We — even we! — cannot imagine what the initiation of those systems could bring. And we cannot imagine how much more there is in man… And more than that, Gennady Yurevich. There is a schism beginning among us! It is inevitable. Artificial evolution is a scattered process. (Pause) What can you do? There are six scientific and technological revolutions behind us, two technological counterrevolutions, two gnoseological crises — you come to evolution willy-nilly…
GORBOVSKY: Precisely. If we sat around quietly like the Tagorians or Leonidians, we’d know no sorrow. Going into technology was our own choice.
KOMOV: All right, all right. But just what is a metagom, in fact? What are his goals, Daniil Alexandrovich? His stimuli? Interest? Or is that a secret?
LOGOVENKO: No secrets.
(the phonogram ends here. All the rest – 34 minutes 11 seconds been erased.)
15/05/99 M. Kammerer
[End of Document 22.]
I’m ashamed to admit it but I spent the last few days in a state bordering on euphoria. It was as if an unbearable physical strain had ceased. Probably Sisyphus experienced something similar when the rock finally leaped out of his hands, and he had the blessed relief of sitting at the top of the mountain before starting all over.
Every earthling experienced the Big Revelation in his own way. But I swear that I had it worse than anyone else.
I’ve reread everything l had written, and I now fear that my feelings in relation to the Big Revelation could be misunderstood. It may create the impression that I was afraid for the fate of mankind. Naturally, there were fears — for back then I knew absolutely nothing about Ludens except for the fact that they existed. So there was fear. And there were brief howls of panic: “That’s it, the game is over!” And a feeling of a catastrophically sharp turn, when the wheel is going to fly out of your hands and you’re going to fly off into nowhere, helpless like a savage during an earthquake. But above all this prevailed the humiliating awareness of my total professional failure. We missed the boat. Blew it. Flopped. Useless dilettantes…
And then the whole wave receded. And not because Logovenko had convinced me of anything or made me believe him. It was something else.
I had gotten used to the feeling of professional failure over the month and a half. (“Pangs of conscience are tolerable” is one of the small unpleasant discoveries you make with age.)
The wheel wasn’t being pulled out of my hands anymore — I had handed it over to someone else. And now, with a kind of distance, I noted to myself that Komov was exaggerating and Leonid Andreyevich, as usual, was too certain of a happy ending for any cataclysm…
I was back in my own place, and once more I was in the thrall of my usual cares. For instance: getting a steady flow of information to those who had to make the decisions.
On the evening of the fifteenth, I received an order from Komov to act as I saw fit.
On the morning of the sixteenth, I called in Toivo Glumov. Without any explanation, I let him read the record of the conversation at Leonid’s House. Amazingly, I was practically certain of success.
Why should I have had any doubts?
DOCUMENT 23: Working Phonogram: T. Glumov and M. Kammerer
DOCUMENT 24: Fear of being transformed into a Luden
DOCUMENT 25. Sverdlovsk: Topol II, Apt. 9716 to M. Kammerer
S. Mtbevari: The Waves Extinguish the Wind
DOCUMENT 26: M. Kammerer: Theme 060 T. Glumov, Metagom
WORKING PHONOGRAM
Date: 16 May 99
INTERLOCUTORS: M. Kammerer, head of UE Department; T. Glumov, Inspector.
THEME: X X X
CONTENTS: X X X
GLUMOV: What was in the gaps?
KAMMERER: Bravo. What self-control you have, kid. When I realized what was what, I chewed the walls for a half-hour.
GLUMOV: So what was in the gaps?
KAMMERER: No one knows.
GLUMOV: What do you mean no one knows?
KAMMERER: Just that. Komov and Gorbovsky don’t remember what was in the gaps. They didn’t notice any gaps. And it’s impossible to restore the phonogram. It’s not simply erased, it’s destroyed. The molecular structure is changed on the parts of the grid with gaps.
GLUMOV: A strange manner of negotiating.
KAMMERER: We’ll have to get used to it.
(Pause)
GLUMOV: Well, and now what?
KAMMERER: For now we don’t know enough. In general, I see only two possibilities. Either we learn to coexist with them, or we don’t.
