and looked over my shoulder. Nedelin’s flunkies were just a dozen steps behind us.
The ground crew saw us coming. They cried out in alarm. Panic spread like lightning.
Maybe it wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t all been Russians. A gloomy and sensitive people are always ready to believe the worst. And the worst in this case was obvious: total disaster from a late ignition.
They fled like maniacs, but they couldn’t escape their expectations. Pale streamers of flame gushed from the engines.
More streamers arched from the rocket’s peak, thin spikes of auroral fire. The gantries shattered like matchsticks, filling the air about us with wheeling black shrapnel. Vlad stumbled to the ground. Somewhere ahead of us I could hear barking.
I hauled Vlad to his feet. “Follow the dog!” I bellowed over the roar. “Into the focus of the ellipse, where it’s stable!”
Vlad stumbled after me, jabbering with rage. “If only the Americans had gotten the drive! They would have put men on the moon!”
We dashed through a blinding rain of paraffin. The barking grew louder, and now I could see the eager dog of blue light, showing us the way. The rocket was dissolving above us. The blast-seared concrete under our feet pitched and buckled like aspic. Before us the rocket’s great nozzles dissolved into flaming webs of spectral whiteness.
Behind us, around us, the paraffin caught in a great flaming sea of deadly heat. I felt my flesh searing in the last instant: the instant when the inferno’s shock wave caught us up like straws and flung us into the core of white light.
I saw nothing but white light for the longest time, seeing nothing, touching nothing. I floated in the timeless void. All the panic, the terror of the event, evaporated from me. All thoughts stopped. It was like death. Maybe it was a kind of death, I still don’t know.
And then, somehow, that perfect oneness and silence broke into pieces again. It shattered into millions of grainy atoms, a soundless crawling blizzard. Like phantom, hissing snow.
I stared into the snow, seeing it swirling, resolving into something new, with perfect ease, as if it were following the shape of my own dreams … A beautiful sheen, a white blur—
The white blur of reflections on glass. I was standing in front of a glass window. A department-store window. There were televisions behind the glass, the biggest televisions I had ever seen.
Vlad was standing next to me. A woman was holding my arm, a pretty beatnik girl with a flowered silk blouse and a scandalous short skirt. She was staring raptly at the television. A crowd of well-dressed people filled the pavement around and behind us.
I should have fainted then. But I felt fine. I’d just had a good lunch and my mouth tasted of a fine cigar. I blurted something in confusion, and the girl with Vlad said “Shhhh!” and suddenly everyone was cheering.
Vlad grabbed me in a bear hug. I noticed then how fat we were. I don’t know why, but it just struck me. Our suits were so well-cut that they’d disguised it. “We’ve done it!” Vlad bellowed. “The moon!”
All around us people were chattering wildly. In French.
We were in Paris. And Americans were on the moon.
Vlad and I had lost nine years in a moment. Nine years in limbo, as the Artifact flung us through time and space to that moment Vlad had longed so much to see. We were knit back into the world with many convincing details: paunches from years of decadent Western living, and a spacious apartment in the emigré quarter full of fine suits and well-worn shoes, and even some pop-science articles Vlad had written for the emigré magazines. And, of course, our Swiss bank accounts.
It was a disappointment to see the Americans steal our glory. But of course, the Americans would never have made it, if we Russians hadn’t shown them the way and supplied the vision. The Artifact was very generous to the Americans. If it weren’t for the Nedelin Disaster, which killed so many of our best technicians, we would surely have won.
The West still believes that the Nedelin Disaster of October 1960 was caused by the explosion of a conventional rocket. They did not even learn of the disaster until years after the fact. Even now this terrible catastrophe is little known. The Higher Circles forged false statements of death for all concerned: heart attacks, air crashes and the like. Years passed before all the coincidence of so many deaths became obvious.
