tomorrow
from  me  either. I'm  simply  going to express  a  supposition  of what  is
modelled and why. As to how it is done-that's beyond me.. .."
     I laughed.
     "Somebody will get to an explanation. Live and see."
     "Where?"
     "Where do you think? At the Congress naturally."
     "You won't see anyone."
     Zernov smoothed his straight light  hair.  He  always did  that  before
saying something unpleasant.
     "It won't  work,"  I  said maliciously.  "You won't  hold me here.  I'm
well."
     "I know. The day  after  tomorrow  you will be discharged.  And  in the
evening you can pack your suitcases."
     He said it so firmly and decisively that I jumped up out of bed.
     "A recall?"
     "No."
     "So it's to Mirny again?"
     "And not to Mirny either."
     "Then where to?"
     Zernov was silent, smiling, he gave a quick sidelong glance at Irene.
     "Suppose I don't agree?" I said.
     "You'll agree. You'll be all too eager.  In  fact,  you'll grab at  the
chance."
     "Come on, Boris Arkadievich. Where to?"
     "Greenland."
     My  face obviously spelled  such  disappointment that Irene  burst  out
laughing.
     "He doesn't jump, Irene".
     "No, he doesn't."
     I lay back on purpose.
     "There's no dope to make me jump. But why to Greenland?"
     "There'll be dope enough," said Zernov and winked at Irene.
     Irene, imitating the TV news announcer, began:
     "Copenhagen. Our special  correspondent reports that pilot observers of
the  United  States  polar station  at Soenre Stremfiorde  (Greenland)  have
detected  a curious  artificial or  natural phenomenon  to  the north of the
seventy-second parallel  of latitude,  in the  area of Simpson's expedition.
..."
     I rose up on my pillows.
     "..  .over  an  extensive  ice-covered  plateau,   blue  kilometre-long
protuberances have  been  observed. Something in the nature of  a diminished
Aurora Borealis, only  along an enormous  ellipse in  a close  band of  blue
fire. The tongues of  flame  merge roughly at  an altitude of  one kilometre
forming  the  surface of an  immense octahedron. That's it,  isn't it, Boris
Arkadievich?"
     I fell back on the bed.
     "Now are you ready to jump, Anokhin?"
     "I seem to be ready."
     "Now listen. Reports of this 'aurora' have appeared in  all the papers.
The octahedron  shines for hundreds of kilometres.  It cannot be  approached
either on  foot  or on tractor:  our  familiar  invisible wall  repulses all
oncomers. Aircraft have been unable to come down from above, they are turned
aside. The suspicion is that  this  is  a powerful field of  force that  the
space beings have set up. Now do you jump?"
     "Definitely.  Boris  Arkadievich,  that   means  they  are  already  in
Greenland."
     "Have been for some time. But deep in  the interior of the plateau they
seem to have something new. Fire, yet instruments nearby do not register the
slightest increase in temperature. Neither is there any  rise in atmospheric
pressure or  in ionization. Radio communications are  not interrupted even a
few metres  away from  the  protuberances.  Geiger counters are suspiciously
silent. Strange camouflage, rather like a kid's  kaleidoscope.  The flashing
of broken glass and that's all. The photos we have don't seem to make sense.
A  clear sky on a sunny day  reflected  in enormous crystalline facets of  a
crystal. But the  'horsemen' go  through like birds into a cloud.  But  real
birds  bounce  back  like  tennis balls. Attempts  were  made  with pigeons,
complete failure."
     I was  bitterly jealous of  my colleagues for getting in to  shoot that
scene!
     Zernov was not so elated, he thought there might be great danger in the
whole  affair. He said: "You  know what the activities around this thing are
now called?  'Operation T' after  our friend Thompson. He himself says  that
this is  a  personal search for contact. He says that  before he took  over,
everything  had  been  tried,  and  in  vain:  light signals,  radio  waves,
mathematical  codes,  and all manner of figures traced in  the  sky  by  jet
planes.  The horsemen refuse to respond. But he says he'll  make contact. So
far  nobody knows  with  what  media,  and  he  isn't  communicative either.
However,  the core  of the expedition has  already been  formed and has been
sent to Upernivik. That's  where the  Greenland expedition  of  Koch-Wegener
started out from in 1913. They are supported by  a cargo-passenger aircraft,
a  helicopter  borrowed  from  the  Tutie base,  two  tracked  vehicles  and
aerosleighs. Not so badly equipped, as you can see."
     I still couldn't make out what sort of contact Thompson could expect to
make with the aid of helicopter and aerosleigh. Zernov smiled enigmatically.
