Authors: Stanislaw Lem
U
pon my return from the 27th century I sent I. Tichy off to Rosenbeisser, to take over the post vacated by me at THEOHIPPIP, which he did, though with the greatest reluctance, and then only after a week of scenes and running about in the little loop in time. This done, I found myself faced with a serious dilemma.
Say what you will, but personally I had had quite enough of improving history. At the same time it was entirely possible that that other Tichy would again make a mess of the whole Project and Rosenbeisser would send for me once more. I decided therefore not to wait around with folded hands but take off for the Galaxy, and the farther the better. I left in the greatest haste, afraid that MOIRA might try and stop me, but apparently things were at loose ends there after my departure, since no one took any particular interest in me somehow. Obviously I didn’t want to run off just anywhere, so I brought along a pile of the latest guidebooks and also the annual supplement to the Galactic Almanac, which had grown in my absence. Having put a tidy number of parsecs between myself and the Sun, I felt safe at last, and started thumbing through this literature.
As I soon discovered, it contained quite a bit that was new. Here Dr. Hopfstosser, the brother of Hopfstosser the famous Tichologian, had worked out a periodic table of civilizations in the Universe—based on three principles which enabled one, infallibly, to locate highly advanced societies. These were the Laws of Trash, of Noise, and of Spots, Every civilization at the technological stage gradually finds itself up to its ears in garbage, which causes tremendous problems, until the dumps are moved out into cosmic space and put—moreover—in a specially designated orbit, to keep them from getting too much in the way of the astronauts. In this fashion one obtains a growing ring of refuse, and it is precisely its presence that indicates a higher level of development.
However after a certain time the trash changes in character, for with successive strides in intellectronics it becomes necessary to dispose of ever greater quantities of obsolete computer hardware, to which old probes, modules and satellites attach themselves. These thinking junk heaps have no desire to spend the rest of eternity revolving around in a ring of garbage and so they break away, filling up the regions about the planet, and even its entire system. This stage leads to the pollution of the environment—with
intelligence.
Different civilizations try to combat the problem in different ways; occasionally you have cyberneticide, e.g. special traps are placed in space—snares, mines, lures for sentient flotsam and jetsam—but the effect of such measures couldn’t be worse, since only the inferior garbage, inferior mentally, lets itself be caught, consequently this tactic actually selects out the more perceptive of the trash; these band together in groups and gangs, organize raids and demonstrations, and the demands they present are difficult to meet, namely, spare parts and a place to settle down. If you refuse, they maliciously jam radio communications, interrupt programs, broadcast their own announcements, as a result of which the planet, in this phase, becomes surrounded by a zone of such static and howling in the ether, you can’t hear yourself think. It is precisely by this crackling that one can detect, even at a great distance, civilizations plagued with intellectual pollution. Odd, how long it took the astronomers of Earth to figure out why the Universe, according to their radio telescopes, was so full of noise and other senseless sounds; this is nothing more or less than interference produced by those abovementioned conflicts, which seriously impede the establishment of interstellar contact.
And finally—the sunspots, but sunspots of specific shape as well as chemical composition, which can be determined spectroscopically; they betray the presence of the most advanced civilizations of all, those that have broken the Trash Barrier and the Noise Barrier too. The spots occur when enormous swarms of junk, accumulated over the ages, hurl themselves like moths into the fire of the local Sun, there to perish in mass self-immolation. This mania is induced by certain depressants, to whose influence everything that thinks electrically succumbs. The sowing of these deadly agents is unspeakably cruel, but then existence in our Universe—and especially the setting up of civilizations within it—is unfortunately a grim business and no picnic.
According to Doctor Hopfstosser, these three consecutive stages of development are an iron rule for all humanoid civilizations. As far as the others go, the good doctor’s periodic table still shows certain gaps. This however was no hindrance to me, since for understandable reasons I was interested primarily in the life of beings most like ourselves. So then, following the specifications published by Hopfstosser in the Almanac, I assembled an ASS-finder (Advanced Sidereal Societies) and before long had entered the great cluster of the Hyades. For it was from there that particularly strong jamming came, there that the greatest number of planets were encircled with belts of trash, and there too that several suns were covered with dark eruptions having a spectrum of rare elements, which bore mute testimony to the annihilation of artificial intelligence.
