his watch and his hand reaches for the bell button. But a roar of clapping and shouts in a variety of languages of "let him speak" bring him to a halt and he does not press the button. "Speaking here, Boris Zernov mentioned the human being and the bee as an instance of two incompatible forms of life. Let us whip up our imagination. Let us switch the example around. We have an encounter of, say, a supercivilization of bees and a human civilization lagging behind by millennia. Observers have already noted a certain functional difference in the behaviour of our cosmic visitors: they cut ice, others transport it out into space, a third kind establishes the atomic scheme of the model, and a fourth type creates the model. Accordingly, there are differences in the structural forms of the constructors: one kind stretches out like a band saw, others blow up into an enormous flower-like something, still others emerge as a red fog, and still others condense into a cherry-like jelly. The question now arises: are we not dealing with a swarm, a highly developed swarm of beings with their specific functional development? Incidentally, life in a beehive is organized somewhat differently from the dwelling houses on Park Avenue in New City or in Moscow's Cheryomushki district. Both as to work and rest. But do they need rest? Have they any feeling for beauty? Have they music, say? What do they do for sports? That's what I ask. Try to answer those questions. It's like chess, like going through variants. Difficult of course. But that is precisely what a grandmaster does. "What strikes me as strange is why the grandmasters of science have not yet asked themselves the most important thing of all: the reason for these spacelings coming to visit us (agitation in the hall). Everyone has the answer, I know, even two answers. Some-about 90%-are sure that they came to earth for terrestrial ice, which might be a unique type as far as isotopic composition goes in adjacent space. The minority, led by Thompson, believe that this is a reconnaissance expedition with aggressive aims for the future. Personally, I believe that the scouting took place earlier, we simply missed it. This time, it is a powerfully equipped expedition (apprehensive silence in the auditorium, only the buzzing of journalists' tape-recorders is heard), but not of conquerors, gentlemen. They are colleagues studying a form of life with which they are not acquainted. (Shouts of: "But the ice?"). Wait a minute, you'll have your ice. That is a sideline operation. The important thing is we ourselves. The highest form of protein life based on water. Something seems to be hampering them here on Earth in their study of this life. Perhaps the environment but maybe fear of upsetting it. What is there to be done? Start with God, with the creation of the world. (More noise in the hall, and shouts of "Shut up, blasphemer"). I am no more a blasphemer than the father of cybernetics, Wiener. In his day, there were those who screamed: 'This is of the devil!' He encroaches on the second commandment! 'Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.. ..' And now you are building robots and dreaming of an electronic brain. The idea of constructing a model of our life in all its richness and complexity is natural for these beings, for what is cognition if not modelling by means of thought? And the transition from mental model-building to material modelling is only one step of progress. There will come a time and we will be doing that. Some even say when: next century. So why shouldn't some supercivilization of cosmic beings have attained that much earlier, say by one thousand years?" The writer fell silent, took a gulp of soda water and stood thinking. The audience waited. No one coughed, no one got uneasy, no one whispered. I was never present at a lecture that was listened to with such reverent attention. He was silent, and his glance, as if severed from everything about him, seemed to be groping for some distant-distant thing, inaccessible to all except him. Then he started again ever so softly, though no one missed even so much as the intonation: "If it is possible to build a model of life, it is possible to carry it away; record it and then set it up somewhere else in one's own vicinity and establish a nutrient medium for its development. What is needed for this purpose? An artificial satellite, an asteroid, a planet, a model of the terrestrial atmosphere and of solar radiation. But principally water, water and more water, without which protein-based life is an impossibility. Therein lies the meaning of transporting terrestrial ice in quantities sufficient for supplying a whole planet. It is then that deep within our galaxy (or perhaps even some other galaxy) there will emerge a new world, not a repetition but a