Arkady & Boris Strugatsky - The Time Wanderers

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Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky. The Time Wanderers

BACKGROUND: Maxim Kammerer

My name is Maxim Kammerer. I am eighty-nine years old.

Once upon a time, long, long ago, I read an ancient novella that began

that way. I remember thinking then that if I ever were to write my memoirs

in the future, I would begin in just that way. However, strictly speaking,

this present text cannot be considered a memoir, and it should start with a

certain letter that I received about a year ago.

Kammerer: You naturally have read the notorious "Five Biographies of

the Age". Please help me to determine who is hiding behind the pseudonyms P.

Soroka and E. Braun. I think it will be easier for you than for me.

M. Glumova

13 June 125. Novgorod

I did not reply to this letter, because I was not able to establish the

real names of the authors of "Five Biographies of the Age". All I did

determine was that, as expected, P. Soroka and E. Braun were major

contributors to the Luden group at the Institute for the Research of Space

History (IRSH).

I had no difficulty in imagining the feelings of Maya Toivovna Glumova

as she read the biography of her son as related by P. Soroka and E. Braun.

And I realized that I had to speak out. Therefore, I write this memoir.

From the point of view of an unprejudiced and a particularly young

reader, I will be describing events that brought me to the end of the era in

cosmic self-awareness and opened absolutely new vistas, which had seemed

only theoretical previously. I was a witness, a participant in, and in some

sense even an initiator of these events, and therefore it is not surprising

that the Luden Group has been bombarding me with questions, official and

unofficial requests to contribute, and reminders of my civic duty.

Originally I had understanding and sympathy for the goals and aims of the

Luden group, but I never hid my skepticism about their chances for success.

Besides, it was absolutely clear to me that the materials and information in

my personal files could be of no help to the Luden group, and therefore I

have continued avoiding participating in their work.

But now, for reasons that are more personal, I have felt a persistent

need to gather up and present to the attention of anyone who might be

interested everything that is known to me about the early days of the Big

Revelation.

I have reread the last paragraph, and I must correct myself. First of

all, I am offering far from everything that is known to me, naturally. Some

of the material is too special in nature to be presented here. Some names I

will not give, out of purely ethical considerations. I will also refrain

from mentioning certain specific methods of my work then as head of the

Department of Unusual Events (UEs) of the Commission on Control (COMCON-2).

Secondly, the events of the year 99 were not, strictly speaking, the

early days of the Big Revelation, but, on the contrary, its last days. I

think this is precisely what the Luden group people do not understand, or

rather, do not wish co understand, despite all my efforts to convince them.

Of course, perhaps I was not insistent enough. I'm not young anymore.

The personality of Toivo Glumov and the Luden group are linked. I can

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understand why, and therefore I made him the central figure in my memoir.

For whatever reasons I might recall those days and whatever I might

remember about those days, Toivo Glumov appears in my mind. I see his thin,

always serious young face, his long white lashes, always lowered over his

transparent gray eyes, and I hear his apparently intentional slow speech.

Once again I feel his silent, helpless, but inexorable pressure, like a

wordless cry: "Well, what's the matter with you? Why are you doing nothing?

Give me an order!" And, vice versa, no sooner do I remember him for some

reason than the "mean dogs of recollection" wake up, as if from a swift

kick: all the horror of those days, all the despair of those days, all the

impotence of those days -- horror, despair, and impotence that I experienced

alone, because I had no one with whom to share them.

This memoir is based on documents. As a rule, these are standard

reports made by my inspectors, and some official correspondence, which I

cite primarily to re-create the atmosphere of those days. In general, a

picky and competent researcher would have no difficulty in noticing that a

large number of documents that relate to the case are not in the memoir,

while I could have managed without some of the documents that are included.

Responding ahead of time to this rebuke, I will note that I selected the

materials In accordance with certain principles, which I have no desire nor

pressing need to go into.

Further, a significant portion of the text is made up of chapter

reconstructions. These chapters are written by me and in fact are

reconstructions of scenes and events that I did not witness. The

reconstructions were based on oral accounts, tape recordings, and subsequent

reminiscences by people who took part in these scenes and events, such as

Toivo Glumov's wife, Asya, his colleagues, acquaintances, and so on. I

realize that the value of these chapters for the Luden group people is not

great, but what can I do? It is greatly significant for me.

Finally, I allowed myself to dilute the information-bearing text of the

memoir with personal reminiscences that carry information not so much about

the events of those days as about the Maxim Kammerer of those days, at age

58. The behavior of that man In the circumstances depicted seems to me to be

of some interest even now...