     "The  news boys  don't  either.  But  Thompson is no  fool.  He  didn't
corroborate a single statement attributed to him by the press concerning the
aims of  the expedition or the means with  which  they hope  to attain them.
Queried by journalists, not a single firm  supplying him with equipment  and
gear has  responded. He has been asked whether he is taking along tanks with
gas of an  unknown composition.  Other questions: What  are  the instruments
recently loaded onto a vessel at Copenhagen  to be used for? Does  he intend
to  explode, drill  or break  into the force field of the extra-earth-lings?
His reply  is that the equipment  of his expedition  was checked by  customs
officials and that nothing  was found  to violate the  rules for bringing it
into  Greenland. He knows nothing, he insists, about any special instruments
that were said to have been loaded at Copenhagen. The aims of the expedition
are scientific-research and he's going to count his chicks when they hatch."
     "Where does he get the money?"
     "Don't know? There's no big money here, even the 'mad men' of  politics
aren't ready to place big sums at his disposal. He's not fighting communists
or  Negroes. Of  course, somebody is  financing the  thing, without a doubt.
Some newspaper syndicate  they say.  Like Stanley's  expedition to Africa. A
sensational piece is playing, why not risk it."
     I wanted to know whether his expedition was connected with some kind of
decision or recommendation of the Congress.
     "He's  broken with  the  Congress," Zernov explained.  "Even  before it
started he announced in the press that he does not consider himself bound by
its future  resolutions.  By the  way,  you don't even  know  what  happened
there."
     That  was so, I didn't know what had happened at the Congress. I didn't
even know that it had taken  place at the very time that I was being removed
from the operating table to my post-operative ward.
     After the Security Council of the United Nations refused to discuss the
phenomenon of the rose clouds prior to a  resolution of the Paris  Congress,
correctly taking the view that the first word should come from  science, the
atmosphere around the Congress became extremely heated.
     It opened up like a world football championship. Trumpets, flags of the
nations, greetings from all scientific associations of the world.  True, the
wiser ones  kept  quiet while the less  cautious participants  came out with
statements  that the mystery of  the rose  clouds would be clarified in  the
near future.  Of  course,  there  was no  discovery  of any kind,  with  the
possible   exception  of  Academician  Osovets'  report.  He  advanced   and
substantiated the thesis  that  the visitors  were peace-loving  beings from
space, and this set the  course for  other scientists. Pieces of wisdom were
bandied about.  Zernov  told  roe  some  of  them  with  hardly  containable
disappointment. Opinions collided and hypotheses  rose and fell. Some of the
conferees even took the 'clouds' to be varieties of flying saucers.
     "Yuri, if you only knew how many dopes there are in science, people who
have long  since  lost  the  right to  be called scientists!"  said  Zernov.
"Naturally,  there   were   some  well-thought-out  speeches,  and  original
hypotheses, some  bold conjectures.  But Thompson left after the very  first
meetings. 'A thousand shy oldsters won't cook  up anything worth while,'  he
said to waiting newspaper men."
     Out of the  entire Congress, he invited  to this expedition only Zernov
together with the crew of the 'Kharkovchanka' and Irene. "We began together,
we'll continue together," said Zernov.
     "I didn't begin," interrupted Irene.
     "But you continued."
     "Where?"
     "On that same night in the hotel Homond."
     "I don't get it."
     "Ask Anokhin. He'll tell you a thing or two."
     "About what?" Irene was concerned.
     "That you are  not you  but your model created by the  'clouds' on that
ill-fated night."
     "Quit joking, Boris Arkadievich."
     "I'm not joking. Simply Anokhin and Martin saw you in St. Disier."
     "Not her," I put in, "you've forgotten."
     "I haven't forgotten, but I figured it would be better not to tell."
     A nervous extended pause set in. Irene took off her  glasses, collapsed
the bows automatically and again opened them-the first sign of nerves.
     "Now I understand," she said accusingly to Zernov, "that you and Martin
were hiding something from me. What was it?"
     Zernov evaded the question this time as well.
     "Let Anokhin tell you. We believe that he is the  only one  who has the
right to tell you."
     I  replied to Zernov  with  a  glance the  force of  a sword stroke  by
Bonnville. Irene turned to him, then to me in a state of complete confusion.
     "Is that true, Yuri?"
     "Yes, it is," I sighed and said nothing.
     To  tell her what had happened in the officer's casino in  St. Disier I
had to be alone with her, not here.
     "Something unpleasant?"
     Zernov  smiled. The pause  continued. I was really pleased  to hear the
familiar creak of the door.
