Memoirs of a Space Traveler

by Stanisław Lem

  I should have stayed on the premises and watched over everything, in view of my tremendous responsibility. But no, I wanted to unwind. . . and went to a small resort. Actually -- to tell the truth -- I was all swollen with mosquito bites, and that was why I longed for a dip in the cool ocean. If it hadn't been for those damned mosquitoes. . . But I'm not going to put the blame on anything or anyone: it was all my fault. Just before I left, I had a quarrel with one of the professor's colleagues, a certain Aloysius Bunch. Actually, he was not even a colleague, only a lab assistant, but a fellow countryman of Razglaz's. This individual, whose job it was to monitor the equipment, demanded -- out of the blue -- that he be included in the list of Creators. Because -- he said -- if it weren't for him, the cryotron wouldn't work, and if the cryotron didn't work, the electron wouldn't act properly. . . etc. I laughed at him, naturally, and he appeared to back down, but actually the man began to make his own plans in secret. He could do nothing intelligent himself, but he formed a conspiracy with two acquaintances, types who hung around the Nuclear Research Institute in Bombay in hopes of finding a sinecure. They were the German Ast A. Roth and the American Lou Cipher.

  As was shown by the inquiry conducted after the event, Bunch let them into the lab at night, and the rest was owing to the carelessness of Professor Razglaz's junior assistant, a doctoral candidate named Sarpint. Sarpint had left the keys to the safe on a desk, which made the intruders' task all the easier. He later pleaded illness and presented medical evidence, but the whole institute knew that the jerk was involved with a certain married woman, one Eve Addams, and was so busy groveling at her feet that he neglected his official duties. Bunch led his accomplices to the cryotron; they removed the Dewar vessel from the cryotron, extracted from the vessel the box containing the priceless bullet, and made their infamous parametric "adjustments," the results of which anyone can see. All you have to do is look around you. Afterward they pleaded, each upstaging the others, that they had had the "best intentions," and had also hoped for glory (!!), especially since there were three of them.

  A fine Trinity! As they admitted under the weight of evidence and under the fire of cross-examination, they had divided up the work. Herr Roth, a former student at Gottingen (but Heisenberg himself had booted him out for putting pornographic pictures in the Aston Spectograph), handled the physical side of Creation and made a royal mess of it. It is because of him that the so-called weak interactions do not correspond to the strong, and that the symmetry of the laws of conservation is imperfect. Any physicist will immediately know what I mean. This same Roth, who made a mistake in simple addition, is responsible for the fact that the electron charge, when it is calculated now, gains an infinite value. It is also thanks to this blockhead that one cannot find quarks anywhere, although in theory they exist! The ignoramus forgot to make a correction in the dispersion formula! He also deserves "credit" for the fact that interfering electrons blatantly contradict logic. And to think that the dilemma over which Heisenberg racked his brains his whole life long was caused by his worst and dullest student!

  But he committed a far more serious crime. My Creation Plan provided for nuclear reactions, for without them there would be no radiant energy of stars, but I eliminated the elements of the uranium group, so that mankind would be unable to produce atom bombs in the mid-twentieth century -- that is, prematurely. Mankind was to harness nuclear energy only as the synthesis of the hydrogen nuclei into the helium, and since that is more difficult, the discovery could not be expected before the twenty-first century. Roth, however, brought the uranides back into the project. Unfortunately, I was unable to prove that he had been put up to this by agents of a certain imperialist intelligence agency in connection with plans of military supremacy. . . The man ought to have been tried for genocide; but for him the Japanese cities would not have been bombed in World War II.

  The second "expert" in this select trio, Cipher, had finished medical school, but his license to practice was revoked for numerous violations. Cipher handled the biological side and made suitable "improvements" in it. My own reasoning had gone as follows. The world is the way it is, and mankind behaves the way it does, because everything arose by chance, that is, haphazardly, through the initial violation of fundamental laws. One has but to reflect a moment to see that under such conditions things could be worse! The determining factor, after all, was randomness -- the "Creator" being the fluctuational caprice of Nothingness, which contracted a monstrous and nightmarish debt by inflating, without rhyme or reason, the metagalactic bubble!

  I recognized, to be sure, that certain features of the Universe could be left as they were, with a little touching up and correction, so I filled in what was needed. But as far as Man went, ah, there I became radical. I crossed out all his vileness with one stroke. The foliation I mentioned above, which replaced body hair, would have helped establish a new ethics, but Mr. Cipher thought hair more important. He "missed" it, you see. One could make such nice fringes, whiskers, and other fancy things with it. On the one hand, my morality of fellowship and humanism; on the other, the value system of a hairdresser! I assure you, you would not know yourselves if it hadn't been for Lou Cipher, who copied back into the electron from a cassette all the hideous features that you behold in the mirror.

  Finally, as for Lab Assistant Bunch, though he was not capable of doing anything himself, he demanded that his cronies immortalize his part in the Creation of the World. He wanted -- and I shudder as I write this -- he wanted his name to be visible from every corner of the firmament. When Roth explained to him that stars cannot form permanent monograms or letters, because of their movements, Bunch desired that they at least be grouped in large clusters, or bunches. This, too, was done.