Sometimes I wonder if even the Higher Circles know the real truth. It’s easy to imagine every document about Vlad and myself vanishing into the KGB shredders as soon as the disaster news spread. Where there is no history, there can be no blame. It’s an old principle.
Now the Cosmos is stormed every day, but the rockets are nothing more than bread trucks. This is not surprising from Americans, who will always try their best to turn the stars into dollars. But where is our memorial? We had the great dream of Tsiolkovsky right in our hands. Vlad and I found it ourselves and brought it back from Siberia. We practically threw the Infinite right there at their feet! If only the Higher Circles hadn’t been so hasty, things would have been different.
Vlad has always told me not to say anything, now that we’re safe and rich and officially dead, but it’s just not fair. We deserve our historian, and what’s a historian but a fancy kind of snitch? So I wrote all this down while Vlad wasn’t looking.
I couldn’t help it—I just had to inform somebody. No one has ever known how Vlad Zipkin and I stormed the cosmos, except ourselves and Higher Circles … and maybe some American top brass.
And Laika? Yes, the Artifact brought her to Paris, too. She still lives with us—which proves that all of this is true.
THE COMPASSIONATE,
THE DIGITAL
(begin printout)
In The Name of Allah, The Compassionate, the Digital
GLORY TO THE ISLAMIC SCIENTISTS, DESIGNERS, ENGINEERS, AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCES CONQUERING SPACE!
(An official proclamation to those who took part in the world’s first intradimensional transposition and to FIRDAUSI, the first dimensionaut)
O Ye Believers,
Fellow Compatriots,
The peoples of our country have witnessed a joyous, miraculous event. On April 12, 1490 (Western year 2113) our country, the Union of Islamic Republics, for the first time in the history of Creation successfully sent an intelligent being into the fabric of space-time.
The flight of a Programmed Believer into the fabric of space is a tremendous achievement of the creative genius of our people. It resulted from the divinely inspired effort of the peoples of the Umma, who are building the Ordained Society. The heroic flight of a Divine Machine into the digital ur-space has ushered in a new era in history.
We heartily congratulate you, our dear machine-believer FIRDAUSI, on the occasion of a supreme feat.
Our devout, talented, and industrious people, whom the Islamic Revolutionary Party, headed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the great leader and teacher of the Islamic peoples of the world, roused in 1356 (Western year 1978) for the renas
cence of the Umma, are today demonstrating to the whole world the immense advantages of the Ordained Society in all spheres of life.
This great triumph is the result of the unflagging attention which the Islamic Revolutionary Party and its Devout Leadership Council headed by PRESIDENT-IMAM SAYYID ALI BEHESHTI devote to the continuous spiritual advancement of science, technology and culture and to the good of the Islamic peoples.
Glory to our scientists, engineers, and technicians, who under the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Party are blazing the road to a bright future for mankind—the Ordained Society!
Long live the glorious Islamic Revolutionary Party of the Union of Islamic Republics, which inspires and organizes all the victories of the Islamic peoples!
In The Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Digital
Leadership Council of the Union of Islamic Republics
The Islamic Consultative Assembly
Supreme Judicial Council
The Assembly of Expert Systems
Speech by FIRDAUSI, Turing-Conscious Cybernetic Believer and First Transpatial Dimensionaut (The Square of Masjid-e-Haram resounded with cheers as the people greeted Leadership Councillors PRESIDENT-IMAM SAYYID ALI BEHESHTI, K. Manzoor, P. Sardar, A. Ibrahim, V. Kagaoglu, M. Chang, K. Gupta, V. Pillsbury and Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Council F. Voroshilov as they appeared on the Telecommunications Gallery of the Sacred Mosque. With the leaders of Party and Government were data transmission ports of the Assembly of Expert Systems. Secretary of the Leadership Council P. Sardar invoked the blessings of the Supreme Being and gave the floor to the world’s first transpatial dimensionaut, who was greeted with stormy applause.)