     "The most unpleasant thing is to begin right now," I said and nodded in
the  direction of  the  opening door,  through which my angel in white  with
hypodermic needle  in hand was coming. "This is part  of  the treatment that
even friends are not supposed to view."
     And  the curative  therapy of  Professor Peletier again pushed  me down
into the abyss of sleep.




        Chapter XXVI. THE CONGRESS



     I woke up the next morning, promptly recalled everything and got mad as
hell: I still  had another day in  the  hospital. The appearance of my white
angel with a wheeled table containing my breakfast did not console me in the
least.
     "Turn on the radio."
     "We have no radio here."
     "Then get me a transistor set."
     "Out of the question."
     "Why?"
     "Everything is prohibited that can interfere with the normal well-being
of a convalescent patient."
     "I'm already well."
     "You will know about that only tomorrow morning."
     The white angel was fast turning into a demon.
     "But I've  got to  know what is taking place at the Congress. Zernov is
speaking. Don't you understand? Zernov!"
     "I do not know Monsieur Zernov."
     She handed me a folder in red morocco.
     "What's this?"
     "Newspaper  clippings   that  Mademoiselle  Irene  left  for  you.  The
Professor allowed them."
     That was bread for a person starving from lack of information. I opened
the folder, forgetting about breakfast and listened. Yes, I listened.
     It was the voice of the world coming through to  me, through nickel and
glass, through the  white brick of the  hospital walls,  through the murk of
bottomless sleep and the beatitude of getting well. It was the voice of  the
Congress with the opening speech of Academician  Osovets that set the  right
course for a  reasonable  and consistent stand  of  humanity relative to the
visitors from space.
     "What is already clear?"  said  the Academician.  "That we are  dealing
with an extraterrestrial civilization, one  from  another planet.  That  its
technical and scientific level  far surpasses our own. That neither they nor
we have been able to establish contact with one another. And  also  that its
attitude towards us is friendly and peaceful. During these three months  the
visitors  have collected  and  transported out into space the ice of all the
continents and we  have not been  able to  intervene. What does  this action
spell for humanity?  Nothing  but  good.  Climatologlsts will establish  the
precise consequences of what has been done, but  even now  we can speak of a
considerable  amelioration in the climate of the polar and adjacent moderate
latitudes, about the mastering of vast  earlier  inaccessible areas and of a
free settling of the population of the world.  What is  more, the extraction
of  the terrestrial  ice was  accomplished without  geological catastrophes,
Hoods  or  other  natural calamities. Not  a  single  expedition or ship  or
scientific research station operating in these areas of glaciation suffered.
More, the  guests presented humanity, as a by-product, with newly discovered
riches that were soon located. In the foothills of the Yablonevy Range, they
discovered vast  deposits of copper ore,  in Yakutia fresh diamond deposits.
In the Antarctic they discovered oil and in their own way drilled and put up
rigs of a very peculiar design quite unfamiliar to any of us." He  concluded
in a  burst of  applause with the following words.  "I can say to  you  that
right now in Moscow an agreement is being signed among  interested countries
on the establishment of an industrial and trade stock company, with the code
name SJEAP, which stands for Society for the Joint Exploitation of Antarctic
Petroleum."
     Academician  Osovets also summarized  the  events  connected  with  the
spacelings'  modelling of  phenomena  in terrestrial life in which they were
interested. The list was so long that the  speaker did  not read it. It  was
simply issued as a printed supplement to the report. I will cite  only  what
was commented on by the journalists at Paris.
     In  addition to Sand City/the "horsemen" modelled a  resort town in the
Italian Alps,  the  French  beaches in  the morning, when they resemble  the
mating grounds of seals, the square of St.  Mark  in Venice and a portion of
the London underground railway. Passenger transport  systems attracted their
attention in many countries.  They dived into trains,  ocean and air liners,
police helicopters and even balloons participating in some  kind of sporting
contest at Brussels.
     In France they penetrated to some  kind of racing event at the Parisian
cycle racetrack, in San Francisco, it was a boxing match of heavyweights for
champion of the Pacific Coast,  in Lisbon, at a football game for the Cup of
European Champions  (the  players  later complained that the red fog  around
them was so thick that they  could not see the opponent's goal). The fog was
the same  during  the  games  of the  first  round at  the interzonal  chess
tournament in Zurich, and for two hours at the Government Cabinet meeting in
the South  African Republic, and for forty minutes the animals in the London
Zoo dined. The newspaper gibed that both events occurred on the same day and
that  in both  cases  the  fog did  not disperse either  the  beasts  or the
racists.