similarity, and one with the most subtle kinship, for all the models of these spacepeople are flawless and precise {Remark: "A cosmic zoo with humanlike at larger). Quite naturally, there will be such as the person who just spoke {laughter). But I would correct him, not a zoo but a laboratory. Or, to be more exact, a scientific institute where human life would, in all its complexity of psychic, social and everyday aspects, become the subject of a profound, careful and considerate study. It would of course be studied. That was the purpose of making experiments, but it would be studied and not meddled with, studied in development and in motion forward and grasped in motion. And if once this motion were comprehended, there might be some way of refining and accelerating it. I think I've said all I need to. That is my hypothesis. Object if you wish. Like any hypothesis newly born of the imagination, it can of course be readily refuted. Yet I am pleased to think that somewhere in the depths of the universe there lives and moves a piece of our life, even though only a modelled, synthesized piece, but created for a great idea-the closer understanding of two civilizations that are at present very far removed from one another, the basis for this better understanding having been laid here on the Earth. And if the space people return, they will return with an understanding of us, they will be enriched by such a comprehension, we will have given them something, and they will know what need be given us on this mutual pathway towards perfection." The writer bent forward slightly in a bow and left the lectern. Silence followed in his wake, a silence much more eloquent than any storm of applause. Chapter XXVIII. THE VIOLET SPOT We cut out something like a foxhole at the very edge of the plateau of ice that had apparently been cut by a gigantic knife. The shiny pale blue section that reflected just as blue a sky with not a cloud in sight fell from the height of a five-storey house. Actually, this was not a cut but a gouge, a broad excavation of about three hundred metres in diameter that stretched beyond the horizon. Its ideally even and straight structure resembled the bed of an artificial canal prior to entry of water. The empty canal cut in a mass of ice came right up to a violet spot. In the solid wall of cold blue fire it darkened like an entrance way or an exit. Not only a snow tractor, even an icebreaker of medium proportions could freely pass through it without touching the uneven pulsating sides. I aimed my camera and spent a few tens of metres of film on it and then switched out. The spot was like any other, no miracles! But the wall of blue fire far exceeded all the wonders of the world. Picture to yourself the bluish flame of an alcohol lamp illuminated further from behind by the steady rays of the sun hanging just above the horizon. The brilliant fire growing blue in the light, next to it another one, and at a short distance the snaking outline of a third, then a fourth, and they all merge into a Hat even flame in contact with one another along the faces of some kind of marvellous flaming crystal. Now enlarge that a thousand-fold. The flames race up a kilometre in height, bend inwards somewhere in the pale blue sky, the facets blending into a giant crystal that does not reflect but captures the full beauty of this subdued sky, morning and sun. It was a mistake when someone called it an octahedron. First of all, it is flat at the bottom like the plateau on which it stands; secondly, it has numerous facets, not alike and not symmetric, but fanciful crystalline surfaces beyond which a marvellously beautiful blue gas flows and flames. "I can't tear my eyes off it," said Irene when we approached the skating rink of blue flame. We came to within thirty metres, but couldn't get any closer because one's body grows heavier and heavier. A vertigo grasps you as if you are standing on a high precipice. The Niagara falls is magnificent, but this is beyond all comparison. It's hypnotizing. I tried to look at the violet spot. It was fairly common even trivial-a sort of lilac satin drawn taut over an uneven frame. "Could that be the entrance way?" Irene mused aloud. "The door to a wonder." I recalled yesterday's conversation between Thompson and Zernov. "I told you it was the entrance way. Smoke, gas, all that sort of stuff. They passed through it single-file. I saw it myself. And now we've passed through." "Not you, but a directed shock-wave." "What's the difference? I have demonstrated to them that humans are capable of thinking and of drawing conclusions." "A mosquito finds an opening in a net and bites. What kind of proof is that of any ability to think and draw conclusions?" "You know, I'm fed up with this talk about mosquito civilizations. We are a true civilization