The Big Book of Science Fiction

by The Big Book of Science Fiction (retail) (epub)

  It was all very interesting stuff, but Conway began to worry a little when he realised that six weeks had passed without his even seeing a patient. He decided to call O’Mara and ask what for—in a respectful, roundabout way, of course.

  “Naturally you want back to the wards,” O’Mara said, when Conway finally arrived at the point. “Dr. Mannon would like you back, too. But I may have a job for you and don’t want you tied up anywhere else. But don’t feel that you are simply marking time. You are learning some useful stuff, doctor. At least, I hope you are. Off.”

  As Conway replaced the intercom mike he was thinking that a lot of the things he was learning had regard to Major O’Mara himself. There wasn’t a course of lectures on the chief psychologist, but there might well have been, because every lecture had O’Mara creeping into it somewhere. And he was only beginning to realise how close he had come to being kicked out of the hospital for his behaviour during the Telfi episode.

  O’Mara bore the rank of major in the Monitor Corps, but Conway had learned that within the hospital it was difficult to draw a limiting line to his authority. As chief psychologist he was responsible for the mental health of all the widely varied individuals and species on the staff, and the avoidance of friction between them.

  Given even the highest qualities of tolerance and mutual respect in its personnel, there were still occasions when friction occurred. Potentially dangerous situations arose through ignorance or misunderstanding, or a being could develop a xenophobic neurosis which might affect its efficiency, or mental stability, or both. An Earth-human doctor, for instance, who had a subconscious fear of spiders would not be able to bring to bear on an Illensan patient the proper degree of clinical detachment necessary for its treatment. So it was O’Mara’s job to detect and eradicate such signs of trouble or—if all else failed—remove the potentially dangerous individual before such friction became open conflict. This guarding against wrong, unhealthy, or intolerant thinking was a duty which he performed with such zeal that Conway had heard him likened to a latter-day Torquemada.

  ETs on the staff whose home-planet histories did not contain an equivalent of the Inquisition likened him to other things, and often called him them to his face. But in O’Mara’s book justifiable invective was not indicative of wrong thinking, so there were no serious repercussions.

  O’Mara was not responsible for the psychological shortcomings of patients in the hospital, but because it was so often impossible to tell when a purely physical pain left off and a psychosomatic one began, he was consulted in these cases also.

  The fact that the major had detached him from ward duty could mean either promotion or demotion. If Mannon wanted him back, however, then the job which O’Mara had in mind for him must be of greater importance. So Conway was pretty certain that he was not in any trouble with O’Mara, which was a very nice way to feel. But curiosity was killing him.

  Then next morning he received orders to present himself at the office of the chief psychologist….

  The Visitors

  ARKADY AND BORIS STRUGATSKY

  Translated by James Womack

  Arkady (1925–1991) and Boris (1933–2012) Strugatsky were highly influential Soviet-Russian science fiction writers who often collaborated on their fiction and who rose to prominence despite Soviet censorship. Their most famous work is the novel Roadside Picnic (1971; English translation 1977), which was later adapted by Andrei Tarkovsky as the famous cult film Stalker (1979). The Strugatskys have proven especially iconic to many Russian and Eastern European fans and writers, many of whom grew up with their writing. The brothers also championed Soviet-era science fiction through Macmillan’s English-language Soviet science fiction line of the 1980s, which featured the work of the Strugatskys but also fiction from many other Russian and Ukrainian writers.

  Arkady Strugatsky was born in Batumi but grew up in Leningrad, leaving only during the brutal siege of 1942, his flight ending in the death of the brothers’ father. He served in the Soviet army and became proficient in English and Japanese at the Military Institute of Foreign Languages. From 1955 on, he worked as a writer and in 1958 he started to collaborate with his brother. Unlike Arkady, Boris Strugatsky stayed in Leningrad during the siege and then became an astronomer and computer engineer. Literary influences on the Strugatsky brothers include Stanisław Lem, who tended toward satire and societal commentary.

  Soviet censorship was also a recurring issue for the brothers that sometimes shaped their fiction; some of their works did not appear in print until after the fall of the USSR. And, in their fiction, over time, relatively optimistic views of the future and of humanity would give way to dystopias, alienation, and a cynicism about human institutions. Censorship could be a problem even when writing seemingly innocuous works.

  According to Boris’s 1999 memoir, Comments on the Way Left Behind, the brothers in the late 1960s turned to a mystery romp because it had become “pretty obvious that any serious work of ours had no chances whatsoever of being published any time soon. We forced ourselves to be cynical. There came a point when we had either to sell ourselves, or abandon writing entirely, or become cynics—that is to learn how to write well but for money.”

  Yet, to their surprise, the comic novel The Dead Mountaineer’s Inn caused problems because it was too apolitical. “It turned out that our editors wished there were some struggles in the novel—class struggle, struggle for peace, struggle of ideas, just anything.” Three years later, they would publish Roadside Picnic, after a period of writer’s block in part caused by this prior interference by the Soviet censors.