     The  Academician's list included  a  detailed  enumeration  of all  the
factories  and  plants  modelled  by   the  cosmic  visitors  completely  or
partially:  sometimes  a department,  or a  conveyor line,  or simply  a few
machines and tools characteristic  of a given type of  production and chosen
with unerring precision. Parisian journalists commenting this choice came to
some curious conclusions. Some said that the "clouds" were interested mostly
in outmoded  types  of machines that had not changed fundamentally over  the
past  century,  and  therefore least  comprehensible  to them,  such as  the
filigree working of precious stones or the designations of kitchen utensils.
Then  a  diamond-cutting  shop  in Amsterdam was  modelled and  a  primitive
manufactory of toys in Nuremberg.
     Other observers, commenting on the list of  Osovets, noted the interest
displayed in  services for  the  consumer. Wrote  the  correspondent  of the
"Paris-Midi":  "Have  you  noticed the  quantity  of  modelled  barbershops,
restaurants, fashion  houses and television studios? Note the attention paid
to the choice of shops, stores, market places, fairs and even  show windows.
And note the  variation  of modes of modelling. At times a "cloud" will dive
onto a site  and leave immediately before there is time for a natural  panic
to develop.  At  other times  the  cloud  envelopes  the  objective  slowly,
imperceptibly penetrating to every nook and cranny, and people do not notice
anything until the  density  of the gaseous cloud turns into visibility. And
even  then  there is  something  that  prevents  them  from  altering  their
customary  behaviour,  something  that represses  the mind  and will  power.
Nobody experienced fear: barbers cut hair,  clients leaf through illustrated
journals, movie cameramen  make takes  or conduct  TV  shows, the goalkeeper
snatches a difficult ball, and a  waiter  politely hands you the bill in the
restaurant.  Everything round about has become  red like  the light of a red
lamp, but you  continue  your activities,  only  later  realizing  what  has
occurred after the ''horsemen'  have passed beyond the horizon carrying with
them your live imagination. Most of the time you don't even have a chance to
see it: the cosmic visitors demonstrated it to humans only during the  first
experiments in  fixation  of  terrestrial life.  afterwards  everything  was
confined to films of red gas of varying consistency and tonality."
     "Nobody  has suffered  during all of this, and nobody has even  had any
material losses  of any kind,"  thus the  Academician summarized.  "With the
exception of a stool  that vanished together  with a double at a meeting  of
polar men at Mirny, and the automobile of pilot Martin who rashly left it in
the modelled  city,  no one can name a  single thing destroyed or damaged by
our  cosmic  friends. There was  talk of  a cycle  that was left by a  Czech
cyclist and disappeared near Prague during a race, but it was later found in
a parking lot during a rest period. Then there was an alpenstock  taken away
from a Swiss  guide,  Fred  Schomer, by his double who suddenly appeared  in
front of him  on  an Alpine pathway. But  Fred Schomer wrote  to the editors
saying  that nothing of the kind  had  taken place, that  firstly, he was so
frightened he threw it  away,  and  secondly, the same stick was returned to
him by the rose cloud that dived to the front door  of his house. All of the
other  cases  reported  in  the  press turned  out  to be  simply  the  idle
imaginings of self-styled 'victims' or of the newspaper men  themselves. The
rose clouds returned  to space without having done any harm to humanity  and
without taking anything with them except terrestrial ice and the conjectured
recordings  of terrestrial life  coded  in some fashion  in  red  fog. This,
incidentally,  is a  hypothesis that  has  not been proven  in  any  way  by
anybody."
     Academician Osovets' speech  met  the approval of far and away the bulk
of the delegates. I did not read Thompson's speech, it had found no support,
and actually the debate turned into an exchange  of queries and replies, not
in  the  least  polemical and  not even  very bold or  confident. There were
apprehensions for example that the peaceful nature of the newcomers was only
a manoeuvre and that they would return with quite different intentions.
     "What kind?" the Academician would like to know.
     "Aggressive."
     "With the technological  facilities at their disposal what  purpose  is
there in camouflage?"
     "But suppose it's reconnaissence?"
     "The very first encounters have demonstrated to them  the difference in
our technical potentials."
     "But have we shown them our potential?" Thompson asked.
     "They've modelled it already."
     "But we didn't even attempt to direct it against their attack."
     "How can you call that an attack?"
     "However, can you risk asserting that it will not follow?"
     "In support of my assertions  I  cited numerous  proven facts, while in
support of your contentions I hear only hypotheses."