and not one of bugs and ants. And I think that they comprehend as much. And that is already contact." "Too costly. One person has paid with his life." "That was an elementary accident. Perhaps the wiring was wet or something like that. A lot of things happen. A worker with high explosives is no gardener. I say that Hanter died due to his own lack of caution, he could have jumped into the crevice; there was time enough. Then the reflected shock-wave would have passed over him." "They've reflected it again." "The second one. The first got through, don't forget. But Hanter could have made a second mistake by not calculating the direction properly." "It would be more correct to say that they themselves calculated both the force of the charge and the direction of the wave. And deflected it." "Let's try something else." "What for instance? They are not sensitive either to beta or gamma rays." "How about a laser or a jet of water? An ordinary hydraulic excavator. In itself, any change of means of penetration to the violet spot and beyond would, in our view, make them sit up and think. And that means contact. Or at least the preliminaries of contact." Thompson's new weapon was brought almost up to the very "spot"; they were separated by no more than fifteen metres. The force field was not apparent even in this microregion. From my photography site on top of the plateau, the hydraulic excavator resembled a grey cat readying itself for a jump. Its streamlined metallic surfaces shimmered dully on the background of snow. The English mechanic was making a last check on some kind of clutch and contacts. Two steps from him was an indentation cut in the ice the size of a human being. Irene was not with me. After the death of the demolition worker she refused to be present at "suicides" organized and paid for by a maniac whose place is in an insane asylum. The "maniac" himself, together with Zernov and other advisers, delivered the signals from their headquarters by telephone. The headquarters was located a short distance from me on the plateau in a hut made of thermally insulated blocks. A corrugated metal tank rose up alongside. Big chunks of ice were fed to this tank and the melt water entered a hydraulic excavator. Technically speaking, the expedition was conceived and executed flawlessly. I too was ready with my camera aimed. Ready! Shoot! A flash of the pencil-thin jet pierced the gaseous curtain of the "spot" without encountering any resistance, and then vanished beyond it, as if severed at the base. Half a minute later, the ultra-high-speed jet shifted, slashed through the violet mirage at an angle and vanished again. Even in a high-power pair of binoculars I could not detect the slightest change in the structure surrounding the "spot", either in the diverging rings, or in the turbulent or luminary flows, which might have been produced by the impact of the hydrojet in an allied medium. This did not last more than two minutes. Then, of a sudden, the "spot" slowly crawled upwards, like a fly on a blue curtain. The hydrojet met the scintillating blue, did not pass through it, but split into two parts, like a jet of water from a fire hydrant crashing into a window. That very instant the water built up into a whirling twister that was not deflected to the side, but curled downwards to the ground. I am not positive about the accuracy of my description. Specialists who later viewed the film found some regularities in the motion of spray, but that's the way I saw it. I continued photographing for a while, and then quit, figuring that for science that would be enough and for the general public, more than enough. But at that instant the water jet was switched off: Thompson, apparently, had realized the experiment was pointless. Meanwhile, the "spot" crawled upwards, ever upwards, until it vanished at aircraft altitude beyond the curve of the enormous blue tongues curled inwards. That was the most impressive thing I observed in Greenland-out of a great number of impressive items. First the marvellous airport at Copenhagen, the multilayered Danish sandwiches aboard the plane, and the colours of Greenland as we approached from the air-the perfectly white ice plateau to the north, the black level stretch off to the south, from which fresh ice had been excavated, the dark red promontories of the coastal mountain ridges and the blue of the sea that blended into the dull green of the fjords. After that came a coastwise voyage on a schooner northwards to Umanak. That's where Wegener's* (* A German expedition which in 1930-1931 explored the thickness of the ice cover in the central and northern regions of the continent. Wegener died a tragic death during his last wintering over season.) famous expedition started out on its last lap. Already on the schooner "Akiuta" we found