Stanislaw Lem - Ijon Tichy 03 - The Futurological Congress

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THE FUTUROLOGICAL CONGRESS

Stanislaw Lem

(from the memoirs of Ijon Tichy)

translated from the Polish by Michael Kandel

The Eighth World Futurological Congress was held in Costa Rica. To tell the truth, I never would

have gone to Nounas if it hadn't been for Professor Tarantoga, who gave me clearly to understand that

this was expected of me. He also said—pointedly—that space travel nowadays was an escape from the

problems of Earth. That is, one took off for the stars in the hope that the worst would happen and be

done with in one's absence. And indeed I couldn't deny that more than once I had peered anxiously out

the porthole—especially when returning from a long voyage—to see whether or not our planet resembled

a burnt potato. So I didn't argue the point with Tarantoga, but only remarked that, really, I wasn't much

of an expert on futurology. His reply was that hardly anyone knows a thing about pumping, and yet we

don't stand idly by when we hear the cry of "Man the pumps!"

The directors of the Futurological Association had chosen Costa Rica to be the site of their annual

meeting, which this year was to deal exclusively with the population explosion and possible methods of

keeping it in check. Costa Rica presently boasts the highest rate of demographic growth in the world;

presumably the force of that reality alone was to help spur our deliberations to some successful

conclusion. Though there were cynics who observed that only the new Hilton in Nounas had vacancies

enough to accommodate all the futurologists, not to mention twice again as many reporters. Inasmuch as

this hotel was completely demolished in the course of our conference, I can't be accused of making a

plug when I say that the place was absolutely first-rate. These words have particular weight, coming from

a confirmed sybarite; for indeed, it was only a sense of duty that had driven me to forsake the comforts

of home for the travail of outer space.

The Costa Rica Hilton soared one hundred and six floors upward from its flat, four-story base. On

the roof of this lower structure were tennis courts, swimming pools, solariums, racetracks,

merry-go-rounds (which simultaneously served as roulette wheels), and shooting galleries where you

could fire at absolutely anyone you liked—in effigy—provided you put in your order twenty-four hours in

advance, and there were concert amphitheaters equipped with tear gas sprinklers in case the audience

got out of hand. I was given a room on the hundredth floor; from it I could see only the top of the bluish

brown cloud of smog that coiled about the city. Some of the hotel furnishings puzzled me—the ten-foot

crowbar propped up in a corner of the jade and jasper bathroom, for example, or the khaki camouflage

cape in the closet, or the sack of hardtack under the bed. Over the tub, next to the towels, hung an

enormous spool of standard Alpine rope, and on the door was a card which I first noticed when I went

to triple-lock the super-yale. It read: "This Room Guaranteed BOMB-FREE. From the Management."

It is common knowledge that there are two kinds of scholar these days: the stationary and the

peripatetic. The stationaries pursue their studies in the traditional way, while their restless colleagues

participate in every sort of international seminar and symposium imaginable. The scholar of this second

type may be readily identified: in his lapel he wears a card bearing his name, rank and home university, in

his pocket sticks a flight schedule of arrivals and departures, and the buckle on his belt—as well as the

snaps on his briefcase—are plastic, never metal, so as not to trigger unnecessarily the alarms of the

airport scanners that search boarding passengers for weapons. Our peripatetic scholar keeps up with the

literature of his field by studying in buses, waiting rooms, planes and hotel bars. Since I was—naturally

enough—unacquainted with many of the recent customs of Earth, I set off alarms in the airports of

Bangkok, Athens and Costa Rica itself, having six amalgam fillings in my mouth. These I was planning to

replace with porcelain in Nounas, but the events that followed so unexpectedly made that quite

impossible. As for the Alpine rope, the crowbar, the hardtack and the camouflage cape, one of the

members of the American delegation of futurologists patiently explained to me that today's hotels take

safety precautions unknown in earlier times. Each of the above items, when included in the room,

significantly increases the life expectancy of the occupant. How foolish it was of me, not to have taken

those words more seriously!

The sessions were scheduled to begin in the afternoon of the first day, and that morning we all

received complete programs of the conference; the materials were handsomely printed up, elegantly

bound, with numerous charts and illustrations. I was particularly intrigued by a booklet of embossed

sky-blue coupons, each stamped: "Good for One Intercourse."

Present-day scientific conventions, obviously, also suffer from the population explosion. Since the

number of futurologists grows in proportion to the increase in magnitude of all humanity, their meetings

are marked by crowds and confusion. The oral presentation of papers is quite out of the question; these

have to be read in advance. Though there wasn't time for reading anything that morning—the

Management treated us all to free drinks. This little ceremony took place without incident, barring the fact

that a few rotten tomatoes were thrown at the United States contingent. I was sipping my Martini when I

learned from Jim Stantor, a well-known UPI reporter, that a consul and a grade-three attaché of the

