Lem, Stanislaw (38 page)

openly admit to. Now what do you do: help them achieve the ends to

which the little decency they have prompts them, or instead fulfill

their innermost desires? Take, for example, the Dementians and

Amentians. The Dementians, in their medieval piety, burnt at the

stake all those consorting with the Devil, females especially,

and they did this because, first, they envied them their unholy

delights, and secondly, they found that administering torture in the

form of justice could be a positive pleasure. The Amentians, on the

other hand, worshiped nothing but their bodies, which they stimulated

by means of machines, though in moderation, and this activity

constituted their chief amusement. They had boxes of glass, and into

these they placed various outrages, rapes and mutilations, the sight

of which served to whet their sensual appetites. On this planet we

dropped a multitude of devices designed to satisfy all desires in

such a way that no one needed to be harmed, that is, each device

created a separate artificial reality for each individual. Within six

weeks both Dementians and Amentians had perished, to a man, from a

surfeit of joy, groaning in ecstasy as they passed away! Is that the

sort of ingenuity you had in mind, O undeveloped one?"

"Either you're a complete idiot

or a monster!" cried Klapaucius, while I gulped and blinked.

"How dare you boast of such foul deeds?"

"I do not boast of them, but

confess them," the voice calmly said. "The point is, we

tried every conceivable method. On various planets we unleashed a

veritable rain of riches, a flood of satisfaction and well-being, and

the result was total paralysis; we dispensed good advice, the most

expert counsel, and in return the natives opened fire on our vessels.

Truly, it would appear that one must alter the minds of those one

intends to make happy…"

"I suppose you can do that too,"

grumbled Klapaucius.

"But of course we can! Take our

neighbors, for instance, the ones who inhabit a quasiterran (or, if

you prefer, geomorphic) planet. I speak of the Anthropods. Now, they

devote themselves exclusively to obbling and perplossication, for

they stand in mortal terror of the Gugh, which according to them

occupies the Hereafter and waits for all sinners with open jaws and

fangs of hellfire. By emulating the blessed Dimbligensians and

walking in the way of Wamba the Holy, and by shunning Odia, where

abound the Abominominites, a young Anthropod may in time become more

industrious, more virtuous and more honorable than ever were his

eight-armed forebears. True, the Anthropods are at constant war with

the Arthropoids over the burning question of whether Moles Have

Holes, or, contrariwise, Holes Moles, but observe that as a rule less

than half of each generation perishes in that controversy. Now you

would have me drive from their heads all belief in obbling,

Dimbligensians and so forth, in order to prepare them for rational

happiness. Yet this is tantamount to psychic murder, for the

resultant minds would be no longer Anthropodous or

Arthropoidal—surely you can see that."

"Superstition must yield to

knowledge," said Klapaucius firmly.

"Unquestionably! But kindly

observe that on that planet there are now close to seven million

penitents who have spent a lifetime struggling against their own

nature, solely that their fellow citizens might be delivered from the

Gugh. And in less than a minute I am to tell them, convince them

beyond a shadow of a doubt that all this effort was in vain, that

they had wasted their entire lives in pointless, useless sacrifice?

How cruel that would be! Superstition must yield to knowledge, but

this takes time. Consider the hunchback we spoke of earlier—there

Ignorance is indeed Bliss, for he believes his hump fulfills some

cosmic role in the great work of Creation. Telling him that it's

actually the product of a molecular accident will only serve to make

him despair. Better to straighten the hump in the first place…"

"Yes, of course!" Klapaucius

exclaimed.

"We did that too. My grandfather

once straightened three hundred hunchbacks with a wave of the hand.

And how he regretted it afterwards!"

"Why?" I couldn't help but

ask.

"Why? One hundred and twelve of

them were immediately boiled in oil, their sudden and miraculous

cure being taken for a sure sign that they'd sold their souls to the

Devil; thirty, no longer exempt from conscription, were promptly

called up and soon fell in various battles under various flags;

seventeen straightway succumbed to the shock of their good fortune;

and the remainder, since my esteemed grandfather saw fit to further

bless them with great beauty of form, wasted away through an

overindulgence in erotic activity—deprived of these pleasures

for so long, you see, they now hurled themselves into every sort of

debauchery, and in such a violent and unbridled fashion, that within

two years not one was left among the living. Well, there was an

exception… but it's hardly worth mentioning."

"Go on, let's hear it all!"

cried Klapaucius, and I could tell that he was greatly troubled.

"If you insist… Two

remained, actually. The first presented himself before my

grandfather and pleaded on bended knee for the return of his hump. It

seems that as a cripple he had lived comfortably enough on charity,

but now had to work and was quite unaccustomed to it. What was worse,

now that he was straightened, he kept bumping his head on door

lintels…"

"And the second?" asked

Klapaucius.

