A significant situation: the Progressors of Earth strive to speed up the historical process of creating more developed social structures in suffering civilizations. Thereby, they are preparing new reserves of material for the future work of Monocosm.
We now know of three civilizations that consider themselves happy.
The Leonidians. An extremely ancient civilization (at least three hundred thousand years old, no matter what the late Pak Hin maintained). This is a model of a “slow” civilization; they are frozen in unity with nature.
The Tagorians. A civilization of hypertrophied foresight. Three-fourths of all their strength is directed to studying the harmful consequences that might arise from a discovery, invention, or new technological progress. This civilization seems strange to us only because we cannot understand the interest in avoiding harmful consequences, or how much intellectual and emotional satisfaction it can give. Slowing down progress is as amusing as creating it — it all depends on your starting point and your upbringing. As a result, their only transportation is public; they have no aviation at all, and their communication lines are very well developed.
The third civilization is ours, and now we understand precisely in our lives why the Wanderers must interfere. We are moving. We are moving, and therefore we might make a mistake in the direction of our movement.
Nowadays, no one remembers the “asskickers” who tried to force progress with great enthusiasm among the Tagorians and Leonidians. By now me know that kicking ass in civilizations that are mature in their own way is as meaningless and hopeless as trying to speed up the growth of a tree — an oak, say — by pulling it up by the branches. The Wanderers are not asskickers, and forcing progress is not and could not be their goal. Their aim is the search, the selection, the preparation for communing, and finally to bring individuals mature enough for it into the community of the Monocosm. I do not know by what process the Wanderers make their selection, and that is a shame, because whether we want it or not, we must speak plainly, without euphemisms and scientific jargon. This is what we are talking about.
First: mankind’s stepping onto the path of evolution of the second order means the practical transformation of Homo sapiens into Wanderers.
Second: most likely; far from every Homo sapiens is suitable for such transformation.
Summary:
– humanity will be divided into two unequal parts;
– humanity will be divided into two unequal parts along parameters unknown to us;
– humanity will be divided into two unequal parts along parameters unknown to us, and the smaller part will be forced to surpass the greater half forever;
– humanity will be divided into two unequal parts along parameters unknown to us, and the smaller part will be forced to surpass the greater half forever, and this will be done by the will and art of a supercivilization, determinedly alien to humanity.
My dear Kammerer, as a sociopsychological experiment I offer you this situation, not without innovation, for analysis.
Now, when the bases of the Monocosm’s Progressorist strategy has become more or less clear to you, you will probably be better able than I to determine the basic direction of a counterstrategy and the tactics for capturing the moments of the Wanderers’ activity. It goes without saying that the search, selection, and preparation for communing of matured individuals must be accompanied by phenomena and events accessible to the careful observer. For instance, we can expect the appearance of mass phobias, new messianic teachings, the appearance of people with extraordinary abilities, the unexplained disappearance of people, the sudden — almost as if by witchcraft — development of new talents in people, and so on. I would definitely recommend that you keep your eyes on the Tagorians and Golovans accredited on Earth — their sensitivity to the alien and unknown is significantly higher than ours. (In this sense, you should also watch the behavior of earth animals, especially herd animals and those with rudimentary intellect.)
Naturally, the sphere of your attention should include not only Earth, but the entire solar system, the Periphery, and most of all, the young Periphery.
I wish you luck,
Yours, I. Bromberg
[End of Document 1]
DOCUMENT 2: Theme: 009 “A Visit from an Old Lady”
To the President of Sector Urals-North
Date: 13 June 94
FROM: M.M. Kammerer, head of UED
THEME: 009 “A Visit from an Old Lady”
CONTENTS: the death of A. Bromberg
President!
Professor Isaac Bromberg died suddenly in the Bezhin Meadow Sanatorium on the morning of June 11 of this year.
We have not found any notes on the Monocosm model or any notes at all on the Wanderers in his personal files. The search continues. The medical certificate on his death is appended.
M. Kammerer
[End of Document 2]
It was in this order that my young probationer, Toivo Glumov, read these documents in early 95, and naturally, these documents made a very definite impression on him, gave him very definite ideas, especially since they supported his most gloomy expectations. The seed fell in fertile soil. He immediately located the medical death certificate and, finding nothing there at all to confirm his suspicions, which seemed so natural, he demanded permission to see me.
I remember that morning well: gray, snowy, with a real blizzard outside my office windows. Perhaps because of the contrast, because my body was here, in the snowy Urals, and my eyes senselessly watched the streams of melting water on the panes, while my mental gaze was on a tropical night above a warm ocean, and a dead naked body bobbed in the phosphorescent foam that rolled up onto the sloping sandy beach. I had just received information from the Center about the third fatal incident on the island of Matuku.
At that moment, Toivo Glumov appeared before me, and I chased away the vision and asked him to sit down and speak.
Without any preamble, he asked me if the investigation of the circumstances of the death of Dr. Bromberg was considered closed.
With a certain amount of surprise, I replied that there had been no investigation, in effect, just as there had not been any special circumstances in the death of the hundred-and-fifty-year-old man.
Then where, in that case, were Dr. Bromberg’s notes on the Monocosm?
I explained that there probably had never been any notes. Dr. Bromberg’s letter, I had to assume, was an improvisation. Dr. Bromberg had been a brilliant improviser.
Then should he deem it an accident that Dr. Bromberg’s letter and the announcement of his death, sent by Maxim Kammerer to the President, were next to each other?
I looked at him, his thin lips set in a determined line, his low brow with a strand of white hair across it, and it was perfectly clear to me. What he wanted to hear from me. “Yes, Toivo, my lad,” he wanted to hear. “I think just as you do. Bromberg had guessed much, and the Wanderers got rid of him and stole his precious papers.” But naturally, I didn’t think anything of the sort and I didn’t say anything of the sort to my lad Toivo. Why the documents were next to each other, I didn’t know myself. Most likely, it really was by accident. And that’s what I told him.
Then he asked me if Bromberg’s ideas had gone into practical development.
I replied that the question was being examined. All eight models, proposed by the experts, were very open to criticism. As for Bromberg’s ideas, circumstances were not right for a serious attitude toward them.
Then he mustered his courage and asked me straight on if I, Maxim Kammerer, head of the department, intended to take up the development of Bromberg’s ideas. And here, finally, I had the opportunity to make him happy. He heard exactly what he wanted to hear.
“Yes, my lad,” I said. “That’s why I brought you into the department.”
He left feeling ecstatic. Neither he nor I had any idea then, of course, that it was at that very moment that he took his first step toward the Big Revelation.
I am a practicing psychologist. When I am dealing with a person, I can say without false modesty that I feel his spiritual state at every moment, the direction of his thoughts, and I’m quite good at predicting his actions. However, if I were asked to explain how I do it, and on top of that asked to draw or explain in words the image – that is created in my mind, I would find myself in a very difficult position. Like every practicing psychologist, I would be forced to turn to analogies from the world of art or literature. I would refer to the characters of Shakespeare, or Strogov, or Michelangelo, or Johann Sourd.
So Toivo Glumov reminded me of the Mexican Rivers. I mean from the oft-anthologized story by Jack London. Twentieth century. Or even nineteenth… I don’t remember exactly.