And since the last issue of the Almanac provided photographs of the inhabitants of Dichotica, strikingly similar to people, it was on this planet that I decided to land. True, considering the considerable distance of 1000 light-years at which these pictures were taken radio-astronomically by Dr. Hopfstosser, they could have been a bit outdated. Nevertheless it was with great hopes that I approached Dichotica in a hyperbolic path and, assuming a circular orbit, requested permission to land.
Obtaining such permission is often a far more difficult thing than conquering the galactic void, since bureaucracy accompanies progress at a higher exponential rate than does navigation, therefore photon reactors, shields, supplies of fuel, oxygen, etc., have much less importance than vouchers and receipts, without which one can’t even think of entry visas. Being an old hand at all of this, I was prepared for a long spell—possibly many months—of circling Dichotica, but not prepared for what I encountered.
The planet, as I was able to make out, resembled Earth in the blueness of its sky, was covered with oceans too, and furnished with three large and definitely populated continents: even at a distant perimeter I had to look sharp to thread my way between the different satellites, the sentinel type, the observational, the spying, prying, and those that just sat there quietly; the latter I gave as wide a berth as possible, taking no chances. There was no response to my petitions; three times I submitted an application, but no one demanded the televising of my papers, they only shot something at me from the continent shaped like a kidney, it was a kind of triumphal arch of synthetic boughs of holly, entwined with multicolored ribbons and streamers and bearing inscriptions—encouraging inscriptions it would appear, yet worded so vaguely that I decided against flying through the arch. The next continent, bristling with cities, fired a milky white cloud at me, some sort of powder it was, which befuddled all the computers on board in such a way that they immediately tried steering the ship into the Sun. I had to shut them off and switch over to manual control. The third land mass, apparently less urbanized, submerged in luxuriant vegetation, the largest of the three, shot off nothing in my direction, greeted me with nothing; so, finding a secluded spot, I threw on the brakes and carefully set the rocket down in a glen of picturesque hills and meadows overgrown with either turnips or sunflowers—it was hard to say at that altitude.
As usual, the door was stuck, heated up from the atmospheric friction, and I had to wait a good while before it could be opened. I put my head outside, filled my lungs with the fresh, invigorating air and cautiously set foot on this unknown world.
I found myself at the edge of what looked to be a cultivated field, except that what was growing on it had nothing in common with sunflowers or turnips; they weren’t even plants, they were night tables, in other words a type of furniture. And as if that wasn’t enough, here and there between them, in fairly even rows, stood cabinets and footstools. After a little thought I came to the conclusion that these were products of a biotic civilization. I had seen such things before. The apocalyptic visions that futurologists sometimes unfold before us, of a world choked with lethal fumes, filled with smoke, hopelessly trapped by the energy barrier, the thermal barrier, etc., they’re complete nonsense: in the postindustrial phase of development one sees the rise of biotic engineering, which liquidates those kinds of problems. Mastery of the secrets of life permits the production of synthetic seed, which can be planted in practically anything. You sprinkle a little water over it and grow what you need in no time at all. As to where the thing draws its information and energy to become a radio or cupboard, you needn’t concern yourself, any more than we worry about how a spore acquires the strength and knowledge to sprout into a weed.
So it wasn’t the field of cabinets and bedstands itself that surprised me, but the fact that they were totally denaturalized. The closest night table, when I tried to open it, nearly bit off my hand with its toothed drawer; the second one, growing beside it, quivered in the breeze like jellied meat, and one of the stools I walked past stuck out its leg and sent me sprawling. No, that wasn’t at all how furniture was supposed to behave; there was clearly something wrong with this agriculture. Forging ahead, though now with the utmost care and keeping a finger on the trigger of my blaster, I came—at a slight depression in the terrain—upon a thicket in the style of Louis Quinze, out of which there leaped a wild settee and would have surely trampled me with its gilded hooves had I not floored it with a well-aimed shot. I wandered for a time between clumps of furniture suites that exhibited hybridization not only of styles, but of functions; crossbreeds ran riot there, credenzas with ottomans, branching buffets, and the wardrobes, thrown wide open as if inviting one to step inside, they were probably predators, judging by the half-eaten scraps at their feet.