American Embassy in Costa Rica had been kidnapped at dawn. The abductors were demanding the

release of all political prisoners in exchange for the diplomats. To show they meant business, these

extremists had already delivered individual teeth of their hostages to the Embassy and various government

offices, promising an anatomical escalation. Still, this contretemps did not mar the cordial atmosphere of

our morning get-together. The United States ambassador himself was there, and gave a short speech on

the need for international cooperation—short, as he was surrounded by six muscular plainclothesmen

who kept their guns trained on us all the time. I was rather disconcerted by this, especially when the

dark-skinned delegate from India standing next to me had to wipe his nose and reached for the

handkerchief in his back pocket. The official spokesman for the Futurological Association assured me

afterwards that the measures taken had been both necessary and humane. Bodyguards now employ

weapons of high caliber and low penetration, the kind security agents carry on board passenger flights in

order that innocent bystanders not be harmed. In the old days it often happened that the bullet which

felled the would-be assassin would subsequently pass through five or even six persons who, though

minding their own business, were standing directly behind him. Still, the sight of a man at your side

crumpling to the floor under heavy fire is not among the most pleasant, even if it is the result of a simple

misunderstanding, which ends with an exchange of diplomatic notes and official apologies.

But rather than attempt to settle the thorny question of humanitarian ballistics, perhaps I ought to

explain why I was unable, all that day, to familiarize myself with the conference materials. So then, after

hurriedly changing my blood-spattered shirt, I went to the hotel bar for breakfast, which usually I do not

do. My custom is to eat a soft-boiled egg in the morning, but the hotel hasn't yet been built where you

can have one sent up to your room that isn't revoltingly cold. This is due, no doubt, to the continually

expanding size of metropolitan hotels. If a mile and a half separates the kitchen from your room, nothing

will keep that yolk warm. As far as I know, the Hilton experts did study the problem; they came to the

conclusion that the only solution would be special dumbwaiters moving at supersonic speeds, but

obviously sonic booms in an enclosed area would burst everyone's eardrums. Of course you could

always have the automatic cook send the eggs up raw and the automatic bellhop soft-boil them right in

your room, except that that would eventually lead to people coming in and out with their own chicken

coops. And thus I headed for the bar.

More than ninety-five percent of a hotel's guests are there for some conference or convention. The

individual tourist, the single guest without a card in his lapel and briefcase stuffed with programs and

memoranda, is as rare as a pearl in the desert. Besides our own group in Costa Rica, there was the

Plenary Council of Student Protest Veterans, the Convention of Publishers of Liberated Literature, and

the Phillumenist Society (matchbook collectors). As a rule, members of an organization are given rooms

on the same floor, but the Management, apparently wishing to honor me, offered me one on the

hundredth. It had its own palm tree grove, in which an all-girl orchestra played Bach while performing a

cleverly choreographed striptease. I could have done quite well without all this, but unfortunately there

were no other vacancies, so I was obliged to stay where they put me. Scarcely had I taken a seat at the

bar on my floor when a broad-shouldered individual with a jet-black beard (a beard that read like a

menu of all the past week's meals) unslung his heavy, double-barreled gun, stuck the muzzle right beneath

my nose and asked, with a coarse laugh, how I liked his papalshooter. I had no idea what that was

supposed to mean, but knew better than to admit it. The safest thing in such situations is to remain silent.

And indeed, the next moment he confided in me that this high-powered repeater piece of his, equipped

with a laser-finding telescopic sight, triple-action trigger and self-loader, was custom-made for killing

popes. Talking continually, he pulled a folded photo from his pocket, a picture of himself taking careful

aim at a mannequin in a robe and zucchetto. He had become an excellent shot, he said, and was now on

his way to Rome, prepared for a great pilgrimage—to gun down the Holy Father at St. Peter's Basilica. I

didn't believe a word of it, but then, still chattering away, he showed me, in turn, his airplane ticket,

reservation, tourist missal, a pilgrim's itinerary for American Catholics, as well as a pack of cartridges

with a cross carved on the head of each bullet. To economize he'd purchased a one-way ticket only, for

he fully expected the enraged worshippers to tear him limb from limb—the prospect of which appeared

to put him in the best possible humor. I immediately assumed that this was either a madman or a

professional terrorist-fanatic (we have no lack of them these days), but again I was mistaken. Talking on

and on, though he repeatedly had to climb off the high bar stool, for his weapon kept slipping to the floor,

he revealed to me that actually he was a devout and loyal Catholic; the act which he had carefully

planned—he called it "Operation P"—would be a great personal sacrifice, for he wished to jolt the

conscience of the world, and what could provide a greater jolt than a deed of such extremity? He would

be doing exactly what according to Scripture Abraham had been commanded to do to Isaac, except in

reverse, as he would be slaying not a son, but a father, and a holy one at that. At the same time, he

explained to me, he would attain the utmost martyrdom of which a Christian was capable, for his body

would suffer terrible torment and his soul eternal damnation—all to open the eyes of mankind. "Really," I

thought, "we have too many of these eye-opening enthusiasts." Unconvinced by his arguments, I excused

myself and went to save the Pope—that is, to notify someone of this plot—but Stantor, whom I bumped

into on the 77th floor bar, told me, without even hearing me out, that among the gifts offered to Hadrian