ourselves in an atmosphere of general turbulence and unaccountable exhilaration that gripped the entire crew, from the captain to the cook. Since we did not know a single Scandinavian language, we wouldn't have learned a thing if our only companion, Dr. Karl Petersen from the Danish polar station in Godhaven, did not turn out to be a very communicative person with an excellent knowledge of English. "Have you ever seen our fjords before?" he asked over a cup of coffee in the mess room. "No? The wind drives the sea ice even in July. There have been ice fields up to three and even five kilometres across. In Godhaven, half the harbour is covered with ice the year around. Caravans of icebergs descend from the glaciers of Uperniwik and farther north. The whole of Baffin Bay has been clogged up with them like a traffic jam on a highway. No matter where you look, there are always two or three in your field of view. That was before. Now, not a single one about in a whole day of sailing. And notice how warm it is. Both the water and the air. Have you noticed how upset the crew is? They're talking of going into commercial fishing. Herring and cod are now coming from Norwegian waters in huge schools. From the air, they say, you can even see them near the eastern fjords. Do you picture it on the map? What is our eastern shoreline? Jammed both winter and summer because all the Russian Arctic ice gathers there. Where is the Arctic ice today? On Sirius? The 'horsemen' have fished it all out clean. Incidentally, why are they called 'horsemen'? Those that have seen them say they're more like balloons or dirigibles. I haven't had any luck that way, haven't seen any at all. Perhaps they'll put in an appearance during our trip, or maybe at Umanak." But we did not encounter any of them either during the trip or at Umanak. They appeared here before when they began excavating glacial ice that was descending into the waters of the bay. Then they left behind them an ideal canal bed cut out of the ice about three hundred kilometres long back into the interior of the continental plateau. As if they knew that they were going to follow their route from Umanak, where Wegener's expedition crawled along on sleighs over gravel frozen into the ice. We had at our disposal a marvellous highway of ice, broader than any speedway in the world, and a crosscountry vehicle on caterpillar tread ordered from Dusseldorf. Our crew was Antarctic, but the vehicle was smaller than the "Kharkovchan-ka" and neither as speedy or as tough. "There'll be trouble enough with it, you'll see. One hour of travel, two of waiting," said Vano, who had just received a radiogram from Thompson's headquarters stating that two other Sno-Cats of the expedition that had started out 24 hours ago had not yet arrived at their destination. This is driving us mad. There's nothing to buy here. Syrup in place of sugar. Lucky, we brought flying boots, otherwise you'd have to wear camiki-Eskimo footwear of dogfur-with grass. Every previous Greenland expedition had worn those unpleasant boots. Vano was completely indifferent to the surrounding scenery painted so remarkably by Rockwell Kent. Tolya even looked at Irene reproachfully for her admiration of the Gothic in the Umanak mountains and of the colours of the Greenland summer, which for some reason reminded us of Moscow summers in the countryside. "Clear as daylight," Tolya explained, "the line of cyclones has shifted, no snow. July winds. Don't whine Vano, we'll get there without mishap." But adventures began hardly three hours after we got started. We were stopped by a helicopter sent by Thompson. The Admiral was in need of advisers and wanted to speed up Zernov's arrival. Martin piloted the helicopter. What he related was fantastic even for us who were used to the mysterious doings of the "horsemen from nowhere". On this helicopter, Martin made a survey of the latest trick of the cosmic visitors-blue protuberances merging at high altitudes in the form of a multi-facet roof. As always, the rose clouds appeared suddenly and from nowhere, as it seemed. They passed over Martin without paying any attention to him and vanished in the violet crater somewhere near the edge of the cover. That is where Martin headed his craft. He landed on a violet pad and did not find any support. The helicopter kept on descending, freely penetrating the lilac-grey cloudy medium. For about two minutes visibility was nil, and then Martin's machine found itself hovering over a city, a large modern city but with a limited horizon. The blue cupola of the sky covered it, as it were, like a hood. There was something familiar in the city, as far as Martin could see. He descended a bit and then piloted his craft along the central street that cut the city in two from one end to the other and recognized