GLUMOV: There’s a third possibility.
KAMMERER: Don’t go off half-cocked. There is no third possibility.
GLUMOV: There is! They don’t pussyfoot around us!
KAMMERER: That’s not a conclusion.
GLUMOV: It is! They didn’t ask permission of the World Council! They’ve been working secretly for many years transforming people into non-people! They’re performing experiments on people! And even now, when they’ve been exposed, they come to negotiations and allow themselves to —
KAMMERER: (interrupting) What you want to suggest can be done either openly — and then humanity will be witness to a totally disgusting violent act — or secretly, vilely, behind the back of public opinion?
GLUMOV: (interrupting) That’s all talk! The point is that humanity should not be the incubator for non-humans and certainly not a testing field for their damned experiments! Excuse me, Big Bug, but you made a mistake. You should not have let Komov or Gorbovsky know about this. You’ve put them in a stupid position. This is COMCON-2 business; it’s fully within our competence. I think that it’s still not too late. Let’s take this sin upon our souls.
KAMMERER: Listen, where did you develop this xenophobia? It’s not the Wanderers, not the Progressors you hate.
GLUMOV: I have the feeling that they’re worse than the Progressors. They’re traitors. They’re parasites. Like those wasps that lay their eggs in caterpillars.
(Pause)
KAMMERER: Go on, go on. Let it all out.
GLUMOV: I won’t say any more. It’s useless. I’ve been working on this case for five years under your supervision, and I’ve been blundering about like a blind puppy all those years. Could you at least tell me now: where did you learn the truth? When did you realize that they’re not Wanderers? Six months ago? Eight?
KAMMERER: Less than two.
GLUMOV: Doesn’t matter… Several weeks ago. I can understand that you had your own considerations, and you did not want to let me in on the details; but how could you hide the fact that your objective had changed? How could you let me make a fool of myself? Before Gorbovsky and Komov… I get a chill whenever I think of it!
KAMMERER: Can’t you accept that there might have been a reason for it?
GLUMOV: I can. But it doesn’t make me feel any better. I don’t know the reason and can’t even imagine it… And I don’t see that you’re planning to ever tell me that reason. No, Big Bug, I’ve had enough. I’m not good enough to work with you. Let me go, because I’ll leave anyway.
(Pause)
KAMMERER: I couldn’t tell you the truth. At first I couldn’t tell you the truth because I don’t know what we could do with it. I don’t know what to do with it now either, but now all the decisions are someone else’s to make…
GLUMOV: Don’t justify yourself, Big Bug.
KAMMERER: Be quiet. You won’t get me mad. Do you love the truth so much? Then you’ll get it. All of it.
(Pause)
KAMMERER: Then I sent you to the Institute of Eccentrics and had to wait some more —
GLUMOV: (interrupting) What does —
KAMMERER: (interrupting) I said be quiet! It’s not easy to tell the truth, Toivo. Not cutting up the truth, the way young people like to do, but serving it up to someone like you… green, confident, all-knowing, and all-understanding. Be quiet and listen.
(Pause)
KAMMERER: Then I got a reply from the Institute. The answer floored me. I had thought that I was showing routine forethought, but it turned out… Listen, you just read the transcript. Didn’t anything seem strange in it to you?
GLUMOV: Everything is strange in it.
KAMMERER: Come on, pay attention. Read it again, but carefully, from the very beginning, from the heading. Well?
(Pause)
GLUMOV: “Only for members of the Presidium…” What does that mean?
KAMMERER: Well? Well?
GLUMOV: You let me read a document that was top security… Why?
KAMMERER: (slowly and almost ingratiatingly) As you have noticed, there are gaps in this document. So, I’m nurturing the hope that when your time comes, out of friendship, and for the old times’ sake, you’ll fill those gaps in for me.
(Long pause)
KAMMERER: That’s how the whole truth looks. In the part of it that concerns you. As soon as I learned that they were sorting at the Institute of Eccentrics, I sent all of you there, one after the other, on various idiotic excuses. It was simply a measure of elementary caution, understand? So as not to leave the enemy the slightest chance. To be sure… no, I still wasn’t sure… To know for sure: that among my staff there were only humans…