XI by the last group of American tourists there had been two time bombs and a cask containing—not

sacramental wine, but nitroglycerin. I understood Stantor's indifference a little better when I heard that the

local guerrillas had recently mailed a foot to the Embassy, though as yet it was uncertain whose. In the

middle of our conversation they called him to the phone; it seemed that someone on the Avenida Romana

had just set fire to himself in protest. The bar on the 77th had an entirely different atmosphere than the

one up on mine: there were plenty of barefoot girls in waist-length fishnet dresses, some with sabres at

their sides; a number of them had long braids fastened, in the latest fashion, to neck bands or spiked

collars. I wasn't sure whether these were lady phillumenists or perhaps secretaries belonging to the

Association of Liberated Publishers—though most likely it was the latter, judging from the color prints

they were passing around. I went down nine floors to where our futurologists were staying, and in the bar

there had a drink or two with Alphonse Mauvin of Agence France-Presse; for the last time I tried to save

the Pope, but Mauvin received my story with stoicism, observing that only last month a certain Australian

pilgrim had opened fire in the Vatican, albeit on entirely different ideological grounds. Mauvin was hoping

for an interview with one Manuel Pyrhullo. This Pyrhullo was wanted by the FBI, Süreté, Interpol, and a

variety of other police organizations. It seems he had started a business which offered the public a new

kind of service: that is, he hired himself out as a specialist-consultant on revolution through explosives (he

was generally known under the pseudonym of "Dr. Boom"). Pyrhullo took great pride in the fact that his

work was wholly nonpartisan. A pretty redhead wearing something that resembled a nightgown riddled

with bullet holes approached our table; sent by the guerrillas, she was supposed to conduct a reporter to

their headquarters. Mauvin, as he followed her out, handed me one of Pyrullo's fliers, from which I

learned that it was high time to dispense with the bungling of irresponsible amateurs who couldn't tell

dynamite from melinite, or fulminate mercury from a simple Bickford fuse. In these days of high

specialization, the advertisement read, one attempted nothing on one's own, but placed one's trust in the

expertise and integrity of certified professionals. On the back of the flier was a list of services, with prices

given in the currencies of the world's most advanced and civilized nations.

Just then the futurologists began to congregate in the bar, but one of them, Professor Mashkenasus,

ran in pale and trembling, claiming there was a time bomb in his room. The bartender, evidently

accustomed to such episodes, automatically shouted "Hit the deck!" and dived under the counter. But the

hotel detectives soon discovered that some colleague had played a practical joke on the Professor,

placing an ordinary alarm clock in his cookie jar. It was probably an Englishman—only they delight in

such childish pranks—but the whole thing was quickly forgotten when Stantor and J. G. Howler, also

from UPI, came in with the text of a memo from the United States government to the government of

Costa Rica with regard to the matter of the kidnapped diplomats. The language of it was typical of all

such official communiques; neither teeth nor feet were named. Jim told me that the local authorities might

resort to drastic measures; General Apollon Diaz was currently in power and leaned toward the position

of the hawks, which was to meet force with force. The proposal had already been made at Parliament

(which stood in permanent emergency session) to counterattack: to pull twice the number of teeth from

the political prisoners the abductors were demanding and mail them poste restante, as the address of

guerrilla headquarters was unknown. The air edition of the New York Times ran an editorial

(Schultzberger) calling for common sense and the solidarity of the human species. Stantor informed me in

strictest confidence that the government had commandeered a train carrying secret military

supplies—United States property—through Costa Rican territory on the way to Peru. Somehow the

guerrillas hadn't yet hit upon the idea of kidnapping futurologists, which would certainly have made better

sense from their point of view, inasmuch as there were many more futurologists than diplomats available

in the country.

A hundred-story hotel is an organism so vast and so comfortably isolated from the rest of the world,

that news from the outside filters in as if from another hemisphere. So far the futurologists hadn't

panicked; the Hilton travel desk wasn't swamped by guests making flight reservations back to the States

or elsewhere. The official banquet and opening ceremonies were scheduled for two, and still I hadn't

changed into my evening pajamas, so I rushed up to my room, dressed and took an elevator down to the

Purple Hall on the 46th. In the foyer two stunning girls in topless togas, their bosoms tattooed with

forget-me-nots and snowflakes, came over and handed me a glossy folder. Without looking at it I

entered the hall, which was still empty, and gasped at the sight of the tables—not because the spread was

so extremely lavish, but the trays of hors d'oeuvres, the mounds of páté, the molds, even the salad bowls,

everything was arranged in the unmistakable shape of genitalia. For a moment I thought it might be my

imagination, but a loudspeaker somewhere was playing a song, popular in certain circles, which began

with the words: "Now to make it in the arts, publicize your private parts! Critics say you can't offend 'em

with your phallus or pudendum!"