     After that  ignominious discussion-that is,  for the  opponents of  the
Soviet Academician-the "doubters", as they were dubbed, fought  back in  the
commissions,  especially in  the Commission for  Contact and Conjecture that
soon  became  famous  for  its  tempestuous  sessions.  Here,  all manner of
hypotheses  were   advanced   and  straightway  venomously  countered.   One
discussion merged into  another,  very often gradually straying  farther and
farther from the original  topic. This continued until the electric  gong of
the chairman sounded. The  journalists did not even  work up  their notes or
inject any hyperbolas, all that was needed was to cite verbatim.
     I took at random one of the clippings and read:
     "PROFESSOR O'MELLY (Northern Ireland):
     I  suggest  an  amendment to  the  formulation  of  Professor  MacEdou:
ammonium and fluorine.
     PROFESSOR  MACEDOU (USA). I agree.  That was  mentioned  at  the  press
conference.
     PROFESSOR  TAINE  (Great  Britain). As  I  remember  it,  at the  press
conference it was suggested  that the rose clouds were  visitors from a cool
planet.  For  fluorine beings,  a temperature of minus  one  hundred degrees
would be only a pleasant frost. I do not want to  put  it  strongly but  any
first-year college student would be able to  correct the colleague  who made
that statement. The problem of fluorine proteins....
     VOICE FROM THE BACK OF THE AUDITORIUM. There's no such problem.
     TAINE. No, there  isn't, but there easily could be. The commission here
is one of conjectures and not scientific facts,
     VOICE FROM PRESS CENTRE. Boy, this is boring.
     TAINE.  Why don't you  go  to  a  variety show if  you  don't  like it?
Organo-fluorine compounds are activated only at  very high temperatures.  Or
has  my colleague forgotten  the difference between plus and minus? Fluorine
life is life based  on  a background  of sulphur  and  not water.  On  'hot'
planets, professor, and not cold planets.
     MACEDOU  (jumping  to his  feet).  Who's that  talking  about  water or
sulphur? Professor Dillinger, who  is absent, had in view hydrogen flouride.
I  am not  surprised that  he was  misunderstood by newspaper reporters, but
what surprises me is the incomprehension of  an outstanding scientist. It is
precisely  hydrogen  fluoride  or fluorine  oxide  that  can be the  'viable
solvent' at temperatures of not plus but minus one hundred and more degrees.
The rose clouds might also be visitors from a cold planet, gentlemen.
     VOICE FROM BACK OF AUDITORIUM (speaker hides behind the man in front of
him). At what  temperature, Professor, do they cut kilometre-thick layers of
ice?
     TAINE. Another point in favour of the hot planet.
     PROFESSOR GWINELLI (Italy). More  likely in favour of the hypothesis of
gas-plasma life.
     TAINE.  It is  difficult  to  believe  that  even  in  extraterrestrial
conditions gas could serve as a medium for biochemical reactions.
     GWINELLI [heatedly). What  about  the famous  experiments of Miller who
succeeded  in synthesizing elementary organic compounds in a gaseous medium?
And the  investigations of the Soviet  Academician Oparin? Carbon, nitrogen,
oxygen and hydrogen are to be found in any corner of the universe. And these
elements, in their turn, form compounds that carry us up the ladder of life,
including the jump from the nonliving to the living. Then why should  we not
conjecture that it is precisely in a  gaseous medium that a  life originated
that has risen to the heights of a supercivilization?
     CHAIRMAN. Can  you formulate  your  idea  within  the framework  of the
hypothesis?
     GWINELLI. Of course.
     CHAIRMAN. Let us hear Professor Gwinelli at our next session....
     VOICE  FROM BACK OF AUDITORIUM (interrupting)... and  Dr.  Schnellinger
who   is   now  in   Vienna.  He  has  a  well   worked  out  hypothesis  of
intercommunications of the cosmic beings, something in the nature of  direct
frequency modulation,  irradiation of ultrashortwave  impulses  and even the
possibility of telepathic transmission via gravitational waves... .
     LAUGHTER NEARBY. Nonsense!
     VOICE FROM BACK OF AUDITORIUM
     (persistently.)  Excuse  me for  any  inaccuracy in  the  formulations,
specialists will understand.
     Professor Janvier in black silk cap rises. He is the  oldest  professor
of the  famous French Poly-technical School. He holds on  to his hearing aid
and speaks into the microphone.
     JANVIER.   Esteemed   ladies   and   gentlemen.   I   would  leave  Dr.
Schnellinger's report until  we  have heard the  hypotheses about those with
whom we are dealing:  with living beings or highly organized biocybernetical
systems. In the former  instance, direct telepathic communications might  be
possible.