I could see now that this was no crop, but pure chaos. Weary and suffering from the heat, for the sun was at its zenith, I found after several unsuccessful tries a remarkably quiet armchair and sat in it, to gather my thoughts. I was sitting there, in the shade of a bunch of large though wild commodes, which had sprouted numerous hangers, when not more than a hundred feet away a head emerged from between some high swaying cornices, and after the head, the trunk of some creature. It didn’t look to me like a man, but on the other hand definitely had nothing to do with furniture. It stood erect, covered with glossy blond fur, the face I couldn’t see, its broad-rimmed hat was in the way; in place of a belly it had what seemed to be a tambourine, the arms were tapered, ending in double hands; humming softly, it accompanied itself on that abdominal drum, or whatever. It took a step forward, then another, revealing its continuation. The thing resembled a centaur now, though barefoot and without hooves; then a third pair of kgs appeared behind the second, and then a fourth, but when it went bounding off into the brush and disappeared from view, I lost count. There were less than a hundred though, that much I knew.
I sat back in my upholstered chair, not a little stunned by this strange encounter, but finally got up and went on, taking care not to stray too far from the rocket. Among some full-grown sofas, all standing on end, I saw a pile of stone rubble, and farther on—the opening of an ordinary storm drain. As I drew closer in order to peer into its dark interior, I heard a rustling behind me, I started to turn around, but a sheet dropped over my head, I struggled—in vain, for arms of steel now held me fast. Someone kicked the legs out from under me; twisting helplessly, I felt myself being lifted up, then grasped by the shoulders and ankles. They carried me downwards it seemed, I could hear the sound of steps on flagstones, the creaking of a door, then I was thrown on my knees and the smothering fabric torn from my head.
I was in a small chamber lit with white bulbs attached to the ceiling—these also had whiskers and little feet, and from time to time would change their position. Someone standing over me held me by the neck, forcing me to kneel before a rough-hewn table. Behind it sat a figure in a gray hood, which covered his face completely; the hood had holes for the eyes, fitted with transparent panes. This figure, putting aside a book he had been reading, gave me a passing glance and said calmly to the one who kept me in his grip:
“Pull its cord.”
Someone grabbed my ear and pulled until I yelped with pain. Two more times they tried to tear off my lobe, and when it wouldn’t come, there was much consternation. The one who had been holding me and pulling, similarly swathed in coarse gray cloth, said in an apologetic tone that this was evidently a new model. Another thug came up and attempted, in turn, to screw off my nose, my eyebrows, finally the whole head; when that too failed to give the desired results, the seated one ordered me released and asked:
“How deep are you hidden?”
“How—what?” I asked, dumbfounded. “I’m not hiding anywhere and don’t understand a thing. Why are you torturing me?”
At that point the seated one stood up, came around the table and took me by the shoulders—his hands were human, but in linen gloves. Feeling my bones, he gave a small cry of astonishment. At a given signal I was taken down a corridor, where the light bulbs were crawling along the ceiling clearly bored, and into another cell, more precisely a cubicle, and black as a tomb. I didn’t want to enter it, but they shoved me in anyway and slammed the door. Something buzzed, and from behind an invisible partition I heard a voice exclaim, as if in heavenly ecstasy: “What lovely bones! What lovely little bones!” After hearing this, I put up an even greater struggle when they dragged me from that closet, but seeing how they now treated me with unexpected deference, respectfully bowing and gesturing for me to follow, I let myself be led deep into a subterranean passageway, remarkably like a city sewer main, though it was all scrubbed clean, with the walls whitewashed and the bottom sprinkled with fine white sand. My hands were now free and as we walked I rubbed all the injured places on my face and body.