The first banqueters ambled in, gentlemen with thick beards and bushy whiskers, though they were

really rather young, some in pajamas and some in nothing at all. When six waiters brought in the cake and

I got a glimpse of that most indecent of desserts, there was no longer any doubt: I had accidentally

strayed into the wrong hall and was sitting at the banquet for Liberated Literature. On the pretext that I

couldn't find my secretary I beat a hasty retreat and took the elevator down a floor to the Purple Hall (I'd

been in the Lavender), which by now was packed. My disappointment at the modesty of the reception I

hid as best I could. It was a cold buffet, and there was nowhere to sit; all the chairs had been removed,

so to eat anything one had to display an agility common to such occasions, particularly as there was an

impossible crowd around the more substantial dishes. Señor Cuillone, a representative of the Costa

Rican section of the Futurological Association, explained with an engaging smile that any sort of Lucullean

abundance here would have been quite out of place, considering that a major topic of the conference was

the imminent world famine facing humanity. Of course there were skeptics who said that the Association's

allotments must have been cut, since only that could account for such heroic frugality. The journalists,

long accustomed to doing without, busied themselves among us, seeking spot interviews with various

foreign luminaries of prognostication. Instead of the United States ambassador, only the third secretary of

the Embassy showed up, and with an enormous bodyguard; he was the only one wearing a tuxedo,

perhaps because it would have been difficult to hide a bulletproof vest beneath a pair of pajamas. I

learned that the guests from the city had been frisked in the lobby; supposedly there was already a

growing pile of discovered weapons there. The meetings themselves were not to begin until five, which

meant we had time to relax, so I returned to my room on the hundredth. I was terribly thirsty from the

oversalted slaw, but since the bar on my floor had now been seized and occupied by the student

protesters-dynamiters and their girls—and anyway one conversation with that bearded papist (or

antipapist) had been quite enough—I made do with a glass of water from the bathroom sink. The next

thing I knew, all the lights were out, and the telephone, no matter what number I dialed, kept connecting

me with an automated recording of the story of Rapunzel. I tried to take the elevator down, but it too

was out of order. The students were singing in chorus, shooting their guns in time to the music—in the

other direction, I hoped. Such things happen even in the best hotels, which doesn't make them any the

less aggravating, yet what perplexed me the most were my own reactions. My mood, fairly sour since

that conversation with the Pope's assassin, was now improving by the minute. Groping about in my room,

I overturned some furniture and chuckled indulgently in the dark; even when I cracked my knee against a

suitcase it didn't diminish my feeling of good will towards all mankind. On the night table I found the

remains of the brunch I'd had sent up to my room, took one of the convention folders, rolled it up and

stuck it in the leftover butter, then lit it with a match: that made a sort of torch—it sputtered and smoked,

but gave enough light. After all, I had more than two hours to kill, counting on at least an hour on the

staircase, since the elevator wasn't working. I sat back in an armchair and observed with the greatest

interest the fluctuations and changes that were taking place within me. I was cheerful, I was never

happier. No end of reasons for this wonderful state of affairs came rushing to my mind. In all seriousness

it seemed to me that this hotel room, plunged in Stygian darkness, filled with stench and floating ashes

from a homemade torch, totally cut off from the rest of the world, with a telephone that told fairy

tales—was one of the nicest places on the face of the earth. Moreover I felt an irresistible urge to pat

someone on the head, or at least squeeze a hand and look long and soulfully into a pair of eyes.

I would have embraced and kissed the most implacable enemy. The butter, melting, hissed and spat,

and the thought that the butter might sputter and make the flame gutter was so hilarious that I burst out

laughing, though my fingers were burnt relighting the paper whenever the torch went out. In the flickering

light I hummed arias from old operettas, paying no heed to the bitter smoke that made me gag, or the

tears streaming down my cheeks. Standing up, I tripped and fell, crashing into a trunk on the floor; the

bump on my head swelled to the size of an egg, but that only put me in a better humor (to the extent that

that was possible). I giggled, choking in the searing smoke, which in no way lowered my spirits. I climbed

into bed; it still hadn't been made, though this was already the afternoon. The maids responsible for such

neglect—I thought of them as my very own children: nothing but sugary words and gushing baby talk

came to my lips. It occurred to me that even if I were to suffocate here, that would be the most amusing,

the most agreeable kind of death any man could ask for. This thought was so blatantly contrary to my

nature, that it had a sobering effect. A curious dissociation arose within me. As before, my soul was filled

with light and languor, an all-embracing tenderness, a love of everything that existed, while my hands

simply itched to fondle and stroke someone—it didn't matter who—till in the absence of any such third

person I began to caress my own cheeks and chuck myself fondly under the chin; my right hand

proffered itself to my left for a hearty shake. Even the feet, trembling eagerly, wanted to join in. And yet,

throughout all this, distress signals were flashing on in the depths of my being: "Something's wrong!" cried

a far-off, tiny voice inside. "Careful, Ijon, watch your step, be on your guard! This good weather can't be

trusted! Come now, one-two-three, snap out of it! Don't sit there sprawled like some Onassis, weeping

from the smoke, a bump on your head and universal loving-kindness in your heart! It's a trap, there's

treachery afoot!" Though I didn't budge an inch. Yet my throat was exceedingly dry and the blood did

pound in my ears (but that was due, no doubt, to the sudden rush of happiness). Driven by a powerful

thirst, I got up to get another glass of water. I was thinking about the oversalted slaw at the banquet, and

that dreadful buffet, then to experiment I thought about J. W., H. C. M. and M. W., my worst

enemies—and discovered that beyond an impulse to clap them on the back, give them each a friendly

hug, exchange a few kind words and kindred thoughts, I felt nothing whatever towards them. Now this

was truly alarming. With one hand on the nickel spigot and the other holding the empty glass, I froze.

