As far as I know, my colleagues in the other sectors took this for a rather ordinary UE, an explainable UE, one of the many that constantly occur beyond the Periphery. Everyone was alive and well. Further work in the area of the UE was not necessary; it hadn’t been necessary in the first place. No volunteers interested in solving the mystery appeared. The area of the UE was evacuated. The UE was taken into account. In the files.
But I was a student of the late Sikorski! When he was alive, I had often argued with him, both mentally and out loud, when talk turned to the threat to humanity from the outside. But there was one thesis of his that was hard to dispute and I didn’t want to argue with it: “We are workers of COMCON-2. We are allowed to be called ignoramuses, mystics, and superstitious fools. There is one thing we are not allowed: to underestimate danger. And if there is suddenly the odor of sulfur in our house, we are simply obliged to assume that a horned devil has appeared somewhere nearby and to take appropriate measures right up to organizing national industrial production of holy water.” No sooner did I hear that someone in white was speaking in the name of the Wanderers than I smelled sulfur and grew as agitated as an old warhorse at the sound of bugles.
I made appropriate queries through appropriate channels. Without great surprise, I learned that in the lexicon of instructions, directives, and projected plans of our COMCON-2, the word “Wanderer” does not exist I had been received by the higher-ups and, without the least bit of amazement, I was convinced that as far as our most responsible leaders were concerned, the Progressorist activity of the Wanderers in the system of humanity had been lived through and survived, like a childhood disease. The tragedy of Lev Abalkin and Rudolf Sikorski in some inexplicable manner had somehow cleared the Wanderers forever of suspicion.
The only person in whom my anxiety elicited a flash of sympathy was Athos-Sidorov, the President of my sector and my immediate supervisor. He confirmed with his authority and affixed with his signature my proposed theme: “A Visit from an Old Lady.” He allowed me to organize a special group to develop that theme. Actually, he gave me a carte blanche in that area.
And I began by organizing a questionnaire for a number of the most competent specialists in zenosociology. My aim was to create a model (as realistic as possible) of the Progressorist activity of the Wanderers in the system of Earth humanity. Without going into details: I sent all the materials I gathered to the famous science historian and erudite Isaac Bromberg. Now I don’t even remember why I did that, since by then Bromberg had not worked in zenology in many years. It must have been because most of the specialists to whom I had turned with my questions had refused to talk seriously with me (the Sikorski Syndrome! ), while Bromberg, as everyone knows, “always had a few words to spare,” no matter the topic.
Anyway, Dr. L Bromberg sent me his reply, which is now known as the Bromberg Memorandum.
It all began with it.
I’ll begin with it, too.
DOCUMENT 1: The Bromberg Memorandum
To COMCON-2
Sector Ural-North
To Maxim Kammerer
Personal and Official
Date: 3 June 94
FROM: I. Bromberg, senior consultant COMCON-1, doctor of historical sciences, laureate of the Herodotus Prize (63, 69, and 72 ), professor, laureate of the Small Prize — Jan Amos Kamensky Prize( 57),doctor of xenopsychology, doctor of sociotopology, acting member of the Academy of Sociology (Europe), corresponding member of the Laboratorium (Academy of Sciences) of Great Tagro, master of the realization of Parsival’s abstractions.
THEME: “A Visit from an Old Lady.”
CONTENTS: working model of the Progressorist activity of the Wanderers in the system of humanity on earth.
Dear Kammerer!
Please do not take the heading with which I capped this missive as an old man’s mockery. l merely wanted to stress that my missive, while completely personal, is at the same time official. I’ve remembered the cap of your reports from the days when they were tossed on my desk as an argument (rather feeble) by your pathetic Sikorski.
My attitude toward your organization has not changed in the least. I never hid it, and it is certainly well known to you. Nevertheless, I studied with great interest the materials you were kind enough to send me. Thank you. I want to assure you that in this direction of your work (but not only in this direction!) you will find me your most ardent ally and collaborator.
I do not know whether this Is a coincidence, but I received your Compendium of Models just at the moment when I was about to embark on summing up my many years of thinking about the nature of the Wanderers and the inevitability of their collision with the civilization of Earth. Of course, it is my profound belief that there are no coincidences. Apparently, the time for this question is ripe.
I have neither the time nor the wish to make a detailed criticism of your document. I must note, however, that the models Octopus and Conquistador brought me uncontrollable laughter, with their jokelike primitivism, while the model New Air, despite its appearing to be less than totally trivial, is also devoid of any serious argumentation. Eight models! Eighteen development engineers, among whom are such shining stars as Karibanov, Yasuda, and Mikich! Damn it, you should expect something more significant! Say what you will, Kammerer, but the natural supposition is that you were unable to impress these great masters with your “anxiety over our general unpreparedness in this area.” They simply ducked the issue.
Herein I offer to the pedestal of your attention a brief notation of my future book, which I plan to call “Monocosm: Peak of First Step? Notes on the Evolution of Evolution.” Again, I have neither the time nor inclination to equip my basic positions with detailed argumentation. I can assure you only that each of these positions even today can be argued more exhaustively, so if you have any questions, I will be happy to answer them. (Incidentally, I can’t resist noting that your request for my consultation was perhaps the first and so far only socially useful act by your organization in all the time it has existed.)
And so: Monocosm.
Any intelligence — technological, Rousseauist, or even a heron’s — in the process of evolution first travels the path from the state of maximal separation (savagery, mutual hostility, crude emotions, mistrust) to a state of maximal unification while still retaining individuality (friendliness, high culture of relationships, altruism, disdain for success). This process is governed by biological, biosocial, and specifically social laws. It is well studied and is of interest go us here only insofar as it brings us to the question: what next? Leaving aside the romantic trills of the theory of vertical progress, we have discovered only two real possibilities, differing in principle. On the one hand, a halt, a self-soothing, a turning off, a loss of interest in the physical world. Or entering on the path of evolution of a second order, the path of planned and controlled evolution, the path toward Monocosm.
The synthesis of intelligences is inevitable. It gives an infinite number of new facets to the perception of the world, and this leads. to an incredible increase in the quantity, and more importantly, the quality of available information, which in its turn leads to a decrease of suffering to a minimum and an increase in pleasure to a maximum. The concept of “home” will extend to universal scope. (This is probably why that irresponsible and superficial concept of the Wanderers appeared in the first place.) A new metabolism develops, and, as a result, life and health become practically eternal. The age of an individual becomes comparable with the age of cosmic objects — with a total absence of psychic weariness. An individual of the Monocosm does not need creators. He is his own creator and consumer of culture. From a drop of water not only can he re-create the image of the ocean, but the whole world of the creatures that inhabit it, including the reasoning ones — and all this with a constant unsatisfiable sense of hunger.
Every new individual appears as a creation of syntectic art he is created by physiologists, geneticists, engineers, psychologists, estheticians, teachers, and philosophers of Monocosm. This process will definitely take up several Earth decades, and, naturally, is the most engrossing and respected san of activity of the Wanderers. Contemporary humanity does not know of any analog for this kind of art, if one does not count the very rare instances of Great Love.
Create Without Destroying! That is the motto of the Monocosm.
The Monocosm cannot consider its path of development and its modus vivendi to be the only true path. Pain and despair elicit pictures of separated minds that had not matured to become part of it. It must wait until reason within the framework of evolution of the first order develops to the state of an all-planet socium. For it is only after that that you can interfere with biostructure, with the aim of preparing the bearer of intelligence to the transformation into the monocosmic organism of a Wanderer. For the intervention of the Wanderers into the fates of separated civilizations can yield nothing worthwhile.