Having made the final decision to write this memoir, I faced the

question: where do I begin? When and what started the Big Revelation?

Strictly speaking, it all began two centuries ago, when in the bevels

of Mars they discovered a deserted tunnel city of amberine. Mat was the

first time that the word "Wanderers" was spoken.

That is true. But too general. It could just as easily be said that the

Big Revelation began with the Big Bang.

Then perhaps it was fifty years ago? The affair of the "foundlings"?

When the problem of the Wanderers took on a tragic aspect, when the vicious

rebuking epithet "Sikorski Syndrome" was born and lived through word of

mouth? It was the complex of uncontrollable fear of a possible invasion by

the Wanderers. That's also true. And much more to the point... But back then

I was not yet head of the UE Department; in fact, it did not even exist. And

I am not writing a history of the problem of the Wanderers.

For me it began in May of 93, when I, like all the heads of the UEDs of

all the sectors of COMCON-2, received a circular report about the incident

on Tisse. (Not on the Tisse River, which flows peacefully through Hungary

and the Carpathians, but on the planet Tisse near the star EN-63061,

discovered not long before that by the fellows from GSP.) The circular

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described the incident as a sudden and unexplained madness in all three

members of the research party, landing on the plateau (I can't remember the

name) two weeks earlier. All three suddenly imagined that they had lost

communication with the central base and had lost all communication in

general except with the orbiting mother ship, and the mother ship was

broadcasting an automatic message that Earth had been destroyed in some

cosmic cataclysm, and that the entire population of the Periphery had died

out from unexplained epidemics.

I don't remember all the details anymore. Two of the party, I think,

tried to commit suicide, and in the end went off into the desert in despair

over the hopelessness and total uselessness of further existence. Their

commander was a stronger man. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to

live -- as if humanity had not perished, but only he had suffered an

accident and had been cut off forever from his home planet. He later

recounted that, on the fourteenth day of this crazed life, someone dressed

in white appeared to him and announced that he had honorably passed the

first round of the trials and had been accepted as a candidate into the

society of Wanderers. On the fifteenth day, the lifeboat came from the

mother ship, and the atmosphere was discharged. They found the two men who

had gone off into the desert, everyone remained of sound mind, and no one

died. Their testimony was consistent down to the tiniest details. For

instance, they all reproduced exactly the accent of the automatic machine

that allegedly gave the fatal announcement. Subjectively, they perceived the

incident as a vivid, unusually authentic-seeming theatrical presentation, in

which they had been unexpected and unwitting participants. Deep mentoscopy

confirmed their subjective perception and even showed that, in the very

depth of their subconscious, none of them suspected that it was merely a

theatrical performance.

As far as I know, my colleagues in the other sectors took this for a

rather ordinary UE, an explainable UE, one of the many that constantly occur

beyond the Periphery. Everyone was alive and well. Further work in the area

of the UE was not necessary; it hadn't been necessary in the first place. No

volunteers interested in solving the mystery appeared. The area of the UE

was evacuated. The UE was taken into account. In the files.

But I was a student of the late Sikorski! When he was alive, I had

often argued with him, both mentally and out loud, when talk turned to the

threat to humanity from the outside. But there was one thesis of his that

was hard to dispute and I didn't want to argue with it: "We are workers of

COMCON-2. We are allowed to be called ignoramuses, mystics, and

superstitious fools. There is one thing we are not allowed: to underestimate

danger. And if there is suddenly the odor of sulfur in our house, we are

simply obliged to assume that a horned devil has appeared somewhere nearby

and to take appropriate measures right up to organizing national industrial

production of holy water." No sooner did I hear that someone in white was

speaking in the name of the Wanderers than I smelled sulfur and grew as

agitated as an old warhorse at the sound of bugles.

I made appropriate queries through appropriate channels. Without great

surprise, I learned that in the lexicon of instructions, directives, and

projected plans of our COMCON-2, the word "Wanderer" does not exist I had

been received by the higher-ups and, without the least bit of amazement, I

was convinced that as far as our most responsible leaders were concerned,

the Progressorist activity of the Wanderers in the system of humanity had

been lived through and survived, like a childhood disease. The tragedy of

Lev Abalkin and Rudolf Sikorski in some inexplicable manner had somehow

cleared the Wanderers forever of suspicion.