Slowly I turned the water on, filled it, raised it, and then, twisting my face in a weird grimace—I could

see the struggle in the bathroom mirror—I poured it down the drain.

The water from the tap. Of course. These changes in me had begun the moment I drank it. There

was something in it, clearly. Poison? But I'd never heard of any poison that would … Wait a minute! I

was, after all, a steady subscriber to all the major scientific publications. In just the last issue of Science

Today there had been an article on some new psychotropic agents of the group of so-called

benignimizers (the N,N-dimethylpeptocryptomides), which induced states of undirected joy and

beatitude. Yes, yes! I could practically see that article now. Hedonidol, Euphoril, Inebrium, Felicitine,

Empathan, Ecstasine, Halcyonal and a whole spate of derivatives! Though by replacing an amino group

with a hydroxyl you obtained, instead, Furiol, Antagonil, Rabiditine, Sadistizine, Dementium, Flagellan,

Juggernol, and many other polyparanoidal stimulants of the group of so-called phrensobarbs (for these

prompted the most vicious behavior, the lashing out at objects animate as well as inanimate—and

especially powerful here were the cannibal-cannabinols and manicomimetics).

My thoughts were interrupted by the telephone ringing, and then the lights came on again. A voice

from some assistant manager at the reception desk humbly apologized for the inconvenience, with

assurances that the malfunction had been located and corrected. I opened the door to air out the

room—there wasn't a sound in the hall—and stood there, dizzy from the smoke and still filled with the

desire to bless and caress. I shut the door, locked it, sat in the middle of the room and struggled to get a

grip on myself. It is extremely difficult to describe my state at that time. The thoughts didn't come to me

as easily or coherently as they may seem written here. Every analytical reflex was as if submerged in thick

syrup, wrapped and smothered in a porridge of self-satisfaction, all dripping with the honey of idiotic

optimism; my soul seemed to sink into the sweetest of oozes, like drowning in rosebuds and chocolate

icing; I forced myself to think only of the most unpleasant things, the bearded maniac with the

double-barreled papalshooter, the licentious publisher-procurers of Liberated Literature and their

Babylonian hors d'oeuvres, and, of course, J. W., W. C. and J. C. M. and a hundred other villains and

snakes in the grass—only to realize, with horror, that I loved them all, forgave them everything, and (what

was worse) arguments kept popping into my head, arguments that defended every sort of evil and

abomination. Bursting with love for my fellow man, I felt a driving need to lend a helping hand, to do

good works. Instead of psychotropic poisons I greedily thought of the widows and orphans and with

what pleasure I would watch over them forevermore. Ah, how shamefully had I neglected them in the

past! And the poor, and the hungry, and the sick and destitute, Good Lord! I found myself kneeling over

a suitcase, frantically pulling things out to find some article of value I could give to the needy. And once

again the feeble voices of alarm called out desperately from my subconscious: "Attention! Danger! It's a

trick, an ambush! Fight! Bite! Parry! Thrust! Help!" I was torn in two. I felt such a sudden surge of the

categorical imperative, that I wouldn't have touched a fly. A pity, I thought, that the Hilton didn't have

mice or even a few spiders. How I would have pampered the dear little things! Flies, fleas, rats,

mosquitoes, bedbugs—all God's beloved, lovable creations! Meanwhile I blessed the table, the lamp, my

own legs. But the vestiges of reason hadn't abandoned me altogether, so with my left hand I beat at the

right, which was doing all the blessing, beat it until the pain made me writhe. Now that was encouraging!

Perhaps there was hope after all! Luckily the desire to do good carried with it the wish for

self-mortification. For a start, I punched myself in the mouth a couple of times; my ears rang and I saw

stars. Good, excellent! When the face grew numb, I began kicking myself in the shins. Fortunately I had

on heavy boots, with hard heels. After the therapeutic application of several swift kicks I felt much

better—that is, much worse. Tentatively I tested the thought of how it would be to kick a certain C. A.

as well. That no longer lay outside the realm of possibility. My shins ached like the blazes, and yet

apparently it was thanks to the self-administered injury that I was now able to imagine the same dished

out to old M. W. Ignoring the pain, I kicked on and on. Sharp objects were of use here too, and I

availed myself of a fork and then some pins from an unused shirt. I was making progress, but there were

setbacks; in a few minutes I was ready once again to immolate myself on the altar of some higher cause,

all bubbling over with honor, virtue and noblesse oblige. Though I knew full well that something had

been put in the water. And then suddenly I remembered that there were sleeping pills in my suitcase—I

carried them around with me but never used them, since they always left me feeling irritable and

depressed. But now I took one, chewing it with a little soot-covered butter (water was out of the

question, of course), then forced down two caffeine pills—to counteract the sleeping pill—then sat and

waited, full of dread but also full of boundless affection, waited for the outcome of this chemical war to

be waged within my organism. Love seized me as never before, I was carried to unheard-of heights of

generosity. Yet the chemicals of evil apparently were beginning to resist and push back the chemicals of

goodness; I was still prepared to devote my life to charitable acts, but no longer without hesitation. Of

course I would have felt more secure to have been a thorough scoundrel, if only for a while.