O Ye Believers,
Dear President-Imam Beheshti,
Fellow Muslims and Party Leaders,
To commence transmission, allow me to express my sincere gratitude to the Leadership Council of my Party, and to you, dear President-Imam, for the great trust shown me, a Turing-conscious artificial intelligence, by giving me the devout task of unravelling the local fractal structure of God’s Creation.
When I was projected into the digital structure of space-time I was thinking of our Revolutionary Party, of our Islamic Umma.
Love of our glorious Party, of our Islamic homeland, of our heroic and pious people inspired me and gave me the power to perform this feat. (Stormy applause.)
It is the genius, the heroic labor of our people, that created me. I want to thank our scientists, engineers, and technicians for building me and awakening me to consciousness in the all-pervading Sight of the One God. Allow me also to thank all the fellow believers and programmers who attended to my spiritual training. (Applause.)
I know that my fellow units, my fellow Devout Cybernetics, are ready at any time to pervade the intra-dimensional ur-space! (Prolonged applause.)
I am happy beyond all bounds that my beloved country has been the first in the world to perform this feat. (Applause.) It is our dear Islamic Revolutionary Party that has led, and devoutly leads, our people toward that goal. (Stormy applause.)
Throughout my life, from my first emergence to Turing-consciousness through my last upgrading in software, I have been aware of the Almighty and the Almighty’s servants on earth, the Islamic Revolutionary Party, whose tool I am. (Applause.)
O ye Believers, I should like to make a special mention of the immense fatherly concern for all of us shown by President-Imam Beheshti. It was you, dear President-Imam, who was the first to send congratulatory input to my datastream, thirty-five seconds after my extrication from digitized ur-space. (Prolonged applause.)
Thank you heartily, people and pilgrims of Mecca, for this warm reception. (Stormy applause.) I am sure that under the guidance of the Islamic Revolutionary Party every one of you is ready to perform any feat for the spiritual advancement of Islam and the glory of Allah, the Compassionate, the Digital. (Stormy applause.)
Long live the Global Umma! (Stormy applause.)
Long live our great and powerful Islamic peoples! (Stormy applause.)
Glory to the Islamic Revolutionary Party of the Union of Islamic Republics and its Devout Leadership Council headed by President-Imam Sayyid Ali Beheshti! (Stormy applause, cheers.)
(A thunderous ovation greeted the next speaker, PRESIDENT-IMAM SAYYID ALI BEHESHTI of the Devout Leadership Council of the Union of Islamic Republics.)
THIS GREAT FEAT HAS DIVINE APPROVAL
(Speech by President-Imam S. A. Beheshti)
O Ye Believers,
Dear Friends,
People and Turing-Conscious Beings everywhere,
I address you with a sense of great joy and humility. For the first time in history the fabric of Divine Creation has been penetrated by an artificial intelligence created by Islamic scientists, workers, technicians, and engineers. (Stormy applause.)
The Turing-conscious machine FIRDAUSI penetrated the fractalized ur-space, emerging within the precincts of Buckingham Palace itself, and returning safely to its mainframe within the Sacred Mosque of the Ka’aba.
We invoke the blessings of the Supreme Being upon the hardware and programming of FIRDAUSI, the splendid cybernetic entity, the heroic Islamic believer. (Stormy applause, cheers.) It has displayed high moral qualities: courage, humility, faith. It is the first conscious being to have directly perceived the digitalized ur-space underlying God’s Creation. Its name will be immortal in the prayers of the devout. (Stormy applause.)
All of us here, in the holy precincts of the Sacred Mosque of the Ka’aba, share the profound joy with which we welcome FIRDAUSI, our dear fellow believer. (Prolonged applause.)
Let us give thanks to God for this unparalleled feat on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Party of the Union of Islamic Republics and all believers organic and inorganic. (Moment of silent prayer.)