The only person in whom my anxiety elicited a flash of sympathy was

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Athos-Sidorov, the President of my sector and my immediate supervisor. He

confirmed with his authority and affixed with his signature my proposed

theme: "A Visit from an Old Lady." He allowed me to organize a special group

to develop that theme. Actually, he gave me a carte blanche in that area.

And I began by organizing a questionnaire for a number of the most

competent specialists in zenosociology. My aim was to create a model (as

realistic as possible) of the Progressorist activity of the Wanderers in the

system of Earth humanity. Without going into details: I sent all the

materials I gathered to the famous science historian and erudite Isaac

Bromberg. Now I don't even remember why I did that, since by then Bromberg

had not worked in zenology in many years. It must have been because most of

the specialists to whom I had turned with my questions had refused to talk

seriously with me (the Sikorski Syndrome! ), while Bromberg, as everyone

knows, "always had a few words to spare," no matter the topic.

Anyway, Dr. L Bromberg sent me his reply, which is now known as the

Bromberg Memorandum.

It all began with it.

I'll begin with it, too.

DOCUMENT 1: The Bromberg Memorandum

To COMCON-2

Sector Ural-North

To Maxim Kammerer

Personal and Official

Date: 3 June 94

FROM: I. Bromberg, senior consultant COMCON-1, doctor of historical

sciences, laureate of the Herodotus Prize (63, 69, and 72 ), professor,

laureate of the Small Prize -- Jan Amos Kamensky Prize( 57),doctor of

xenopsychology, doctor of sociotopology, acting member of the Academy of

Sociology (Europe), corresponding member of the Laboratorium (Academy of

Sciences) of Great Tagro, master of the realization of Parsival's

abstractions.

THEME: "A Visit from an Old Lady."

CONTENTS: working model of the Progressorist activity of the Wanderers

in the system of humanity on earth.

Dear Kammerer!

Please do not take the heading with which I capped this missive as an

old man's mockery. l merely wanted to stress that my missive, while

completely personal, is at the same time official. I've remembered the cap

of your reports from the days when they were tossed on my desk as an

argument (rather feeble) by your pathetic Sikorski.

My attitude toward your organization has not changed in the least. I

never hid it, and it is certainly well known to you. Nevertheless, I studied

with great interest the materials you were kind enough to send me. Thank

you. I want to assure you that in this direction of your work (but not only

in this direction!) you will find me your most ardent ally and collaborator.

I do not know whether this Is a coincidence, but I received your

Compendium of Models just at the moment when I was about to embark on

summing up my many years of thinking about the nature of the Wanderers and

the inevitability of their collision with the civilization of Earth. Of

course, it is my profound belief that there are no coincidences. Apparently,

the time for this question is ripe.

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I have neither the time nor the wish to make a detailed criticism of

your document. I must note, however, that the models Octopus and

Conquistador brought me uncontrollable laughter, with their jokelike

primitivism, while the model New Air, despite its appearing to be less than

totally trivial, is also devoid of any serious argumentation. Eight models!

Eighteen development engineers, among whom are such shining stars as

Karibanov, Yasuda, and Mikich! Damn it, you should expect something more

significant! Say what you will, Kammerer, but the natural supposition is

that you were unable to impress these great masters with your "anxiety over

our general unpreparedness in this area." They simply ducked the issue.

Herein I offer to the pedestal of your attention a brief notation of my

future book, which I plan to call "Monocosm: Peak of First Step? Notes on

the Evolution of Evolution." Again, I have neither the time nor inclination

to equip my basic positions with detailed argumentation. I can assure you

only that each of these positions even today can be argued more

exhaustively, so if you have any questions, I will be happy to answer them.

(Incidentally, I can't resist noting that your request for my consultation

was perhaps the first and so far only socially useful act by your

organization in all the time it has existed.)

And so: Monocosm.

Any intelligence -- technological, Rousseauist, or even a heron's -- in

the process of evolution first travels the path from the state of maximal

separation (savagery, mutual hostility, crude emotions, mistrust) to a state

of maximal unification while still retaining individuality (friendliness,

high culture of relationships, altruism, disdain for success). This process

is governed by biological, biosocial, and specifically social laws. It is

well studied and is of interest go us here only insofar as it brings us to

the question: what next? Leaving aside the romantic trills of the theory of

vertical progress, we have discovered only two real possibilities, differing

in principle. On the one hand, a halt, a self-soothing, a turning off, a

loss of interest in the physical world. Or entering on the path of evolution

of a second order, the path of planned and controlled evolution, the path

toward Monocosm.