In about a quarter of an hour it was more or less over. I took a shower, rubbed myself vigorously

with a towel, now and then—just to be on the safe side—slapped myself in the face, then applied

bandaids to the cuts on my shins and fingers, inspected bruises (I had beaten myself black and blue in the

course of this ordeal), put on a fresh shirt, a suit, adjusted my tie in the mirror, straightened my cape.

Before leaving, I gave myself one good jab in the ribs—a final test—and then was out the door, right on

time too, for it was almost five. To my great surprise everything seemed normal in the hotel. The bar on

my floor was practically empty; the papalshooter was still there, propped up against a table, and I

noticed two pair of feet, one pair bare, sticking out from under the counter, but that hardly suggested

anything out of the ordinary. A couple of student militants were playing cards off to the side, and another

was strumming his guitar and singing a popular song. The lobby downstairs literally swarmed with

futurologists: they were all heading for the first session of the congress (without having to leave the Hilton,

of course, since a hall had been reserved for that purpose in the lower part of the building). My surprise

passed when I realized, upon reflection, that in such a hotel no one ever drank the water; if thirsty, they

would have a coke, or a schweppes, and in a pinch there was always juice, tea or beer, or even soda

water. All beverages came bottled. And even if someone should, out of carelessness, repeat my mistake,

he wouldn't be out here, but up in his room behind locked doors, rolling on the floor in the throes of

universal love. I concluded that it would be best for me to make no mention of this incident—I was new

here, after all, and might not be believed. They would pass it off as a hallucination. And what could be

more natural nowadays than to suspect someone of a fondness for drugs?

Afterwards I was criticized for following this oysterlike (or ostrichlike) policy, the argument being that,

had I brought everything out in the open, the catastrophe might have been averted. Which is nonsense: at

the very most I would have alerted the hotel guests, yet what took place at the Hilton had absolutely no

effect on the march of political events in Costa Rica.

On the way to the convention hall I stopped at a newsstand and bought a batch of local papers, as is

my habit. I don't buy them everywhere I go, of course, but an educated man can get the gist of something

in Spanish, even if he doesn't speak the language.

Above the podium stood a decorated board showing the agenda for the day. The first item of

business was the world urban crisis, the second—the ecology crisis, the third—the air pollution crisis, the

fourth—the energy crisis, the fifth—the food crisis. Then adjournment. The technology, military and

political crises were to be dealt with on the following day, after which the chair would entertain motions

from the floor.

Each speaker was given four minutes to present his paper, as there were so many scheduled—198

from 64 different countries. To help expedite the proceedings, all reports had to be distributed and

studied beforehand, while the lecturer would speak only in numerals, calling attention in this fashion to the

salient paragraphs of his work. To better receive and process such wealth of information, we all turned

on our portable recorders and pocket computers (which later would be plugged in for the general

discussion). Stan Hazelton of the U.S. delegation immediately threw the hall into a flurry by emphatically

repeating: 4, 6, 11, and therefore 22; 5, 9, hence 22; 3, 7, 2, 11, from which it followed that 22 and only

22!! Someone jumped up, saying yes but 5, and what about 6, 18, or 4 for that matter; Hazelton

countered this objection with the crushing retort that, either way, 22. I turned to the number key in his

paper and discovered that 22 meant the end of the world. Hayakawa from Japan was next; he presented

plans, newly developed in his country, for the house of the future—eight hundred levels with maternity

wards, nurseries, schools, shops, museums, zoos, theaters, skating rinks and crematoriums. The

blueprints provided for underground storage of the ashes of the dear departed, forty-channel television,

intoxication chambers as well as sobering tanks, special gymnasiums for group sex (an indication of the

progressive attitude of the architects), and catacombs for nonconformist subculture communities. One

rather novel idea was to have each family change its living quarters every day, moving from apartment to

apartment like chessmen—say, pawns or knights. That would help alleviate boredom. In any event this

building, having a volume of seventeen cubic kilometers, a foundation set in the ocean floor and a roof

that reached the very stratosphere, would possess its own matrimonial computers—matchmaking on the

sadomasochistic principle, for partners of such opposite persuasions statistically made the most stable

marriages (each finding in that union the answer to his or her dreams)—and there would also be a

round-the-clock suicide prevention center. Hakayawa, the second Japanese delegate, demonstrated for

us a working model of such a house—on a scale of 10,000 to 1. It had its own oxygen supply, but

without food or water reserves, since the building would operate entirely on the recycling principle: all

waste products, excreta and effluvia, would be reclaimed and reprocessed for consumption. Yahakawa,

the third on the team, read a list of all the delicacies that could be reconstituted from human excrement.

Among these were artificial bananas, gingerbread, shrimp, lobster, and even artificial wine which,

notwithstanding its rather offensive origin, in taste rivaled the finest burgundies of France. Samples of it

were available in the hall, in elegant little bottles, and there were also cocktail sausages wrapped in foil,

though no one seemed to be particularly thirsty, and the sausages were discreetly deposited under chairs.