     "I am not  in  possession of them, but there are apprehensions that all
these hypotheses are simply ingenious fabrications," concluded  the Parisian
observer.  "The  number  of  hypotheses presented  at the  sessions  of  the
commission has already topped the hundred mark...."
     I  took another clipping from  another verbatim report, but chosen with
the  same  humorous intentions and  commented on in  the same  style. In the
third  one, the  author recalled  Gulliver and condescendingly pitied people
who could not be like Lilliputians  that do not concoct hypotheses. However,
after Zernov spoke, there was not a trace of any ironic condescension.  When
I opened up  the evening papers Irene brought me, their solidarity this time
was quite different.
     "Riddle solved!", "Russians Penetrate Mystery of Rose Clouds," "Anokhin
and  Zernov Establish  Contact  with  Visitors", "Soviets Again Surprise the
World". Such were the headlines on the story about the  conversion of modern
Paris  into  the  provincial  town  of  St.  Disier  of  the  time of  Nazis
occupation,  about the marvellous  materialization  of the movie  plots of a
famous producer and about my  clash with the  first swordsman of France. The
latter  was what  captivated  Paris  completely.  An  ordinary cameraman and
amateur fencer  crossed swords  with Mongeusseau himself. And  stayed alive,
that's what's important. That evening  Mongeusseau was interviewed  a number
of times and got his salary doubled for participation in the film. Newspaper
reporters squeezed Mongeusseau and Carresi dry  and then attacked Peletier's
clinic;  only the strict monastery regime there  relieved me  of yet another
press   conference.  Zernov  was  lucky.  Taking  advantage  of  the  ritual
accompanying  the opening and  closing of Congress sessions, he slipped away
and grabbed  the  first  available  taxi to get  out of  town  and  visit  a
communist Mayor, an acquaintance of his.
     I did not find anything new in his  report, which was  given  in detail
and with commentary. Everything had emerged clear-cut  from  our discussions
about what we had experienced. Yet the comment of even the most conservative
portion of the press was extremely flattering to us all.
     On the first page of the "Paris  Jour",  next to photographs of myself,
Zernov  and Martin, I read: "Two Russians and one  American lived  through a
fantastically  thrilling night  in  a Paris hotel, a night that recalled  to
life  all  the  nightmares  of  a  Gothic  novel.  By far not  every  person
instantaneously jerked out  of  the present world and plunged into the world
of materialized dreams and apparitions  extracted from the depths of someone
else's  memory would behave with such fearlessness,  orientation  in his new
surroundings and  reasonable  sequence of actions. This can  be said of  all
three participants of this fantastic Odyssey. But Zernov must be singled out
as the one who did the most. Boris Zernov was the first of the scientists of
the  world to  give the  only  possible  answer to the query that  has  been
exciting  thousands  of  millions of  people  on  this planet Earth: why the
visitors  ignore  our attempts at contact  and  they  themselves do not seek
communication  with  us. Zernov's  answer  is  that there is  a  far greater
difference between  our  physical  and  psychical life  and  theirs (perhaps
immeasurably greater)  than, say, between  the  organization, the biological
organization, and  the psychic make-up of a man and a bee. What would happen
if we attempted to contact bees-they with their media and we with ours? Then
is  contact possible between two still  more diversified forms of  life?  We
have not  found  it, they have. They need  not  have shown us the models  of
their  world, yet they did. Why? In  order to  get to  know our physical and
psychic reactions,  the nature and the depth of our thought  processes,  our
capacity for understanding and  evaluating their actions.  They chose worthy
Argonauts, but only Zernov proved to be Odysseus: he comprehended  the  gods
and out-tricked them."
     I  read  that  article with  such relish  that  Irene couldn't  contain
herself any longer and said:
     "I wanted to punish you for hiding  things. Well, okay, I'll show it to
you."
     And she showed me an opened cable from Umanak, Greenland.
     "PARIS.  Congress.  Zernov.  Heard your  report  by radio,  staggering.
Perhaps here in Greenland you  will  make a new discovery. Expecting you and
Anokhin next flight. Thompson."
     That was my happiest day in Paris.




        Chapter XXVII. IMAGINATION OR PREDICTION



     And most likely not only mine. Particularly when I told Irene.
     At first  she  did not believe me. She grinned like a girl on her first
date.
     "You're just joking."
     I said nothing, then asked her:
     "Your mother was in the Resistance movement. Where?"
     "Our Foreign Office asked the French, and they don't know for sure. Her
whole group perished. And it's not known where or how."
     "In St. Disier," I said. "Not so far from Paris. She was an interpreter
in the officer's casino. That's where she was captured."
     "How do you know?"