it at once-Broad-way. This seemed so preposterous that he rubbed his eyes. No, this was Broadway all right. Forty-second street over there, then the station. A bit closer was Times Square, to the left the canyon of Wall Street. He could even make out the church, the famous millionaire church. Martin was able to pick out Rockerfeller Centre and the Huggenheim Museum and the enormous towering Empire State Building. From the observation platform, tiny figures of tourists were waving handkerchiefs, down in the streets below were multicoloured automobiles crawling along like ants. Martin turned in the direction of the sea, but something prevented him from advancing. Then it dawned on him that it was not he who was piloting his craft-invisible eyes and hands were doing the job for him. For another three minutes or so he was taken over the river, which appeared to be cut by the cupola of the sky. Inside, the blue radiance gave the appearance of a summer sky illuminated by a sun that had just sunk below the horizon. Then he was over Central Park, had almost reached Harlem, but at that moment he was being pushed upwards through a denseless lilac-coloured cork into the natural atmosphere of the earth. That is how he got back into the normal sky together with his craft, above the city now hidden in a blue flame. At once, he sensed that the helicopter was in his control and ready for action. Martin then went in for a landing at the site of the camp of the expedition. We listened avid for information and did not interrupt with a single word. Then Zernov, after some thought, asked: "Have you reported to the Admiral?" "No, I haven't. He's queer enough as it is." "Are you positive you saw everything well? No mistake? Nothing confused?" "You can't mistake New York. But why New York? They never even came close to it. Anyone ever read about a red fog in New York?" "Maybe they did it at night." I suggested. "Why?" objected Zernov. "We already know of models built up from visual samples, from imprints of the memory. Do you know the city in detail?" he asked Martin. "I was born there." "How many times have you walked the streets?" "Thousands of times." "That's it. You walked about, observed and got accustomed. Your eye recorded and your memory stored away the recordings. They went through the recordings, selected the ones they wanted and reproduced them." "Does that mean that that is my New York, the way I saw it?" "I'm not positive, they might have modelled the psyche of a number of New Yorkers, including yours too. Kind of a jigsaw puzzle. Large numbers of little pieces of cardboard are put together to form a picture, a portrait, a scene. And that's the way they did it: thousands of visual impressions are assembled into something that actually exists, but as viewed and remembered by different people in different situations. I think that the Manhattan reconstructed in the blue laboratory of the cosmic-men is not exactly the true Manhattan. In some way it must differ from the real thing. In details, in points of view. The visual memory rarely portrays things exactly as they are, it creates. And the collective memory is still more material for creativity. Jigsaw puzzle creativity." "I'm not a scientist, sir," said Martin, "but that is surely impossible. Science is not capable of explaining it." "Science..." and Zernov sniggered. "Our science here on earth does not yet allow for the possibility of a repeated creation of the world. But in the distant, the far distant, future it will finally provide for such a possibility." After Martin's story, everything appeared to me routine and common until I saw and filmed the blue protuberances and the violet spot. The fresh wonder of the cosmic people was just as extraordinary and inexplicable as all the earlier ones had been. Those were the thoughts that clamoured for my attention as I returned to the camp. As I approached, Irene came running all excited. "Yuri, Thompson wants to see you, hurry up. The Admiral has called all the members of the expedition. A Council of War." Chapter XXIX. THE JIGSAW PUZZLE We were the last to arrive and immediately sensed the atmosphere of curiosity and apprehension. The urgent, extraordinary nature of the meeting as it came straightway after the experiment indicated that Thompson was undecided. He who was so used to making decisions alone was now overanxious to get a collective view. He now wanted the opinion of as many people as possible. The meeting was conducted in English. Those who didn't understand sat closer to their neighbours for a running translation. "The experiment has been a success," Thompson began without any introductory words. "They have already gone over to the defensive. The violet entrance way has been shifted to the upper facets of the cupola. In this connection I will try