"The second was a prince who had

been denied succession to the throne on acount of his deformity. In

light of its sudden correction, his stepmother, to insure her own

son's position, had him poisoned…"

"I see… But still, you can

work miracles, can't you?" said Klapaucius, despair in his

voice.

"Bestowing happiness by miracle

is highly risky,” lectured the machine. "And who is to be

the recipient of your miracle? An individual? But too much beauty

undermines the marriage vows, too much knowledge leads to isolation,

and too much wealth produces madness. No, I say, a thousand

times no! Individuals it's impossible to make happy, and

civilizations—civilizations are not to be tampered with, for

each must go its own way, progressing naturally from one level of

development to the next and having only itself to thank for all the

good and evil that accrues thereby. For us, at the Highest Possible

Level, there is nothing left to do in this Universe, and to create

another Universe, in my opinion, would be in extremely poor taste.

Really, what would be the point of it? To exalt ourselves? A

monstrous idea! For the sake, then, of those yet to be created? But

how are we obligated to beings who don't even exist? One can

accomplish something only so long as one cannot accomplish

everything. Otherwise it's best to sit back and watch… And

now, if you'll kindly leave me in peace…"

"But wait!" I cried in

alarm. "Surely there's something you can give us, some way to

improve the quality of life, if only a little! Some way to lend a

helping hand! Remember the Golden Rule and Love Thy Neighbor!"

The machine sighed and said:

"My words fall on deaf ears, as

usual. I should have dismissed you to begin with, like we did the

last time… Oh, very well then, here's a formula that hasn't

been tried. No good will come of it, you'll see—but do with it

what you will! All I wish now is to be left alone to meditate among

my many theostats and deiodes…"

The voice faded away, the console

lights dimmed, and we stood and read the card the machine had printed

out for us. It went something like this:

ALTRUIZINE. A metapsychotropic
transmitting agent
effective for all sentient homoproteinates
.

Devel
.

Klapaucius was somewhat put off by the

fact that Altruizine was only for humans, which meant that robots

would have to continue to endure the misfortunes allotted to them in

this world. I, however, made bold to remind him of the solidarity of

all thinking beings and the necessity of aiding our organic brothers.

Then there were practical matters to arrange, for we were agreed that

the business of bestowing happiness was not to be postponed. So

while Klapaucius had a subsection of the Gnostotron prepare a

suitable quantity of the drug, I selected a geomorphic planet, one

peopled by human types and no more than a fortnight's journey off. As

a benefactor, I wished to remain anonymous, therefore my

distinguished mentor advised me, when going there, to assume the form

of a man, which is no easy task, as you well know. Yet here too the

great constructor overcame all difficulties, and soon I was

ready to depart, a suitcase in either hand. One suitcase was filled

with forty kilograms of Altruizine in a white powder, the other was

packed with various toilet articles, pajamas, underwear, spare

chins, noses, hair, eyes, and so forth. I went as a well-proportioned

young man with a thin mustache and a forelock. Now Klapaucius had

some doubt as to the advisability of applying Altruizine on such

a large scale to begin with, and though I did not share his

reservations, I did agree to test the formula first as soon as I

landed on Terrania (for so was the planet called). Longing for the

moment I could commence with the great sowing of universal peace

and brotherhood, I bid a fond farewell to Klapaucius and hastened on

my way.

In order to conduct the necessary

test, I repaired, upon arrival, to a small hamlet where I took

lodgings at an inn maintained by an aging and rather morose

individual. As they carried my luggage from the carriage to the guest

room, I contrived to drop a pinch of the powder into a nearby well.

Meanwhile there was a great commotion in the front yard, scullery

maids ran back and forth with pitchers of hot water, the innkeeper

drove them on with curses, and then came the sound of hoofbeats, a

chaise clattered up and an old man jumped out, clutching the black

leather bag of a physician—his goal was not the house, however,

but the barn, whence came the most doleful groans. As I learned from

the chambermaid, a Terranian beast which belonged to the

innkeeper—they called it a cow—was just now giving birth.

This news troubled me: it had never occurred to me to consider the

animal side of the question. But nothing could be done now, so I

locked myself in and waited for events to unfold. Nor did I have long

to wait. I was listening to the chain rattling in the well—they

were still drawing water—when suddenly the cow gave another

groan, which was echoed this time by several others. Immediately

thereafter the veterinarian came running from the barn, howling and

holding his stomach, and he was followed by the scullery maids and at

last the innkeeper. Driven by the cow's labor pains, they raised a

great cry and fled in all directions —only to return at once,

for the agony abated at a certain distance. Again and again they