reason to focus on those figures whose activity, in a marked but also quite natural way, counters the typical science-fiction scheme of things. The sense of fascination and depression that the “scenes from the life of a treasure hunter” (or “stalker”), the core of the story, inspire in the reader are the product of a deliberately restricted field of vision. The scientific and extrascientific literature that the landing precipitated must undoubtedly have been a focus of bitter controversy. So, too, the landing must inevitably have brought about the formation of new attitudes and lines of thought; and it probably has not left either art or religion untouched; yet our perspective on the whole upheaval is perforce confined to the excerpts from the life of a poor joe who, in the drama of two civilizations colliding, strictly plays the part of a human ant.
It would nevertheless be a good idea for us to make ourselves aware of wider aspects of the event. Everyone will agree with Dr. Pilman’s words that the invasion represents a decisive stroke in the history of mankind. Now in that history there have been quite a number of decisive moments, even though they were not exactly caused by a cosmic invasion; and each was marked by an intensification of the extremes of human behavior. Each of these decisive moments had its larger-than-life-size figures and its pitiable victims. The greater the historic event, the more pronounced was the distance between the great and the insignificant, the sublimity and the wretchedness of human fates. Glorious battles at sea that once decided the destiny of empires possessed at a distance the beauty of a painting of a battle, and close up a repulsive gruesomeness. One need only recall that chained to their benches, the rowers of galleys burned to death in Greek fire silently, because before the battle they were obliged to stuff their mouths with special pears to prevent their making any noise. (Their hellish shrieks, you see, would have had a negative effect on the soldiers’ morale!) Perceptions of such a battle would differ radically, depending on whether it were seen from the elevated perspective of the commanders, with their imperial aims, or from the viewpoint of the poor devils faced with a death struggle — and yet their death struggle was an integral part of the process of historical change. One could say that even such a beneficial discovery as that of X-rays, for example, had its horrific side, since the discoverers, unaware of the properties of these rays, had to have limbs amputated because of their effect. So, too, one of the by-products of the world’s industrialization is the leukemia that children are slowly dying from today. (We know this to be true, even though the causal connection cannot be palpably demonstrated.) The dreadful fate of the stalkers in
The Strugatsky brothers thus demonstrate that they are realists of the fantastic inasmuch as realism in fantasy betokens a respect for logical consequence, an honesty in deducing all conclusions entirely from the assumed premises. Even the uninhibited entertainment industry that encircles the Zone has its plausibility — indeed, I would say its necessity. The principles of human behavior operating in the narrative are thus the same as they ever are; the authors have merely directed their attention to the “dregs” in the cosmic encounters, so to speak — and the events thereby take the concrete form of a miracle introduced into a consumer society. This is not — what is sometimes meant by the latter term — a society that produces nothing but those goods to which consumers are immediately attracted. On the contrary, it is a society that considers everything to be within the scope of its endeavor: not only cars, refrigerators, and perfume but also sex, blood, and destruction it makes items for consumption, in good time seasoning each of them so that they become palatable. In the Middle Ages, the Zones would doubtless have caused movements of panic-stricken flight and migration; and they might afterward have become centers of new religious beliefs, originating in response to their evidence for the Apocalypse, and breeding grounds for prophecies and revelations. In our world, however, the Zones succumb to being domesticated; for what one can neither understand nor ignore, one can at least consume piecemeal. Accordingly, the Zones, rather than being the subject of eschatological thought, are the goal of bus tours. This admits of being explained with reference to a lust for phenomena once regarded solely as abhorrent but these days enforcing the popularity of an aesthetic that in place of beauty has set the repulsive. That is the spirit of the times to which in the Strugatskys’ story anything evincing its complete independence from man — as the mysteriousness of the visitors nearly does — succumbs. All in all,
Theirs is no banal opposition. Dr. Pilman, given to expressing himself in the terminology of physics, calls mankind a “stationary system” (3:100); translated into the language of the historian, this means that contact with the aliens, insofar as it does not equate with a global catastrophe, cannot change the course of human history with one fell swoop, since mankind is not capable of suddenly leaping out of its history and — impelled by a cosmic intervention — stepping into a completely different history. This supposition — in my view a correct one — is something that science fiction has neglected in its avidity for the sensational. In
There is only one point about which I would fain take issue with the book — a point having to do not with human matters (these are presented unobjectionably), but with the actual nature of the visitors. I might premise my discussion on four propositions. The first is that in the book we are given data, but not necessarily opinions about these data, even when the characters harboring such opinions are holders of the Nobel Prize. This means that we consider ourselves to have as much of a warrant to postulate theories about the visitors as the fictional personages have. Second, on all imaginable levels of knowledge there is given no hundred-percent error-free course of action. Such infallibility would of course require that one possessed complete information about what can occur in the course of making one’s plans a reality; but the universe is a place in which the attaining of complete information about anything whatever is never possible. According to the third of my propositions, the principle of freedom from contradictions in thinking obtains for us as for other beings in the cosmos. This means that of two things, one must prove to be the case: if the “visitors” were aware of the presence of humans on earth, then they cannot at the same time have been unaware of it; if they harbored any design at all vis-a-vis human beings, then they could not at the same time have harbored no design; and so on. Finally, in explaining unknown phenomena, the simplest hypotheses, as stipulated by the principle of Occam’s razor, are always to be preferred. If, for example, we live next door to a famous magician and hear dead silence from his side of the dividing wall for a long while, we can explain that in many ways: the neighbor may have dissolved into thin air, or he may have transformed himself into a paper clip, or he may have gone up to heaven through his window. We would tend to take refuge, however, in the quite commonplace explanation: that he simply left the house quietly and unperceived. Only when that hypothesis proves wrong are we compelled to look for another, and less banal, one.
These are the standpoints from which we negotiate the encounter with the visitors.[19] In regard to the landing, a distinction must be made between what the aliens left in the Zones and the way in which they did this. In the opinion of Dr. Pilman, who expresses the outlook of most specialists, the gap between the civilizations turned out to be too great for human beings alone to be able to surmount it; the other side, however, failed to give its assistance. What the visitors have left behind human beings can deal with only as fragments of a strange technology whose functioning is incomprehensible. As for the manner in which the visitors bequeath the so-called objects to men, Dr. Pilman’s thesis — which is central to the story since the title on the cover already anticipates it — represents this to us in the form of a parable. Mankind finds itself in the situation of animals which, having crept from their hiding places to a roadside or clearing where incomprehensible creatures have stayed, rummage around among the remains of the campsite. This analogy expresses Pilman’s honest conviction, even though in his conversation with Noonan he enumerates other going hypotheses about the landing. Dr. Pilman is not just anyone; he has finally received the Nobel Prize for his discovery of the “Pilman Radiant.” At the same time, he is a misanthrope — as outstanding scholars frequently are. Such men strongly sense the ambiguity of their societal role. For civilized society, which is brought forth from the fruits of their thinking, they are indispensable; yet it treats them quite inconsiderately. The political powers expropriate their discoveries, but public opinion nonetheless makes the researchers themselves answerable for the consequences of that expropriation. An awareness of this situation does not dispose one toward kindliness. Instead it arouses either rebellion or cynicism; but whoever finds rebellion useless and cynicism repugnant tries to behave like a stoic. Such a person gets used to choosing the lesser evil; and when one tries to corner him with questions, he answers evasively or with sarcasm. This is precisely Dr. Pilman’s attitude, a primarily defensive stance which he has assumed in the interview with which the story begins.