     "She told me so herself."
     Irene slowly took off her glasses and folded the bows.
     "You don't joke about things like that."
     "I'm perfectly earnest. Martin and I saw her that night in St.  Disier.
We were taken  for English pilots; their plane  had  been  shot  down in the
night on the outskirts of the town."
     Irene's lips were trembling.  She  couldn't even  ask the question  she
wanted to.
     Then I related the whole story from beginning to end, about Etienne and
Lange,  about  the  burst  of gunfire Martin fired  on the staircase  of the
casino, the explosion that we heard in the dark town.
     She was silent. I  got  angry, realizing all the  helplessness of words
that were powerless to reproduce life, even a model of life.
     "What did she look like?" Irene asked of a sudden.
     "Who?"
     "You know."
     "She continually changed  depending on  the  person that  recalled her.
Etienne, or  Lange. She  was young,  about  your age. They both admired her,
though one betrayed her and the other killed her."
     She said very softly:
     "Now I understand Martin."
     "That's much too little as punishment."
     "I understand." She thought for a moment and then asked, "Am I like her
in any way?"
     "A real  copy. Remember the  surprise on  the  face of  Etienne in  the
hotel? And the concentrated attention of Lange? Ask Zernov, he'll tell you."
     "And what happened afterwards?"
     "Then I walked up the stairs of the Hotel Homond."
     "And everything vanished?"
     "Yes, as far as I was concerned."
     "And as far as she was concerned?"
     I spread my arms in a helpless gesture. How could I answer?
     "I  do  not get it," she said.  "There's the present and the  past. And
life and what else?"
     "A model."
     "A living one?"
     "Don't know.  It  might be  recorded in some way  or another. On  their
film." I laughed.
     "Don't laugh.  This is terrifying.  Living life. Where? In what kind of
space? In what kind of time? And do they carry it away with them? Why?"
     "Listen," I said, "I haven't enough imagination to keep up with you."
     But there was  a person who  had all  the necessary imagination. We met
him the following day.
     In the morning I  was discharged from the clinic  and said  a masculine
farewell to the as-always stern  Peletier  ("You saved my life, Professor, I
am  in  your debt"),  embraced  the  senior  nurse-my white  angel with  the
devilish needle ("It makes me sad to have to say goodbye, Mademoiselle") and
in response came the highly non-nunish, almost Maupassant, "Naughty boy" and
I went out onto the Voltaire Embankment where I was to meet Irene. The first
thing she told me  was that  Tolya  Dyachuk and Vano had left Copenhagen and
were flying  to Greenland  direct, and that my visa  and Zernov's were being
processed in the Danish  Embassy.  I could still be  present  at the plenary
session of the Congress.
     The heat  outdoors  was awful, the asphalt melted under one's feet, but
in the corridors and halls of the Sorbonne where the Congress was being held
since all the students  were away on vacation, it was cool and as quiet as a
church after services. And just as empty. There were no late comers or eager
smokers or avid  gossipers or  argumentative thinkers. All the smoking rooms
and refreshment places were empty. Every one was gathered in the  auditorium
where  there wasn't room for even  one more person- never so  packed. People
were sitting everywhere, even on  the  floor  in the aisles, on the steps of
the uprising amphitheatre. That's the only place we could find.
     At the lectern  was  an  American.  I  gathered  that from  the way  he
swallowed separate letters and put too much stress on "o" and "a" just  like
my  English  teacher  at  the institute.  She  had studied  at Princeton  or
Harvard.  I  knew  his name, like  all  the  reading world; but this  was no
statesman, not even  a  scientist, which would have been in full accord with
the composition of the assembly and the list of its speakers. This one was a
writer  and not even a very  fashionable one-simply a science-fiction writer
that had made a name  for himself. Actually, he did not take any great pains
to substantiate scientifically his  amazing  concoctions,  and even here, in
front  of  a galaxy of prominent scientists, had the nerve to state  that he
personally was  not  interested in scientific  information about  the cosmic
visitors  that  the  Congress was  putting together  bit  by  bit with great
difficulty  (those  were the words he  used), but  the fact of  an encounter
between two utterly different worlds with what are actually two incompatible
civilizations.
     It was this statement and  the  hum of  the auditorium that followed it
signifying either agreement or disagreement  (hard to say) which we heard as
we found our seats on the steps in the aisle.