  “The Visitors” is the second, stand-alone part of a three-part novella later expanded into a novel. The first part describes an encounter with an alien by a military expedition and the third part is in effect the account of an alien abduction. “The Visitors” first appeared in English in the anthology Aliens, Travelers, and Other Strangers (1984) but has been retranslated for this volume.

  THE VISITORS

  Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

  Translated by James Womack

  The story of K. N. Sergeyev, one of the members of the Apida archaeological research group

  Not long ago in a popular science journal there appeared an extensive article about the strange events that had taken place between July and August last year near Stalinabad. Unfortunately, the author of the article evidently used second- and thirdhand material (from unreliable hands at that) and unwittingly presented the event and the circumstances that surrounded it entirely incorrectly. His discussions of “telemechanical subversives” and “silicon-based monsters,” as well as the contradictory reports from “witnesses” about burning mountains and cows and trucks being swallowed whole, do not stand up to any scrutiny. The facts of the matter were more straightforward and at the same time much more complex than these inventions.

  When it became clear that the official report of the Stalinabad commission would not see the light of day any time soon, Professor Nikitin suggested to me that I should publish the truth about the Visitors, as I was one of very few actual witnesses. “Just put down what you saw with your own eyes,” he said. “Put down your impressions. Just how you presented them to the commission. You could even use our material. Although it would be better if you limited yourself to your own impressions. And don’t forget about Lozovsky’s diary. That’s your right.”

  As I begin to tell my tale, I warn you that I will try with all my strength to follow the professor’s suggestion—to give you only my impressions—and I will set out the events as they took place from our point of view, from the point of view of the archaeological research group that was excavating what is known as the Apida Castle about fifty kilometers southeast of Pendzhikent.

  There were six of us in the group. Three archaeologists: the leader of the group, “Bossman” Boris Yanovich Lozovsky; my old friend the Tajik Dzhamil Karimov; and myself. As well as us three there were two workmen, locals, and Kolya the driver.

  Th
e Apida Castle is a hill about thirty meters tall, in a narrow valley nestled among the mountains. A little river, very clean and cold, flows down the valley, filled with smooth round stones. The road to the Pendzhikent oasis runs along the river.

  We excavated an ancient Tajik settlement at the top of the hill. Our camp was at the base of the hill: two black tents and a raspberry-colored flag with a drawing of a Sogdian coin on it (a circle with a square hole in the middle). A Tajik castle from the third century CE has nothing in common with the crenellated walls and drawbridges of the feudal castles of Europe. When they have been excavated, they show a design made of two or three flat squares, split up with walls two vershoks thick. Now what remains of the castle is only the floor. You can find burned wood, fragments of clay pots, and completely contemporary scorpions, and, if you’re lucky, an old green coin.

  The group had a car set aside for its use—an ancient GAZ-51, which we used to go on long trips over the terrifying mountain roads, all for archaeological purposes. On the day the Visitors arrived, Lozovsky took the car to Pendzhikent to buy food, and we waited for him to come back. It was the morning of August 14. The car did not come back, and its disappearance marked the beginning of a chain of surprising and inexplicable events.

  I was sitting in my tent and smoking, waiting for some pottery shards that I had piled into a bowl and sunk in the river to be washed clean. The sun seemed to be right at its zenith, although it was already three o’clock in the afternoon. Dzhamil was working at the top of the hill—loessial dust was blowing in the wind and you could see the white felt hats of the workers. The Primus stove was hissing, heating up some buckwheat kasha. It was stuffy, hot, and dusty. I smoked and wondered why Lozovsky would want to stay in Pendzhikent, now that he was almost six hours late. We were running low on kerosene; there were only two tins of food left, and half a packet of tea. It would be very unpleasant if Lozovsky didn’t come back today. Having thought up a convincing excuse (Lozovsky had decided to put a call through to Moscow), I stood up, stretched, and saw a Visitor for the first time.

  It stood motionless in the door to the tent, a dull black color, like an enormous spider about the size of a large dog. It had a round, flat body, like a pocket watch, and jointed legs. I cannot describe it in any more detail. I was too shocked and scared. After a second it started to move and came straight for me. I watched, petrified, how it moved its legs slowly, leaving little holes in the dust—a monstrous silhouette against the yellow sunlit frangible clay.

  You must realize that I had no idea that this was a Visitor. This was some kind of unknown beast, and it was coming for me, moving its legs in a strange way, silent and without any eyes. I took a step backward. There was a soft clicking noise, and a sudden flash of blinding light, so bright that I involuntarily screwed up my eyes, and when I opened them again, I saw through the red patch on my vision that it was already a step closer, inside the shade of the tent. “Oh Lord!” I muttered to myself. It stood next to our basket of supplies and seemed to be rummaging through it with its two front legs. It sparkled in the sun and suddenly one of the tins of food disappeared somewhere. Then the “spider” turned to one side and disappeared. The Primus stopped hissing; there was a metallic sound.

