to show increasing — what should I call it? — indifference to my stimuli, unless their actual existence was threatened. Yet my sensing devices registered exceptionally intense activity during this time, in the form of series of discharges.”
He took from the drawer of a small table a strip of photographic paper with an irregular sinusoidal line.
“Series of such ‘electrical attacks’ occurred in both fungoids, apparently without any external cause. I began to study the matter more systematically and discovered a strange phenomenon: that one' — he pointed to the door leading to the larger room — “produced electromagnetic waves, and this one received them. When I realized that, I noticed at once that their activity alternated; one was ‘silent’ while the other ‘broadcast.’ “
“What are you saying?!”
“The truth. I immediately shielded both rooms — did you notice the sheet metal on the doors? The walls are also covered with it, but they are painted. This prevented radio contact. The activity of both fungoids increased, then fell almost to zero after a few hours. But the next day it was the same as before. Do you know what happened? They had switched to ultrasonic vibrations — they sent signals through the walls and ceilings…”
“That’s why you have the cork!”
“Exactly. I could have destroyed them, of course, but what good would that have done me? I placed both containers on sound-absorbing insulation. In this way I broke off their communication again. Then they started growing… until they reached their present size. They became almost four times larger.”
“Why?”
“I have no idea.”
Diagoras stood by the metal cylinder. He did not look at me; as he spoke, he repeatedly put his hand on the arched lid, as though to check the temperature.
“Their electrical activity returned to normal after a few days, as if they had succeeded in re-establishing contact. I eliminated thermal and radioactive radiation, installed every possible shield, screen, and proofing, used ferromagnetic sensors — all to no avail. I even moved this one down to the basement for a week, then took it out to a shed, which you might have seen — it’s a hundred feet from the house. But their activity during the whole time did not undergo the slightest change. The ‘questions’ and ‘answers’ that I registered and which I am still registering' — he pointed to the oscillograph under the shaded window — “have gone on continuously in series, night and day. They work incessantly. I tried to break in on their signaling with false ‘messages.’ “
“You faked the signals? Then you know what they mean?”
“Not for the life of me. But you can record on tape what one person says in an unknown language and replay it for someone else who also speaks that language. That’s what I tried to do, and failed. They still send each other the same impulses, those damned signals — but in what manner, I have no idea.”
“It could be an independent, spontaneous activity,” I observed. “You have no conclusive proof, after all.”
“In a sense I do. You see, the time is also recorded on the tapes. Thus a clear correlation exists: when one is broadcasting the other is silent, and vice versa. Lately the intervals have increased considerably, but the pattern hasn’t changed. Do you realize what I’ve done? One can guess the plans, the good or bad intentions, the innermost thoughts of a silent person from his facial expression and his behavior. But my creations have no face or body — just as you postulated before — and now I stand helpless, without a chance of understanding. Should I destroy them? That would be an admission of failure! They don’t want contact with man — or is that as impossible as contact between an ameba and a turtle? I don’t know. I don’t know anything!”
He stood by the gleaming cylinder, his hand on its lid. It was no longer me he was speaking to; he could even have forgotten I was there. Nor did I hear his last words — my attention had been drawn by something odd. As he spoke, with increasing vehemence, he kept lifting his right hand and placing it on the copper surface; something about the hand seemed not right. Its movement was unnatural. Whenever his fingers came near the metal, they shook for a second — shook rapidly, unlike a nervous tremor. But before, when he gestured, his movement had been steady and decisive, with no trace of shakiness. I looked at his hand more closely now; amazed and shocked, yet hoping that I was mistaken, I stammered:
“Diagoras, what is wrong with your hand?”
“What? What hand?” He looked at me in surprise. I had interrupted his train of thought.
“That,” I pointed. He brought his hand near the shiny surface. It began shaking. Open-mouthed, he held it up to his eyes. The shaking immediately stopped. Once more he looked at his hand, then at me, and very cautiously, millimeter by millimeter, brought it up to the metal. When the fingertips touched the surface, the muscles started twitching slightly, and the twitching spread to the entire hand. He stood still, an indescribable expression on his face. Then he clenched his fist, propped it on his hip, and moved his elbow toward the copper surface. The muscles of the forearm twitched where the skin came in contact with the cylinder. He stepped back, raised his hands to his eyes, and examined them in turn, whispering: “So it was I…? I myself… through me… then I was… the subject of the experiment…”
I thought he would burst into hysterical laughter, but he thrust his hands into his apron pockets, walked silently across the room, and said in a changed voice:
“I don’t know whether that has any — but enough. You’d better go now. I have nothing else to show, and besides…”
He broke off, went up to the window, tore away the black paper covering it, and threw open the shutters. Breathing loudly, he looked out into the darkness.
“Why don’t you go?” he mumbled without turning around. “That would be best.”
I did not want to leave like that. The scene, which later, in my memory, would strike me as grotesque — the copper vat filled with those oozing intestines that had turned his body into an involuntary messenger of unknown signals — at that moment horrified me and filled me with pity for the man. That is why I would prefer to end my story here. For what happened afterward was senseless: his outburst against me, that I had — he said — intruded; his angry face, the insults and the shouting — all that, and the submissive silence with which I left, seemed like a cliched nightmare. To this day I do not know whether he threw me out of his gloomy house because he wanted to or whether…
But I could be wrong. Possibly both of us then were the victims of a delusion, and we hypnotized each other. Such things do happen.
But, then, how is one to explain the discovery made quite accidentally about a month after my Cretan expedition? While investigating a malfunction in a power line not far from Diagoras’s estate, several workmen tried to gain entrance to his house. At first they were unsuccessful. When they finally broke in, they found the building deserted and all the machines destroyed, except for two large copper vats that were untouched and completely empty.
I alone know what they contained, and it is precisely for that reason that I dare not make conjectures connecting those contents with the disappearance of their creator, who has not been seen since.
LET US SAVE THE UNIVERSE
(An Open Letter from Ijon Tichy)
After a long stay on Earth I set out to visit my favorite places from my previous expeditions — the spherical clusters of Perseus, the constellation of the Calf, and the large stellar cloud in the center of the Galaxy. Everywhere I found changes, which are painful for me to write about, because they are not changes for the better. There is much talk nowadays about the growth of cosmic tourism. Without question tourism is wonderful, but everything should be in moderation.
The eyesores begin as soon as you are out the door. The asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is in deplorable condition. Those monumental rocks, once enveloped in eternal night, are lit up now, and to make matters worse, every crag is carved with initials and monograms.
Eros, the particular favorite of lovers, shakes from the explosions with which self-taught calligraphers gouge inscriptions in its crust. A couple of shrewd operators there rent out hammers, chisels, and even pneumatic drills, and a man cannot find an untouched rock in what were once the most rugged areas.
Everywhere are graffiti like IT WAS LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT ON THIS HERE METEORITE, and arrow-pierced hearts in the worst taste. On Ceres, which for some reason large families like, there is a veritable plague of