to use something new. From above and from the air." "A bomb?" someone put in. "And what if it is?" "You haven't got any nuclear ones," Zernov remarked coldly. "And you haven't any conventional high explosives either. The best you can do is a plastic bomb to blow up safes or cars. Whom do you think you will frighten with such toys?" The Admiral shot a brief glance at him and parried: "I am not speaking of bombs." "I advise you to tell him, Martin," said Zernov. "I know," the Admiral put in. "Directed hallucinations. Hypnomirage. We'll try someone else, not Martin." "We have only one pilot, sir." "I do not intend to risk the helicopter. I need parachutists. And not simple ones, but..." he screwed up his mouth looking for the right word, "say, ones that have already had dealings with the spacemen." We exchanged glances. Zernov was out because he was no sportsman. Vano had hurt his hand during the last trip. I had parachuted twice in my life, but without any pleasure either time. "I would like to know whether Anokhin would be able to perform that operation," Thompson said. I was angry. "It isn't a matter of being able to, but one of wanting to, Admiral." "You mean that you do not have that desire?" "You guessed it, sir." "How much do you want, Anokhin? A hundred? Two hundred?" "Not a cent. I do not get pay for the work I do in the expedition, Admiral." "It's all the same, you obey the rulings made by your superior." "According to regulations, Admiral, I photograph what I consider necessary and provide you with one copy of the photo. What is more, a cameraman does not necessarily need to know how to jump with a parachute." Thompson again screwed up his mouth and asked: "Maybe someone else will do it?" "The only jumping I ever did was in an amusement park in Moscow, from a tower," Dyachuk said in Russian, looking at me reproachfully, "but I'll risk it." "I will too," Irene added. "Don't try to outdo all the big boys," I cut in. "This is no operation for girls." "Nor for cowards either." "What's the talk about?" Admiral Thompson asked after patiently waiting for our dialogue to end. I got in ahead of Irene: "About forming a special unit, Admiral. Two of us will jump: Dyachuk and Anokhin. Anokhin will be in charge. That's all." "I see I was not mistaken," the Admiral smiled. "You are a man with character, just what we need. Okay. Martin will pilot the plane." He looked round the room. "That will be all, gentlemen." Irene rose and at the exit turned round: "You are not only a coward but a provoker too." "Thanks." I did not want to argue, but what I definitely did not want to do was to allow her to get into what might possibly be another St. Disier. We were briefed before the flight as follows: "The aircraft will ascend to two thousand metres. It will come in from the northeast and will descend to the target to an altitude of two hundred metres, right over the entrance. There is no danger. The only thing under you will be a stopper made of air. Everything will be all right as soon as you get through it. Martin did not freeze and he was able to breathe comfortably, so I think you will too. Good luck." The Admiral looked each one of us over and, as if in some doubt, added: "If anyone is afraid, he can refuse. I do not insist." I looked at Tolya. And he looked at me. "Getting nervous," Tolya said in Russian. "He's already relieving himself of the responsibility. How are you?" "And you?" "Ironclad." The Admiral listened to the unfamiliar language and did not utter a word. "We exchanged some impressions," I said dryly. "We're ready for the mission." The aircraft rose from the plateau of ice and headed east gaining altitude. It skirted the pulsating protuberances. Then banked and took a sharp turn back, falling all the time. Down below was a boiling blue sea that did not heat. The violet entrance way was clearly visible-a lilac-coloured patch on blue velvet-and seemed as flat and as hard as the ground. For a moment it was frightening-jumping from such a low altitude. We wouldn't be able to collect our bones afterwards, as the phrase goes. "Don't be afraid," said Martin. "You won't get bumped. It's rather like the foam on beer, and coloured too." We jumped. First Tolya and then I followed. Both parachutes opened up without mishap, Tolya's a rainbow of colours underneath me. I saw him go into the violet crater and slip through as if it were a swamp-first Tolya and then his colourful umbrella. For another moment it was again frightening. What was beyond the murky gaseous shutter-ice, darkness, death from impact or lack of air? I was still guessing when I plunged into something dark and not very perceptible, something without temperature, without odour. Only the lilac colour turned a familiar red. Absence of sensitivity to the medium passed into body sensations as