The synthesis of intelligences is inevitable. It gives an infinite

number of new facets to the perception of the world, and this leads. to an

incredible increase in the quantity, and more importantly, the quality of

available information, which in its turn leads to a decrease of suffering to

a minimum and an increase in pleasure to a maximum. The concept of "home"

will extend to universal scope. (This is probably why that irresponsible and

superficial concept of the Wanderers appeared in the first place.) A new

metabolism develops, and, as a result, life and health become practically

eternal. The age of an individual becomes comparable with the age of cosmic

objects -- with a total absence of psychic weariness. An individual of the

Monocosm does not need creators. He is his own creator and consumer of

culture. From a drop of water not only can he re-create the image of the

ocean, but the whole world of the creatures that inhabit it, including the

reasoning ones -- and all this with a constant unsatisfiable sense of

hunger.

Every new individual appears as a creation of syntectic art he is

created by physiologists, geneticists, engineers, psychologists,

estheticians, teachers, and philosophers of Monocosm. This process will

definitely take up several Earth decades, and, naturally, is the most

engrossing and respected san of activity of the Wanderers. Contemporary

humanity does not know of any analog for this kind of art, if one does not

count the very rare instances of Great Love.

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Create Without Destroying! That is the motto of the Monocosm.

The Monocosm cannot consider its path of development and its modus

vivendi to be the only true path. Pain and despair elicit pictures of

separated minds that had not matured to become part of it. It must wait

until reason within the framework of evolution of the first order develops

to the state of an all-planet socium. For it is only after that that you can

interfere with biostructure, with the aim of preparing the bearer of

intelligence to the transformation into the monocosmic organism of a

Wanderer. For the intervention of the Wanderers into the fates of separated

civilizations can yield nothing worthwhile.

A significant situation: the Progressors of Earth strive to speed up

the historical process of creating more developed social structures in

suffering civilizations. Thereby, they are preparing new reserves of

material for the future work of Monocosm.

We now know of three civilizations that consider themselves happy.

The Leonidians. An extremely ancient civilization (at least three

hundred thousand years old, no matter what the late Pak Hin maintained).

This is a model of a "slow" civilization; they are frozen in unity with

nature.

The Tagorians. A civilization of hypertrophied foresight. Three-fourths

of all their strength is directed to studying the harmful consequences that

might arise from a discovery, invention, or new technological progress. This

civilization seems strange to us only because we cannot understand the

interest in avoiding harmful consequences, or how much intellectual and

emotional satisfaction it can give. Slowing down progress is as amusing as

creating it -- it all depends on your starting point and your upbringing. As

a result, their only transportation is public; they have no aviation at all,

and their communication lines are very well developed.

The third civilization is ours, and now we understand precisely in our

lives why the Wanderers must interfere. We are moving. We are moving, and

therefore we might make a mistake in the direction of our movement.

Nowadays, no one remembers the "asskickers" who tried to force progress

with great enthusiasm among the Tagorians and Leonidians. By now me know

that kicking ass in civilizations that are mature in their own way is as

meaningless and hopeless as trying to speed up the growth of a tree -- an

oak, say -- by pulling it up by the branches. The Wanderers are not

asskickers, and forcing progress is not and could not be their goal. Their

aim is the search, the selection, the preparation for communing, and finally

to bring individuals mature enough for it into the community of the

Monocosm. I do not know by what process the Wanderers make their selection,

and that is a shame, because whether we want it or not, we must speak

plainly, without euphemisms and scientific jargon. This is what we are

talking about.

First: mankind's stepping onto the path of evolution of the second

order means the practical transformation of Homo sapiens into Wanderers.

Second: most likely; far from every Homo sapiens is suitable for such

transformation.

Summary:

- humanity will be divided into two unequal parts;

- humanity will be divided into two unequal parts along parameters

unknown to us;

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- humanity will be divided into two unequal parts along parameters

unknown to us, and the smaller part will be forced to surpass the greater

half forever;

- humanity will be divided into two unequal parts along parameters

unknown to us, and the smaller part will be forced to surpass the greater

half forever, and this will be done by the will and art of a

supercivilization, determinedly alien to humanity.

My dear Kammerer, as a sociopsychological experiment I offer you this

situation, not without innovation, for analysis.