  I don’t know what a hardheaded person would have done in my place. I couldn’t think straight. I remember that I shouted at the top of my voice, either trying to scare the “spider” or else trying to work up some courage myself; I went out of the tent and ran a few steps, then stopped, panting. Nothing had changed. The mountains were dozing around me, the sun flowing over them; the river rang like a cascade of silver, and the white felt hats were visible at the top of the hill. And then I saw the Visitor again. It was climbing the slope, circling the hill, lightly and noiselessly, as if sliding through the air. Its legs were almost impossible to see, but I could clearly make out its strange sharp shadow, running alongside it over the tough gray grass. Then it disappeared.

  Then I was bitten by a horsefly, and slapped at it with a wet towel that, apparently, I had been holding in my hand. Shouts came down from the top of the hill—Dzhamil and the workers were coming down the hill and made a sign to me that I should take the kasha off the stove and put the kettle on. They hadn’t seen anything and were shocked when I greeted them with the strange phrase: “A spider took the Primus and the food.” Dzhamil said that was terrible. I sat in my tent and flicked cigarette ash into the pot of porridge. My eyes were white, and I kept looking around me in fear. Seeing that my old friend thought I had gone mad, I started hurriedly and contradictorily telling him what had happened, and managed to convince him that he was right. The workers came to a single conclusion from all of this: there was no tea and there was no chance of getting any. Disappointed, they silently ate the leftover kasha and sat in their tent to play Tajik card games, mostly bishtokutar. Dzhamil had a bit to eat, we smoked together, and then he listened to me again, slightly more calmly.

  After thinking for a moment, he said that I must have got mild sunstroke. I immediately replied that first, I only went out into the sun wearing a hat, and second, where had the Primus and the food gone? Dzhamil said that I must have had a blackout and thrown everything into the river. I was offended at this, but all the same we got up and walked out in transparent water up to our knees, occasionally bending down to feel the bed with our hands. I found Dzhamil’s watch that he had lost a week before, and then we went back to the tents and Dzhamil started to muse a little. Was there a strange smell? he asked me. No, I replied, there didn’t seem to be a smell. And did the spider have wings? No, I didn’t see any wings on it. And did I remember what day of the month it was, and what day of the week? I got angry and said that in all likelihood it was the fourteenth, and that I didn’t know which day of the week it was, but that didn’t matter, as Dzhamil himself probably knew neither one nor the other. Dzhamil admitted that he only knew which month it was, and which year, and that we were stuck in a lonely backwoods with no calendars or newspapers.

  Then we examined the area. Unless you count the half-erased holes at the entrance to the tent, there were no traces we could see. However, it became clear that the “spider” had taken my diary, a box of pencils, and a package containing all our most valuable archaeological finds, as well as the Primus and the food. “The bastard!” Dzhamil said in annoyance. Evening set in. A thick white fog rolled down the valley, the constellation of Scorpio shone above us like a three-toed paw, it smelled like a cool spring night. The workers went to sleep early, but we lay in the camp beds and discussed what had happened, filling the tent with clouds of stinking smoke from our cheap cigarettes. After a long silence Dzhamil politely asked me whether I was playing games with him, then said that there might be a connection between the appearance of the “spider” and the disappearance of Lozovsky. I had thought of that myself, but I didn’t say anything. Then he went over the things that had been taken once again and made the strange suggestion that the “spider” might be a thief in an odd disguise. I fell asleep.

  I was woken by a strange noise, like the howl of powerful aircraft motors. I lay listening for a while. Something didn’t feel entirely right. Perhaps it was that I had been there a month and I had not seen a single airplane. I got up and looked out of the tent. It was late at night; my watch showed that it was half past one. The night was sown with sharp icy stars; the mountains were nothing but deep dark shadows. Then on the slope of the mountain opposite I saw a bright speck of light that headed downward, went out, and then appeared again, but some distance to the right. The howl grew louder.

  “What is it?” Dzhamil asked alertly, pushing alongside me.

  Something was howling close by, and suddenly a blinding blue-white light lit up the top of our hill. The hill seemed to have ice sparkling at its top. This lasted for a few seconds. Then the light went out, and the howling stopped. Darkness and silence descended like lightning over our camp. Frightened voices came from the workers’ tent. Dzhamil, invisible, shouted something in T
ajik, followed by the sound of hurried steps over pebbles. Then there came the loud howling again over the valley, and then it died out and seemed to disappear somewhere in the distance. I thought that I had seen a long dark shape moving between the stars and heading to the southeast.

  Dzhamil came over with the workers. We sat in a circle and for a long time said nothing, smoking and pricking up our ears at every sound. To tell the truth, I was afraid of everything—of the “spiders,” the impenetrable moonless dark, the secret rustlings that could be heard above the chatter of the river. I think that the others felt the same. Dzhamil whispered that we were doubtless right in the middle of some significant event. I did not argue. Finally we all felt very cold and went back to our tents.

  “Well, what do you have to say now about sunstroke and thieves in disguise?” I inquired.