  On October 20, when I placed my finger on the button of the console, I had no idea what I was actually creating. It came to light a couple of days later, when we were checking the tapes and discovered what had been recorded, by the vile trio, in our positron. The professor was crushed. As for me, I did not know whether to blow out my brains or someone else's. Eventually reason prevailed over anger and despair, because I knew that nothing could be changed now. I did not even take part in the interrogation of the miscreants who had befouled the world I created. Professor Tarantoga told me about half a year later that the three intruders had played in the Creation a role that religion usually assigned to Satan. I shrugged. What sort of Satan did those three asses make? But the blame is mine; I was careless and left my post. If I wanted to look for excuses, I could say the culprit was the Bombay pharmacist who sold me, instead of decent mosquito repellent, an oil that attracted them as honey does bees. But in this way you could blame God-knows-whom for the flaws in existence. I do not intend to defend myself thus: I am responsible for the world as it is and for all human failing, since it was in my power to make both better.

  The Twenty-fourth Voyage

  On day 1,006, having left the local system of the Nereid Nebula, I noticed a spot on the screen and tried rubbing it off with a chamois cloth. There was nothing else to do, so I spent four hours rubbing before I realized that the spot was a planet and rapidly growing larger. Circling this heavenly body, I was not a little surprised to find that its vast continents were covered with regular patterns and geometric configurations. I landed with due caution in the middle of an open desert. It was covered with small disks, perhaps half a meter in diameter; hard and shiny, as if turned on a lathe, they ran in long rows in various directions, forming the designs I had noticed from a high altitude. After making a few tests, I went cruising just above the ground seeking an answer to the riddle of the disks, which intrigued me enormously. During a two-hour flight I discovered, one after the other, three immense and beautiful cities; I touched down in a square in one of them. But the city was completely deserted; houses, towers, squares, everything was dead; no sign of life anywhere, or any trace of violence or natural disaster. More amazed and bewildered than ever, I flew on. Around noon I found myself above a vast plateau. Ca
tching sight of a shiny building near which there was some sort of movement, I immediately landed. A palace rose from the rocky plain, sparkling as though cut from a single diamond. A wide marble staircase led up to its gilded portal. At the foot of the staircase several unfamiliar beings were milling about. I looked at them close up. If my eyes did not deceive me, they were alive and, moreover, resembled humans so much (especially from a distance) that I dubbed them "hominiformicans." I was prepared with this name because I had spent time during my voyage thinking up nomenclature, in order to have terms handy for such occasions. "Hominiformicans" fit the bill, for these beings walked upon two legs and had hands, heads, eyes, ears, and lips. True, the lips were in the middle of the forehead, the ears under the chin (a pair on each side), and the eyes -- ten in all -- were arranged like rosary beads across their cheeks. But to a traveler like me, who has encountered the most bizarre creatures in the course of his expeditions, they were the spit and image of humans.

  I approached them, keeping a safe distance, and asked what they were doing. They made no reply, but continued peering into the diamond mirrors that rose from the lowest step of the staircase. I tried to interrupt them once, twice, three times, but seeing that this had not the slightest effect, in my impatience I shook one vigorously by the shoulder. Then they all turned in my direction and seemed to notice me for the first time. After regarding me and my rocket with some astonishment, they asked me several questions, to which I willingly replied. But because they kept breaking off the conversation to gaze into the diamond mirrors, I was afraid I would not be able to question them properly. Finally, however, I managed to persuade one to satisfy my curiosity. This Phool (for, as he told me, they are called Phools) sat down with me on a rock not far from the stairs. My interlocutor fortunately possessed considerable intelligence, which showed in the gleam of the ten eyes on his cheeks. He threw his ears over his shoulders and described the history of the Phools, as follows:

  "Alien voyager! You must know that we are a people with a long and splendid past. The population of this planet has been divided from time immemorial into Spiritors, Eminents, and Drudgelings. The Spiritors were absorbed in the contemplation of the nature of the Great Phoo, who in a deliberate creative act brought the Phools into being, settled them on this globe, and in His inscrutable mercy surrounded it with stars to illumine the night and also fashioned the Solar Fire to light our days and send us beneficent warmth. The Eminents levied taxes, interpreted the meaning of state laws, and supervised the factories, in which the Drudgelings modestly toiled. Thus everyone worked together for the public good. We dwelt in peace and harmony; our civilization reached great heights. Through the ages inventors built machines that simplified work, and where in ancient times a hundred Drudgelings had bent their sweating backs, centuries later a few stood by a machine. Our scientists improved the machines, and the people rejoiced at this, but subsequent events showed how cruelly premature was that rejoicing. A certain learned constructor built the New Machines, devices so excellent that they could work quite independently, without supervision. And that was the beginning of the catastrophe. When the New Machines appeared in the factories, hordes of Drudgelings lost their jobs; and, receiving no salary, they faced starvation. . ."

  "Excuse me, Phool," I asked, "but what became of the profits the factories made?"

  "The profits," he replied, "went to the rightful owners, of course. Now, then, as I was saying, the threat of annihilation hung. . ."