Now, when the bases of the Monocosm's Progressorist strategy has become

more or less clear to you, you will probably be better able than I to

determine the basic direction of a counterstrategy and the tactics for

capturing the moments of the Wanderers' activity. It goes without saying

that the search, selection, and preparation for communing of matured

individuals must be accompanied by phenomena and events accessible to the

careful observer. For instance, we can expect the appearance of mass

phobias, new messianic teachings, the appearance of people with

extraordinary abilities, the unexplained disappearance of people, the sudden

-- almost as if by witchcraft -- development of new talents in people, and

so on. I would definitely recommend that you keep your eyes on the Tagorians

and Golovans accredited on Earth -- their sensitivity to the alien and

unknown is significantly higher than ours. (In this sense, you should also

watch the behavior of earth animals, especially herd animals and those with

rudimentary intellect.)

Naturally, the sphere of your attention should include not only Earth,

but the entire solar system, the Periphery, and most of all, the young

Periphery.

I wish you luck,

Yours, I. Bromberg

[End of Document 1]

DOCUMENT 2: Theme: 009 "A Visit from an Old Lady"

To the President of Sector Urals-North

Date: 13 June 94

FROM: M.M. Kammerer, head of UED

THEME: 009 "A Visit from an Old Lady"

CONTENTS: the death of A. Bromberg

President!

Professor Isaac Bromberg died suddenly in the Bezhin Meadow Sanatorium

on the morning of June 11 of this year.

We have not found any notes on the Monocosm model or any notes at all

on the Wanderers in his personal files. The search continues. The medical

certificate on his death is appended.

M. Kammerer

[End of Document 2]

It was in this order that my young probationer, Toivo Glumov, read

these documents in early 95, and naturally, these documents made a very

definite impression on him, gave him very definite ideas, especially since

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they supported his most gloomy expectations. The seed fell in fertile soil.

He immediately located the medical death certificate and, finding nothing

there at all to confirm his suspicions, which seemed so natural, he demanded

permission to see me.

I remember that morning well: gray, snowy, with a real blizzard outside

my office windows. Perhaps because of the contrast, because my body was

here, in the snowy Urals, and my eyes senselessly watched the streams of

melting water on the panes, while my mental gaze was on a tropical night

above a warm ocean, and a dead naked body bobbed in the phosphorescent foam

that rolled up onto the sloping sandy beach. I had just received information

from the Center about the third fatal incident on the island of Matuku.

At that moment, Toivo Glumov appeared before me, and I chased away the

vision and asked him to sit down and speak.

Without any preamble, he asked me if the investigation of the

circumstances of the death of Dr. Bromberg was considered closed.

With a certain amount of surprise, I replied that there had been no

investigation, in effect, just as there had not been any special

circumstances in the death of the hundred-and-fifty-year-old man.

Then where, in that case, were Dr. Bromberg's notes on the Monocosm?

I explained that there probably had never been any notes. Dr.

Bromberg's letter, I had to assume, was an improvisation. Dr. Bromberg had

been a brilliant improviser.

Then should he deem it an accident that Dr. Bromberg's letter and the

announcement of his death, sent by Maxim Kammerer to the President, were

next to each other?

I looked at him, his thin lips set in a determined line, his low brow

with a strand of white hair across it, and it was perfectly clear to me.

What he wanted to hear from me. "Yes, Toivo, my lad," he wanted to hear. "I

think just as you do. Bromberg had guessed much, and the Wanderers got rid

of him and stole his precious papers." But naturally, I didn't think

anything of the sort and I didn't say anything of the sort to my lad Toivo.

Why the documents were next to each other, I didn't know myself. Most

likely, it really was by accident. And that's what I told him.

Then he asked me if Bromberg's ideas had gone into practical

development.

I replied that the question was being examined. All eight models,

proposed by the experts, were very open to criticism. As for Bromberg's

ideas, circumstances were not right for a serious attitude toward them.

Then he mustered his courage and asked me straight on if I, Maxim

Kammerer, head of the department, intended to take up the development of

Bromberg's ideas. And here, finally, I had the opportunity to make him

happy. He heard exactly what he wanted to hear.

"Yes, my lad," I said. "That's why I brought you into the department."

He left feeling ecstatic. Neither he nor I had any idea then, of

course, that it was at that very moment that he took his first step toward

the Big Revelation.

I am a practicing psychologist. When I am dealing with a person, I can

say without false modesty that I feel his spiritual state at every moment,

the direction of his thoughts, and I'm quite good at predicting his actions.

