Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky. The Time Wanderers
BACKGROUND: Maxim Kammerer
My name is Maxim Kammerer. I am eighty-nine years old.
Once upon a time, long, long ago, I read an ancient novella that began that way. I remember thinking then that if I ever were to write my memoirs in the future, I would begin in just that way. However, strictly speaking, this present text cannot be considered a memoir, and it should start with a certain letter that I received about a year ago.
Kammerer: You naturally have read the notorious “Five Biographies of the Age”. Please help me to determine who is hiding behind the pseudonyms P. Soroka and E. Braun. I think it will be easier for you than for me.
M. Glumova
13 June 125. Novgorod
I did not reply to this letter, because I was not able to establish the real names of the authors of “Five Biographies of the Age”. All I did determine was that, as expected, P. Soroka and E. Braun were major contributors to the Luden group at the Institute for the Research of Space History (IRSH).
I had no difficulty in imagining the feelings of Maya Toivovna Glumova as she read the biography of her son as related by P. Soroka and E. Braun. And I realized that I had to speak out. Therefore, I write this memoir.
From the point of view of an unprejudiced and a particularly young reader, I will be describing events that brought me to the end of the era in cosmic self-awareness and opened absolutely new vistas, which had seemed only theoretical previously. I was a witness, a participant in, and in some sense even an initiator of these events, and therefore it is not surprising that the Luden Group has been bombarding me with questions, official and unofficial requests to contribute, and reminders of my civic duty. Originally I had understanding and sympathy for the goals and aims of the Luden group, but I never hid my skepticism about their chances for success. Besides, it was absolutely clear to me that the materials and information in my personal files could be of no help to the Luden group, and therefore I have continued avoiding participating in their work.
But now, for reasons that are more personal, I have felt a persistent need to gather up and present to the attention of anyone who might be interested everything that is known to me about the early days of the Big Revelation.
I have reread the last paragraph, and I must correct myself. First of all, I am offering far from everything that is known to me, naturally. Some of the material is too special in nature to be presented here. Some names I will not give, out of purely ethical considerations. I will also refrain from mentioning certain specific methods of my work then as head of the Department of Unusual Events (UEs) of the Commission on Control (COMCON-2).
Secondly, the events of the year 99 were not, strictly speaking, the early days of the Big Revelation, but, on the contrary, its last days. I think this is precisely what the Luden group people do not understand, or rather, do not wish co understand, despite all my efforts to convince them. Of course, perhaps I was not insistent enough. I’m not young anymore.
The personality of Toivo Glumov and the Luden group are linked. I can understand why, and therefore I made him the central figure in my memoir.
For whatever reasons I might recall those days and whatever I might remember about those days, Toivo Glumov appears in my mind. I see his thin, always serious young face, his long white lashes, always lowered over his transparent gray eyes, and I hear his apparently intentional slow speech. Once again I feel his silent, helpless, but inexorable pressure, like a wordless cry: “Well, what’s the matter with you? Why are you doing nothing? Give me an order!” And, vice versa, no sooner do I remember him for some reason than the “mean dogs of recollection” wake up, as if from a swift kick: all the horror of those days, all the despair of those days, all the impotence of those days — horror, despair, and impotence that I experienced alone, because I had no one with whom to share them.
This memoir is based on documents. As a rule, these are standard reports made by my inspectors, and some official correspondence, which I cite primarily to re-create the atmosphere of those days. In general, a picky and competent researcher would have no difficulty in noticing that a large number of documents that relate to the case are not in the memoir, while I could have managed without some of the documents that are included. Responding ahead of time to this rebuke, I will note that I selected the materials In accordance with certain principles, which I have no desire nor pressing need to go into.
Further, a significant portion of the text is made up of chapter reconstructions. These chapters are written by me and in fact are reconstructions of scenes and events that I did not witness. The reconstructions were based on oral accounts, tape recordings, and subsequent reminiscences by people who took part in these scenes and events, such as Toivo Glumov’s wife, Asya, his colleagues, acquaintances, and so on. I realize that the value of these chapters for the Luden group people is not great, but what can I do? It is greatly significant for me.
Finally, I allowed myself to dilute the information-bearing text of the memoir with personal reminiscences that carry information not so much about the events of those days as about the Maxim Kammerer of those days, at age 58. The behavior of that man In the circumstances depicted seems to me to be of some interest even now…
Having made the final decision to write this memoir, I faced the question: where do I begin? When and what started the Big Revelation?
Strictly speaking, it all began two centuries ago, when in the bevels of Mars they discovered a deserted tunnel city of amberine. Mat was the first time that the word “Wanderers” was spoken.
That is true. But too general. It could just as easily be said that the Big Revelation began with the Big Bang.
Then perhaps it was fifty years ago? The affair of the “foundlings”? When the problem of the Wanderers took on a tragic aspect, when the vicious rebuking epithet “Sikorski Syndrome” was born and lived through word of mouth? It was the complex of uncontrollable fear of a possible invasion by the Wanderers. That’s also true. And much more to the point… But back then I was not yet head of the UE Department; in fact, it did not even exist. And I am not writing a history of the problem of the Wanderers.
For me it began in May of 93, when I, like all the heads of the UEDs of all the sectors of COMCON-2, received a circular report about the incident on Tisse. (Not on the Tisse River, which flows peacefully through Hungary and the Carpathians, but on the planet Tisse near the star EN-63061, discovered not long before that by the fellows from GSP.) The circular described the incident as a sudden and unexplained madness in all three members of the research party, landing on the plateau (I can’t remember the name) two weeks earlier. All three suddenly imagined that they had lost communication with the central base and had lost all communication in general except with the orbiting mother ship, and the mother ship was broadcasting an automatic message that Earth had been destroyed in some cosmic cataclysm, and that the entire population of the Periphery had died out from unexplained epidemics.
I don’t remember all the details anymore. Two of the party, I think, tried to commit suicide, and in the end went off into the desert in despair over the hopelessness and total uselessness of further existence. Their commander was a stronger man. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to live — as if humanity had not perished, but only he had suffered an accident and had been cut off forever from his home planet. He later recounted that, on the fourteenth day of this crazed life, someone dressed in white appeared to him and announced that he had honorably passed the first round of the trials and had been accepted as a candidate into the society of Wanderers. On the fifteenth day, the lifeboat came from the mother ship, and the atmosphere was discharged. They found the two men who had gone off into the desert, everyone remained of sound mind, and no one died. Their testimony was consistent down to the tiniest details. For instance, they all reproduced exactly the accent of the automatic machine that allegedly gave the fatal announcement. Subjectively, they perceived the incident as a vivid, unusually authentic-seeming theatrical presentation, in which they had been unexpected and unwitting participants. Deep mentoscopy confirmed their subjective perception and even showed that, in the very depth of their subconscious, none of them suspected that it was merely a theatrical performance.