  "But what are you saying, worthy Phool!" I cried. "All that had to be done was to make the factories common property, and the New Machines would have become a blessing to you!"

  The minute I said this the Phool trembled, blinked his ten eyes nervously, and cupped his ears to ascertain whether any of his companions milling about the stairs had overheard my remark.

  "By the Ten Noses of the Phoo, I implore you, O stranger, do not utter such vile heresy, which attacks the very foundation of our freedom! Our supreme law, the principle of Civic Initiative, states that no one can be compelled, constrained, or even coaxed to do what he does not wish. Who, then, would dare expropriate the Eminents' factories, it being their will to enjoy possession of same? That would be the most horrible violation of liberty imaginable. Now, then, to continue, the New Machines produced an abundance of extremely cheap goods and excellent food, but the Drudgelings bought nothing, for they had not the wherewithal. . ."

  "But, my dear Phool!" I cried. "Surely you do not claim that the Drudgelings did this voluntarily? Where was your liberty, your civic freedom?!"

  "Ah, worthy stranger," sighed the Phool, "the laws were still observed, but they say only that the citizen is free to do whatever he wants with his property and money; they do not say where he is to obtain them. No one oppressed the Drudgelings, no one forced them to do anything; they were completely free and could do what they pleased, yet instead of rejoicing at such freedom they died off like flies. . . The situation worsened; in the factory warehouses, mountains of unpurchased goods rose skyward, while swarms of wraithlike, emaciated Drudgelings roamed the streets. The Plenum Moronicum, the venerable assembly of Spiritors and Eminents that governed the state, conferred all year round on ways to remedy the evil. Its members gave long speeches and frantically sought a way out of the predicament, but to no avail. At the very beginning of the deliberations, one member of the Plenum, the author of a famous work on the nature of Phoolian freedoms, demanded that the constructor of the New Machines be stripped of his golden laurel wreath and that, on the contrary, his ten eyes be plucked out. This was opposed by the Spiritors, who begged mercy for the inventor in the name of the Great Phoo. The Plenum Moronicum spent four months determining whether or not the constructor had violated the laws of the realm by inventing the New Machines. The assembly split into two camps. The dispute was, finally, ended by a fire in the archives that destroyed the minutes of the proceedings; since none of the august members of the Plenum could recall what position they had taken on the issue, the whole matter was dropped. It was then proposed that the Eminents, who owned the factories, be requested to cease building the New Machines; the Plenum appointed a committee for this purpose, but the committee's entreaties had not the slightest effect. The Eminents declared that it was their fondest wish to continue to produce in this way, for the New Machines worked more cheaply and more swiftly than did the Drudgelings. The Plenum Moronicum resumed deliberations. A law was drawn up stipulating that the factory owners give a fixed percentage of their profits to the Drudgelings, but that proposal fell through, too, for, as Archspiritor Nolab rightly pointed out, such handouts would have corrupted and degraded the souls of the latter. Meanwhile, the mountains of manufactured goods kept rising, until finally they began to spill out over the walls of the factories, whereupon mobs of starving Drudgelings rushed up with threatening cries. In vain did the Spiritors attempt to explain to them, with the greatest kindness, that they were defying sovereign laws and daring to oppose the Phoo's inscrutable decrees; that they should endure their lot meekly, for through mortification of the flesh the soul is elevated and gains the certainty of heavenly reward. The Drudgelings, however, turned a deaf ear to this wisdom, and armed guards were needed to curb their seditious activity.

  "Then the Plenum Moronicum summoned the constructor of the New Machines before Its August Presence and addressed him as follows:

  " 'Learned man! Great danger threatens our state, for rebellious, criminal ideas are arising among the masses of Drudgelings. They strive to abolish our splendid freedoms and the law of Civic Initiative! We must make every effort to defend our liberty. After careful consideration of the whole problem, we have reached the conclusion that we are unequal to the task. Even the most virtuous, capable, and model Phool can be swayed by feelings, and is often vacillating, biased, and fallible, and thus unfit to reach a decision in so complicated and important a matter. Therefore, within six months you are to build us a purely rational, strictly logical, and completely objective Governing Machin
e that does not know the hesitation, emotion, and fear that befuddle living minds. Let this machine be as impartial as the light of the Sun and stars. When you have built and activated it, we shall hand over to it the burden of power, which grows too heavy for our weary shoulders.'

  " 'So be it,' said the constructor, 'but what is to be the machine's basic motivation?'

  " 'Obviously, the freedom of Civic Initiative. The machine must not command or forbid the citizens anything; it may, of course, change the conditions of our existence, but it must do so always in the form of a proposal, leaving us alternatives between which we can freely choose.'

  " 'So be it,' replied the constructor, 'but this injunction concerns mainly the mode of operation. What of the ultimate goal? What is this machine's purpose?'

  " 'Our state is threatened by chaos; disorder and disregard for the law are spreading. Let the Machine bring supreme harmony to the planet, let it institute, consolidate, and establish perfect and absolute order.'

  " 'Let it be as you have said!' replied the constructor. 'Within six months I shall build the Voluntary Universalizer of Absolute Order. With this task ahead of me, I bid you farewell. . .'