Seeing which, I did the same. The original plan was to have this house of the future be mobile, by means

of a powerful propeller, thereby making collective sightseeing excursions possible, but that was ruled out

because, first of all, there would be 900 million houses to begin with and, secondly, all travel would be

pointless. For even if a house had 1,000 exits and its occupants employed them all, they would never be

able to leave the building; by the time the last was out, a whole new generation of occupants would have

reached maturity inside. The Japanese were clearly delighted with their own proposal. Then Norman

Youhas from the United States took the floor and outlined seven different measures to halt the population

explosion, namely: mass media and mass arrests, compulsory celibacy, full-scale deeroticization,

onanization, sodomization, and for repeated offenders—castration. Every married couple would be

required to compete for the right to have children, passing examinations in three categories, copulational,

educational and nondeviational. All illegal offspring would be confiscated; for premeditated birth, the

guilty parties could face life sentences. Attached to this report were those detachable sky-blue

coupons—sex rations—we had received earlier with the conference materials. Hazelton and Youhas then

proposed the establishment of new occupations: connubial prosecutor, divorce counselor, perversion

recruiter and sterility consultant. Copies of a draft for a new penal code, in which fertilization constituted

a major felony, tantamount to high treason against the species, were promptly passed around. Meanwhile

someone in the spectator gallery hurled a Molotov cocktail into the hall. The police squad (on hand in the

lobby, evidently prepared for such an eventuality) took the necessary steps, and a maintenance crew (no

less prepared) quickly covered the broken furniture and corpses with a large nylon tarpaulin which was

decorated in a cheerful pattern. Between reports I tried to decipher the local papers, and even though my

Spanish was practically nonexistent, I did learn that the government had summoned armored units to the

capital, put all law enforcement agencies on extreme alert, and declared a general state of emergency.

Apparently no one in the audience besides myself grasped the seriousness of the situation developing

outside the hotel walls. At seven we adjourned for supper—at our expense, this time—and on my way

back to the conference I bought a special evening edition of Nación, the official newspaper, as well as a

few of the opposition tabloids. Perusing these (with considerable difficulty), I was amazed to find articles

full of saccharine platitudes on the theme of the tender bonds of love as the surest guarantee of universal

peace—right beside articles that were full of dire threats, articles promising bloody repression or else an

equally bloody insurrection. The only explanation I could think of for this peculiar incongruity was that

some of the journalists had been drinking the water that day, and some hadn't. Of course less water

would be consumed by the staff of a right-wing newspaper, since reactionary editors were better paid

than their radical counterparts and consequently could afford to imbibe more exclusive liquids while they

worked. The radicals, on the other hand, though they were known to display a certain degree of

asceticism in the name of higher principles, hardly ever quenched their thirst with water. Especially since

quartzupio, a fermented drink from the juice of the melmenole plant, was extremely cheap in Costa Rica.

We had settled back in our comfortable armchairs, and Professor Dringenbaum of Switzerland was

just delivering the first numeral of his report, when all at once the hollow rumble of an explosion shook

the building and made the windows rattle. The optimists among us passed this off as a simple earthquake,

but I was inclined to think that the group of demonstrators outside that had been picketing the hotel since

morning was now resorting to incendiary tactics. Though the following blast and concussion, much more

powerful, changed my mind; now I could hear the familiar staccato of machine-gun fire in the streets. No,

there was no longer any doubt: Costa Rica had entered into the stage of open hostilities. Our reporters

were the first to disappear; at the sound of shooting they jumped to their feet and rushed out the door,

eager to cover this new assignment. But Professor Dringenbaum went on with his lecture, which was

fairly pessimistic in tone, for it maintained that the next phase of our civilization would be cannibalism. He

cited several well-known American theoreticians, who had calculated that, if things on Earth continued at

their present rate, in four hundred years humanity would represent a living sphere of bodies with a radius

expanding at approximately the speed of light. But new explosions interrupted the report. The

futurologists, confused, began to leave the hall and mingle in the lobby with people from the Liberated

Literature convention. Judging by the appearance of these latter, the outbreak of the fighting had caught

them in the middle of activity which suggested complete indifference to the threat of overpopulation.

Behind some editors from the publishing house of Knopf stood naked secretaries—though not entirely

naked, for their limbs were painted with various op designs. They carried portable water pipes and

hookahs filled with a popular mixture of LSD, marijuana, yohimbine and opium. The liberationists,

someone told me, had just burned the United States Postmaster General in effigy (it seems he had

ordered the destruction of a pamphlet calling for the initiation of mass incest) and now, gathered in the

lobby, they were behaving most inappropriately—particularly given the seriousness of the situation. With

the exception of a few who were exhausted or remained in a narcotic stupor, they all carried on in a

positively scandalous fashion. I heard screams from the reception desk, where switchboard operators

were being raped, and one potbellied gentleman in a leopardskin tore through the hotel cloakroom,

waving a hashish torch as he chased the attendants. It took several porters to restrain him. Then someone

from the mezzanine threw armfuls of photographs down on our heads, photographs depicting in vivid