well-I couldn't see my body nor feel it, as if I had dissolved in the gas. The sensation I had was that only my mind, not my body, only my consciousness was floating in this incomprehensible crimson foam. There was nothing at all about, no parachute, no shroud lines, no body, nothing, I wasn't even there. Then all of a sudden, as if struck in the eye- the blue sky and a city below. At first indistinct and then barely distinguishable in the haze; then the city came closer and we could see it more clearly. Why did Martin call it New York? I was never there, and had not seen it from an airplane, but I did have an idea of what it should look like. This one was quite different, no Statue of Liberty, no Empire State Building, no skyscrapers, no canyon-like streets. No, this was definitely no Bagdag over the Subway that O'Henry had described, no City of the Yellow Devil penned by Gorky, and no Iron Mirgorod as described by the poet Yesenin. This was a different city, and one much more familiar to me, though I still couldn't make it out. But I had the feeling that I would in just a minute, just a minute! And I did. Beneath me was an enormous letter A, constructed in three-dimensional space. The lacework of the Eiffel Tower could be seen rising into the sky. Away from it to the right and left was the twisting and turning-greenish hand of the Seine River, a mix of sparkling silver and green lawns in the sun. The green rectangle of the Tuileries Park was sure proof that this was real and not illusory green. To many, rivers seen at a height appear to be blue, but to me they are green. This green Seine twisted to the right to the Ivry and to the left to the Boulogne. I immediately felt where the Louvre could be, and the turn of the river and the island Cite. The Palace of Justice and the Notre Dame cathedral appeared from above like two stone cubes in hazy outline, but I recognized them. I even glimpsed the Arch of Triumph on the famous square from which a dozen streets radiate. "How was it that Martin had gotten things so wrong?" I asked myself. I am no expert on Paris and had seen it from an airplane only once, but I concentrated as I observed the city before landing. And the same day I went over what I had seen by telling Irene my impressions as we walked about the town. We didn't have time to cover much ground and see so very much, but what we did I firmly fixed in my memory. Then an idea came to me: "Perhaps Martin was not mistaken after all. He simply saw New York and I was witnessing Paris. In both cases, it was ahypno-mirage, as Thompson had termed it. But why did these beings need to impose all manner of hallucinations? Based on place of birth? That is where the strongest memories are sited, yet I was not born in Paris, but in Moscow, and what I see is the Eiffel Tower and not the Kremlin. It might be that the "clouds" choose what has been recalled from the recent past; yet Martin, so he says, hasn't been in New York a good ten years. What was the logic behind these two different movies they had us view? And again doubts plagued me: maybe, after all, this is no film, no mirage or hallucination. Could it be that in this enormous laboratory whole cities are actually reproduced, cities that had made great impressions on the cosmic beings. And how are they reproduced, materially or mentally? And for what purpose? Is it to comprehend the city as a structural form of our being? As a social unit of our society? Or simply as a living and multifaceted, vibrant chunk of human life? "It's all crazy," said Tolya. I turned around and saw him hanging next to me, two metres away, on the taut shroud lines of his parachute. Hanging it was, not falling, or floating or being carried by the wind; simply fixed motionless in that strange unmoving air. Not the slightest breeze, not a single cloudlet in the sky. Only pure ultramarine of the heavens and beneath us a familiar city. There we were at an altitude of a kilometre and a half, suspended inexplicably from rigidly fixed shroud lines, motionless. We were in air, for we breathed freely, at least as freely as Camp Eleven near the summit of Mt. Elbrus. "Martin gave us the wrong impression," Tolya added. "No, he didn't," I said. "He was telling the truth." "Then he made a mistake." "I don't think so." "Then what do you see?" Tolya was worried. "What do you see?" "Why, the Eiffel Tower, naturally. I can surely recognize that." So Tolya was looking at Paris. The hypothesis of hypnohallucination specifically tailored to the subject under study had to go. "Still this is not Paris. It's not the real thing," said Tolya. "Nonsense." "Where do you find mountains in Paris? The Pyranees are far enough away and the Alps too. So what are those?" Turning to the right I saw a chain of wooded slopes rising to snow-capped rocky reddish