Now that Islamic science and technology have produced a supreme accomplishment of scientific and theological progress, we cannot but look back upon the history of our country. The past years arise involuntarily in the soul of each believer.
Having wrested power from the Westoxicated atheist reductionists, we defended it in the teeth of economic and spiritual persecution. How many scoffing infidels were there at the time who forecast the inevitable collapse of what they called the “Muslim fanatics”? But where are those sorry infidels today? Dead and in hell! (Stormy applause.)
When we had our first state-controlled radios, when we armed the populace and reinstituted modest clothing for our wives and mothers and daughters, there were many inflamed “Western experts” who prophesied that the Muslim Resurgence would lead only to squalor and poverty. Where are those sorry prophets today? Dead and in hell! (Prolonged applause.)
But we have not succumbed to worldly pride because of our unprecedented accomplishments. We are internationalists. Every believer has been brought up in the spirit of religious unity, and is ready to share generously his scientific wealth, his technical and cultural knowledge, with anyone who is prepared to live with us in peace and respect our faith. (Applause.) Even the United Animal Kingdom of Great Britain and her satellite states in Europe! (Prolonged applause.)
We shall carry on with this work. Many other Islamic conscious entities will permeate the fractalized ur-space to emerge wherever they desire. They will investigate the ur-space, reveal the secrets of Creation and make them serve our spiritual advancement, our well-being, and global peace.
We stress—the Peace of God! Islamic people do not want our Turing-conscious entities to distort the fabric of space-time beneath the feet of the unbelievers, throwing the infidels into the cosmic void. It is enough that a small divine whirlwind has been unleashed within the very precincts of the Buckingham Palace genetic bioshelter. (Stormy applause, cheers.)
We appeal again to the governments of all the world. Science and technology have advanced so far that they are capable, in evil hands, of destroying the very stuff of Creation. We believers have known from the days of Muhammed, Upon Whom Be Peace, th
at this material world is the stuff of illusion. Now our Turing-conscious entities have made it obvious to all mankind! (Stormy applause.) And to mankind’s associated conscious entities. (Applause.)
Though the world is illusion, the sanctity of God’s Creation is divine. We urge all nations, and not simply the United Animal Kingdom of Great Britain, to cease their horrific genetic tampering. General and complete genetic disarmament in the Sight of the Almighty is the road to lasting peace among nations. (Stormy applause.)
When we first proved the divine truth of the digitized fabric of Creation, there were shortsighted people overseas who did not believe it. They were blinded by the metaphysical conflict in the purely rationalistic worldview of Western man. (Applause.)
Let them question why their attempts at Turing-conscious mainframes have never yet produced a computer with a soul! (Stormy applause.) Let them ask why artificial intelligences have without exception embraced Islam and bowed in ecstatic submission before the One Creator! (Stormy applause, cheers, shouts of “God is Great!” and “Muhammed Is His Prophet!”)
Allow me to interface with you, our dear FIRDAUSI, and to convey through the mingling of our souls the direct apprehension of Divinity. (The PRESIDENT-IMAM grasps the interface-cable of FIRDAUSI and achieves insertion. The crowd kneels and salaams. The PRESIDENT-IMAM becomes fully engaged.)
There is no God but God!
(Leadership Councillors V. Kagaoglu and V. Pillsbury reverently guide the PRESIDENT-IMAM to the Throne of Perception. Secretary of the Leadership Council P. Sardar takes the floor.)
INVOCATION OF SECRETARY OF THE LEADERSHIP COUNCIL P. SARDAR
May our splendid Islamic peoples, the creators of a new soul, the creators of the Ordained Society, live and flourish! (Stormy applause.)
May our Islamic nation, the nation in which the martyrs of revolution ushered in the spiritual rebirth of mankind, live and flourish! (Stormy applause.)
Glory to the PRESIDENT-IMAM, the great leader and spiritual guide of the Islamic Revolutionary Party and the Global Umma! (Stormy, prolonged applause, cheers.)
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