color exactly how one man could satisfy his lust with another, and a great deal more besides. When the

first tanks appeared in the streets—clearly visible from our windows—panic-stricken phillumenists and

student protesters came pouring from the elevators; trampling underfoot the abovementioned páté

mounds and salad molds (which the publishers had brought out with them), these newcomers scattered in

all directions. And there was the bearded anti-papist bellowing like a bull and wildly swinging his

papalshooter, knocking down anyone who stood in the way. He pushed through the crowd and ran out

in front of the hotel, where he hid behind a corner of the building and—I saw this with my own

eyes—opened fire on the figures running past. Obviously this dedicated, ideologically motivated fanatic

really didn't care, when it came down to it, whom he shot at. The lobby, filled with cries of terror and

revelry, became a scene of utter pandemonium when the huge picture windows began to shatter. I tried

to locate my reporter friends and, seeing them dash up the street, followed after; the atmosphere in the

Hilton had really become too oppressive. Behind a low concrete wall along the hotel driveway crouched

two cameramen, frantically filming everything, which made little sense, since everyone knows that the first

thing that happens on such occasions is the burning of a car with foreign license plates. Flames and

smoke were already rising from the hotel parking lot. Mauvin, standing beside me, rubbed his hands and

chuckled at the sight of his Dodge crackling in the blaze—he had rented it from Hertz. The majority of

the American reporters, however, did not find this amusing. I noticed some people struggling to put out

the fire: these were mainly old men, poorly dressed, and they were hauling water in buckets from a

nearby fountain. That struck me as odd. In the distance, at the far end of the Avenida del Salvación and

the Avenida del Resurrección, police helmets glimmered; yet the square in front of the hotel, with its

surrounding lawns and luxuriant palms, was still empty. Those doddering old men, hoarsely calling to one

another, quickly formed a fire brigade, in spite of their canes and crutches; such gallantry was astounding,

but then I remembered what had happened earlier that day and immediately shared my suspicions with

Mauvin. The rattle of machine guns and the thunder of bursting shells made it difficult to talk; for a while

the Frenchman's keen face showed a total lack of comprehension, but suddenly his eyes lit up. "Aha!" he

roared above the din. "The water! The drinking water! Great God, for the first time in history …

cryptochemocracy!" And with these words he ran back to the hotel like one possessed. To get to a

telephone, apparently. Strange though, that the lines should still be open.

I was standing there in the driveway when Professor Trottelreiner, one of the Swiss futurologists,

joined me. By then the police were doing what they should have done hours ago: wearing black helmets,

shields and gas masks, armed with guns and clubs, they formed a cordon around the whole Hilton

complex to keep back the mob, which was just beginning to pour from the park that separated us from

the city's theater district. With great skill special police units set up grenade launchers and fired these into

the crowd; the explosions were remarkably weak, though they raised thick clouds of whitish smoke. At

first I thought that this was tear gas, but the people, instead of fleeing and choking in fury, clearly began to

huddle around the pale vapors; their shouts quickly died away, and soon I could hear them singing—they

were singing hymns. The reporters, rushing back and forth between the cordon and the hotel entrance

with their cameras and tape recorders, were completely mystified by this, though it was obvious to me

that the police were employing some new pacification chemical, in aerosol form. But then, from the

Avenida del … I can't recall which … another group of people appeared, and these were somehow

unaffected by the grenades, or so it seemed. Later I was told that this group had continued advancing in

order to help the police, not to attack them. Yet who could draw such subtle distinctions in that general

chaos? There were several more salvos of grenades, and that was followed by the characteristic roar and

hiss of a water cannon, then finally the machine guns opened up and the air was filled with the whine of

bullets. They were playing for keeps now, so I ducked behind the low driveway wall, using it like the

breastwork of a trench, and found myself between Stantor and Haynes of the Washington Post. In a

few words I filled them in; they were furious that I had betrayed such a banner-headline secret first to an

AFP man, and crawled full speed back to the hotel, only to return shortly, scowling—the lines were no

longer open. But Stantor had managed to buttonhole the officer in charge of hotel defenses and learned

from him that planes carrying LTN bombs (LTN: Love Thy Neighbor) were now on their way. Then we

were ordered to clear the area, and all the policemen put on gas masks with special filters. We received

masks too.

Professor Trottelreiner was, as luck would have it, a specialist in the field of psychotropic

pharmacology, and he cautioned me not to use the gas mask under any circumstance, as it would cease

to operate at sufficiently high concentrations of aerosol; this would then give rise to the so-called

phenomenon of filter overload, and in an instant one could inhale a much heavier dose than if one

breathed the air without the benefit of a mask. The only sure protection, he said, anticipating my question,

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eVersion1.0-clickforscannotesTHEFUTUROLOGICALCONGRESSStanislawLem(fromthememoirsofIjonTichy)translatedfromthePolishbyMichaelKandelTheEighthWorldFuturologicalCongresswasheldinCostaRica.Totellthetruth,IneverwouldhavegonetoNounasifithadn'tbeenforProfessorTarantoga,whogavemeclearlytounderstandthatthiswa...

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