peaks: "Those might be Greenland hills," I suggested. "We're inside a cupola. There are no mountains round about. Did you see any snow-capped peaks? There aren't any left anywhere on the Earth." I took another glance at the mountains. Between us and the cupola lay a blue strip of water. Was it a lake or a sea? "What's that game called?" Tolya asked suddenly. "What game?" "You know, when you piece together pictures and things." "Oh, a jigsaw puzzle." "How many employees were there in the hotel, not counting the visitors?" Tolya began to muse. "About thirty. Now were they all Parisians? There must have been a few from Grenoble. Or from some place where there are mountains and the sea. Everyone has his own Paris and an added piece of his hometown. Now if all that is put together it will not produce a model. Anyway, not a true one." He repeated Zernov's idea, but I was still doubtful. Then it's a game of building blocks. Today we build, tomorrow we disassemble. Today it's New York and tomorrow it's Paris. Today Paris with Mont Blanc and tomorrow with Fujiyama. Why not? Surely what has been created on the earth by nature and man is not the limit of perfection. Could it not be that a fresh creation of things would improve matters? Could it be that this laboratory is searching for the typical in terrestrial life? Maybe the typical is here being verified and tested? It could easily be that what for us is a mix-up is for them the goal they are seeking. Finally, I was thoroughly confused. The bulging parachute hung above me like the roof of a street cafe. The only thing lacking were tables and bottles of lemonade. I noticed it was hot. There was no sun, but it was stiflingly hot. "Why don't we fall?" Tolya asked suddenly. "Didn't you ever finish school or did they kick you out of the fifth grade?" "No, really, I'm serious." "And I am too. You've heard of weightlessness, haven't you?" "One floats in a state of zero gravity, here I can't even move. And the parachute is stiff as a piece of wood. What's holding it?" "Not what, but who." "Why?" "Just being polite. Hospitable hosts are giving a lesson in manners to unwanted guests." "Then what's Paris here for?" "It might be the geography they like." "Yes, but if we suppose they are reasonable. .." Tolya exploded. "I like your 'if'." "Quit the joking, I'm serious. They must have some purpose." "That's right. They record our responses and this conversation too, for instance." . "You're impossible," was Tolya's concluding remark and then-we were jerked from our position by a gust of wind and found ourselves flying over Paris. At first we descended some two hundred metres. The city was close and every detail clear-cut. We could see black smoke with greyish streaks billowing out of factory stacks. Big barges on the Seine and motor boats of all colours plying the waters. A worm crawling along the Seine turned into a train approaching the Gare de Lyon, and the roiling blur on the streets turned into a colourful mosaic of summer suits and dresses. Then we were thrown upwards and the city began to recede and melt in the distance. Tolya went up higher and vanished together with his parachute in the lilac-coloured plug. In another two or three seconds I whirled into it too. Then the two of us, like dolphins, swished over the facets of the blue cupola. In the process, neither of our parachutes changed its shape at all, as if unseen and unperceivable air currents were carrying us along to the white sheet of the glacier. We landed more slowly than in an ordinary parachute descent, but Tolya fell and was dragged along the ice. While I was getting out of my shroud lines, Thompson and the others from the camp were already approaching. His jacket was unbuttoned, he was in boots that he hadn't had time to lace up, without a hat-he looked the perfect hockey coach. "How was it?" he asked imperiously. I never liked that tone. "Everything's normal," I said. "Martin signalled that you both had emerged from the plug." I shrugged. Why had they kept Martin in the air? How could he have helped us if we had emerged from the plug in a difficult situation? "What's it like there?" Thompson asked finally. "Where?" (You'll have to wait, Mister, you're going to have to wait.) "You know where, come on, out with it." "Yes, I do at that." "Well?" "It's a jigsaw puzzle." Chapter XXX. A BET We returned to Umanak. That is, our Antarctic expedition plus the engineering and scientific personnel of the expedition and two tractor vehicles-our quarters-and a caravan of sleighs with all the equipment. The helicopter had already returned to the Arctic Base in Thule, and our commander together with the apparatus that could be put on board an airplane had already taken off for Copenhagen. That is where the last press conference took place at which he refuted al