     "Don't be  offended  by the word 'bit', gentlemen," he continued with a
slight grin, "you will collect  tons of information of the  highest value in
the commissions of glaciologists and climatologists, in special expeditions,
at scientific-research stations, in institutes and scientific papers, all of
which will  be concerned with  problems  of  new formation  of ice, climatic
changes  and  the meteorological consequences of the phenomenon of the  rose
clouds.  Yet the mystery of  them still remains a mystery. So far we do  not
know a thing about the nature of the force field that has paralysed  all our
attempts at an approach to them, or about  the character of the life that we
have encountered, or about its location in the universe.
     "The conclusions of Boris Zernov  about an experiment  of the newcomers
to establish contact with earth-dwellers are interesting,  but that is their
experiment and not ours. Now I can offer a counter-proposal, if the occasion
arises. To consider the world that they create as  a direct channel to their
consciousness,  to  their  thinking  process. To speak  with  them  via  the
'doubles' and  'spirits' which  they  create.  And  use every one  of  their
models, every ultimate substance (structure) that they materialize, use them
as a microphone for direct or indirect communication with the cosmic people.
Something  in  the nature of  a telephone conversation  without mathematics,
chemistry or other codes. And in simple human speech, English or Russian, it
makes no difference, they will  understand. You may say that that is science
fiction, and I say it is too. But the Congress has already risen-note that I
say 'risen' and not 'come down'-to the level  of genuine scientific fiction;
actually, I do  not insist on the  word  'science',  it is the  fiction, the
fantastic portion that I stress, when the imagination foreshadows the future
(noise in the  hall). Scientists are polite people! Say it louder: sacrilege
in  the temple of science! {Cries  of 'sacrilege, of course'). Just a bit of
fairness,  gentlemen. Now tell me,  was it really scientists  that predicted
television,  the  videophone,  lasers,  Petrucci's  experiments  and  cosmic
nights? Those were all the inventions of science fiction to begin with.
     "I  did not  miss a single session of the conjecture commission  and at
times I was truly amazed at what I heard, for it  was fantasy  of the purest
water. Explosions of imagination. The hypothesis of a  hologram, wasn't that
imagination? The visual perception, by the spacemen,  of any object by means
of reflected  light waves? This  kind of photorecording  is  perceived  as a
three-dimensional representation and  has all the optical peculiarities of a
natural  landscape. Yesterday's report about painted icebergs in the Bay  of
Melville  at  the shores  of Greenland  corroborates  this  hypothesis.  The
icebergs were  painted  red  by  a  Danish  expedition  vessel,  the  'Queen
Christina'  in full  view of  the 'horsemen' galloping across the  sky. They
were moving at an  altitude  of  several kilometres,  yet from shipboard the
unaided eye  could not detect the slightest trace of colour at a distance of
a hundred metres, yet the 'horsemen' went into a dive, first washed away the
paint, and then extracted from the water the chunk of pure blue ice. In this
way,  the  conjecture   that  the  spacelings  have  super-vision  became  a
scientific fact.
     "Not  all imagination represents prediction or foreshadowing of events,
and not every hypothesis is reasonable. For instance,  I wish to reject  the
hypothesis  of the Catholic  Church that  the newcomers  are supposedly  not
living beings  endowed with reason, but artificial creations of our brethren
'in  the  image and  being  of God'. Actually,  that is the  same  religious
formula concerning God,  the Earth and Man,  in which the concept 'Earth' is
extended to encompass the whole Universe. Philosophically  speaking, this is
simply playing up to naive  anthropocentrism,  which can readily be  refuted
even on the basis of those 'bits' of knowledge that we have already gathered
concerning the  rose clouds. If  their creators were  humanoids,  then  when
sending their  cybernetic constructs  into cosmic scouting expeditions, they
would undoubtedly be trained for the possibility of an encounter with beings
of outward similarity  if  not humanlike intelligence. Properly  programmed,
these  biorobots would readily find  a common language  with earthlings, and
human life would not appear to them to be such a deep mystery. No, no matter
what the theologians and  anthropocentrists claim, we have come face to face
with a  different form  of life, an  unfamiliar  form that we  have  yet  to
comprehend. Most likely,  this  is  a mutual necessity,  but  that  does not
alleviate our situation in any way. Try to answer, for example, the question
of how our visitors from other worlds live,  of whether they are immortal or
simply long-living; then for how long and how far away  from us? How do they
reproduce, how is their life organized biologically, socially,  and  in what
medium-liquid  or gaseous-do  they  develop; perhaps  they  do not need  any
medium  and live as blobs  of energy isolated  from the  external  medium by
fields of force. I appeal  to  your  imagination, gentlemen: try  to answer!
{Noise in the hall, applause). That is a  vote of confidence, I take it, and
the science-fiction man can continue, is that right?"
     I notice how the chairman involuntarily looks at