1. I determined that the Phantom-17-Penguins spaceship had been subjected to the most thorough diagnostics, in the course of which nothing major in the construction was discovered, so that the direct cause of the Penguin Syndrome has remained shrouded in mist and fog. (However, wanting to reduce the risk to zero, the Directorate of the Space Fleet removed the Penguins from passenger flights and redesigned them for autopilot.) The incidence of the Penguin Syndrome rapidly decreased, and as far as I know, the last case was recorded thirteen years ago.
However, I was not satisfied. I was worried by the 22 percent of the cases reviewed whose relationship with the Phantom-17-Penguin spaceship remained vague. Of those 22 percent, according to the figures of Dr. Mobius, 7 percent never had anything to do with the Penguins, and the remaining 15 percent could not say anything useful either they did not remember or they were not interested in spaceship models and did not know which ones they had flown in.
Naturally, the statistical significance of the hypothesis of the role of the Penguins in the appearance of the phobia is indisputable. However, 22 percent is not a small figure. I subjected Mobius’s materials to a multifactored analysis of twenty additional parameters, and selected these parameters, I confess, rather randomly, having nothing to work from, not the most dubious hypothesis. For instance, I had parameter dates of takeoff accurate to within the month, place of birth accurate to the region, hobbies with accuracy to within the class rating… and so on.
It turned out to be quite simple, however, and it was only humanity’s eternal belief in the isotropism of the universe that kept Dr. Mobius from discovering what I managed to come up with. Here is what I learned: the Penguin Syndrome affected people who had made space flights on the routes to Saula, Redut, and Cassandra — in other words, through subspace sector entry
41/02.
The Phantom-17-Penguin had nothing to do with it. It was simply that the overwhelming majority of those ships in those days ( the early 80s) went straight from the hangar to the Earth-Cassandra-Zephyr and Earth-Redut-EN-2105 routes. That explained Dr. Mobius’s 78 percent. As for the remaining 22 percent, 20 had flown on those routes in other ships; that left only 2 percent, who had never flown anywhere, and so did not play a significant role.
2. The data of Dr. Mobius is definitely incomplete. In the names he collected as well the data from the archives of the Directorate of the Space Fleet, I was able to determine that during the period in question 4,512 people traveled along those routes in both directions, of which 183 people (primarily crew members) made round trips several times. More than two-thirds of the reference group did not fall into Dr. Mobius’s field of vision.
The most likely conclusion is that they were immune to the Penguin Syndrome or that for various reasons they did not seek medical help. In connection with this, it seemed extremely important for me to determine:
– whether there were people within the reference group who were immune to the syndrome; and
– if there mere any, then could the causes of their immunity be determined, or at least the biosociopsychological parameters in which these people differed from the patients.
With these questions, I turned to Dr. Mobius himself. He replied that this problem had never interested him, but intuitively he tended to assume that the existence of such biosociopsychological parameters seemed highly unlikely. In response to my request, he agreed to assign this research to one of his tabs, warning me that I should not expect results before two or three months.
So as not to lose time, I turned to the files of the Directorate’s Medical Center and tried to analyze the data on all 124 pilots who made regular round trips on the routes in question during the period in question.
Elementary analysis showed that, at least fog the pilots, the probability of being subjected to an attack of the Penguin Syndrome was approximately one-third and did not depend on the number of flights through the “dangerous” sector. Thus, it becomes quite probable that (a) two-thirds of people are immune to the Penguin Syndrome, and (b) a person without immunity is stricken by the syndrome with a probability close to one. That is why the question of distinguishing the immune person from the non-immune takes on such interest.
3. I feel it necessary to cite in full the notes by Dr. Mobius to his article, “More on the Nature of the Penguin Syndrome.” Dr. Mobius writes:
“I received a curious missive from my colleague Krivoklykov (of the Crimean branch of the Second ISM). After my speech in Riga was published, he wrote that for many months he has been having dreams that are incredibly similar to the nightmares of the sufferers of the Penguin Syndrome — he feels suspended in airless space far from planets and stars, he does not feel his body but sees it, just as many space objects, real and fantastic. But as opposed to those with the Penguin Syndrome, he does not feel any negative emotions. On the contrary, the event seems interesting and pleasant. He imagines that he is an independent heavenly body, moving along a trajectory he has chosen. The movement itself gives him pleasure, for he moves toward a certain goal that promises much that is interesting. The view of stellar masses glittering in the abyss elicits feelings of inexplicable rapture, and so on. It occurred to me that in the person of my colleague Krivoklykov I have an incident of a certain inversion of the Penguin Syndrome, which would be of great theoretical interest in light of the considerations I have explicated in my article. However, I was disappointed: it turned out that Krivoklykov had never in his life flown in a Phantom-17-Penguin starship. However, I do not give up hope that the inversion of the Penguin Syndrome does exist as a psychic phenomenon, and I will be grateful to any physician who would be kind enough to send me new data on that subject.”
Reference:
Krivoklykov, Ivan Georgievich, replacement physician and psychiatrist of Lemba base (EN 2105), in the period in question had made several trips on the Earth-Redut-EN-2105 route on various spaceships. According to the data In BVI, at the present time he is on Lemba case.
In the course of personal conversation with Dr. Mobius, I learned that in the last few years he has discovered the “positive” inversion of the Penguin Syndrome in another two people. Our of medical ethic, he refused to divulge their names.
I am not attempting a detailed commentary on the inversion of the Penguin Syndrome. However, it seems clear to me that there should be significantly more such people than are now known.
T. Glumov
[End of Document 3.]
I presented Document 3 here not only because it was one of the most summarizing reports made by Toivo Glumov. As I read and reread it, I sensed that we had finally come across the first real clue then, even though at the time that had not occurred to me, that the chain of events that would play the decisive role in my part in the Big Revelation began with that report.
On March 21, I read Toivo Glumov’s report on the Penguin Syndrome.
On March 25, the Wizard presented his demonstration in the Institute of Eccentrics. (I learned about it only several days later.)
And on March 27, Toivo turned in his report on fukamiphobia.
DOCUMENT 4: Report by T. Glumov
Theme 009
NARRATIVE: Little Pesha: 6 May 99. Early morning
Little Pesha: 6 May 99. 6 AM
Little Pesha: Same Day. 8 AM
DOCUMENT 5: Once of the UE-2
Department: 6 May 99. Around 1 PM
REPORT COMCON-2
No. 013/99 Urals-North
Date: 26 March 99
FROM: T. Glumov, Inspector
THEME: 009 “A Visit from an Old Lady”
CONTENTS: Fukamiphobia, the history of the Amendment to the Law on Mandatory Bioblockade
In analyzing the incidents of mass phobias in the last one hundred years, I have came to the conclusion that within the parameters of theme 009, the events that preceded the passage on 2/02/65 by the World Council of the famous Amendment to the law on the Bioblockade would be of interest to us.
The following should be kept in mind:
1. Bioblockade, also known as the Tokyo Procedure, has been systematically in use on Earth and the Periphery for about one hundred and fifty years. Bioblockade is not a professional term, and is used primarily by journalists. Medical specialists call this procedure fukamization in honor of the sisters Natalya and Hosiko Fukami, who were the first to give a theoretical basis for it and to put it into practice. The aim of fukamization is raising the natural level of adaptation of the human body to external conditions (bioadaptation). In its classic form, the procedure of fukamization is used exclusively an infants, beginning with the third trimester of its intrauterine development. As far as I have learned and understood, the procedure consists of two stages.