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However, if I were asked to explain how I do it, and on top of that asked to

draw or explain in words the image - that is created in my mind, I would

find myself in a very difficult position. Like every practicing

psychologist, I would be forced to turn to analogies from the world of art

or literature. I would refer to the characters of Shakespeare, or Strogov,

or Michelangelo, or Johann Sourd.

So Toivo Glumov reminded me of the Mexican Rivers. I mean from the

oft-anthologized story by Jack London. Twentieth century. Or even

nineteenth... I don't remember exactly.

By profession, Toivo Glumov was a Progressor. Specialists told me that

he could have been a Progressor of the highest class, a Progressor ace. He

had brilliant qualifications. He had wonderful self-control, he was

extraordinarily cool, had truly unusually fast reflexes, and was a born

actor and master of impersonation. And having worked as a Progressor for

over three years, without any apparent reasons he retired and returned to

Earth. No sooner had he finished reconditioning than he got on the BVI and

learned without any great difficulty that the only organization on our

planet that had anything to do with his new aims was COMCON-2.

He appeared before me in December of 94, imbued with icy preparedness

to answer questions over and over: why he, such a promising, absolutely

healthy, and highly valued man was quitting his job, his mentors, his

comrades, destroying carefully worked-out plans, squashing the hopes that

had been placed in him... Naturally, I did not ask him anything of the sort.

In general, I was not interested in why he did not want to be a Progressor

anymore. I was interested in why he suddenly wanted to be a

Counter-Progressor, if you can put it that way.

His reply was memorable. He felt hostility for the very concept of

Progressorism. If possible, he would not dwell on details. It was just that

he, a Progressor, had negative feelings about Progressorism. And over there

(he jerked his thumb over his shoulder), he had a very trivial thought:

while he was tramping along the cobblestones of Arkanara's squares, shaking

his staff and brandishing his sword, here (he pointed his index finger at

the ground beneath his feet) some trickster in a fashionable rainbow cape

and a metavisor over his shoulder was strolling on Sverdlov Square. As far

as he knew, that simple thought rarely occurs to anyone, and if it does,

then as an incongruously silly or romantic one. But he, Toivo Glumov, had no

peace from that thought: no gods should be allowed to intervene in our

affairs; the gods had no place on earth, for "the good of the gods is the

wind -- it fills sails, but it also raises storms." (I later found the

source of this citation with great difficulty -- it's from Verbliben.)

My naked eye could see that before me was a Catholic who was far more

Catholic than the Pope. Without further discussion, I took him into my group

and started him in on the theme "A Visit from an Old Lady."

He turned out to be a marvelous worker. He was energetic, he had

initiative, he did not know the meaning of tired, and -- this was a very

rare quality at his age -- he was not disappointed by failure. There were no

negative results for him. Moreover, negative results of his research made

him just as happy as the rare positive ones. He had seemed to set his mind

from the beginning that nothing definite would be learned in his lifetime,

and know how to find pleasure horn the actual (often rather dreary)

procedure of analyzing the least-bit-suspicious incident. Amazingly, my old

workers - Grisha Serosovin, Sandro Mbvevari, Andryusha Kikin, and others -

shaped up around him, stopped wasting time, and grew much less ironic and

much more efficient. And it wasn't as if they were following his example,

there could be no question of that; he was too young for them, too green.

But he seemed to have infected them with his seriousness, his concentration

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on the work, and, most of all, I think, they were astonished by the intense

hatred for the object of our work that they could guess in him and which

they totally lacked. Once, I happened to mention the tanned youth Rivera

around Grisha Serosovin and soon discovered that they had all located and

reread that story by Jack London.

Like Rivera, Toivo had no friends. He was surrounded by faithful and

trusty colleagues, and he was a faithful and trusty partner himself for any

undertaking. But he never did develop friends. I think it was because it was

too hard to be his friend: he never was satisfied with himself in anything,

and therefore never made allowances for others in anything. He had this

ruthless concentration on his goal, which I had seen before only in major

scientists and athletes. No room for friendship...

Actually, he did have one friend. I mean his wife, Asya Stasova, name

and patronymic Anastasiya Pavlovna. When I met her, she was a charming

little woman, as lively as mercury, sharp-tongued, and with a tendency to

make quick judgments. Therefore, the atmosphere in their house was always

combat-ready, and it was sheer pleasure to observe their constantly erupting

verbal battles.

It was all the more amazing because in ordinary circumstances -- that

is, at work -- Toivo gave the impression of being a slow and taciturn man.

He seemed to be always stuck on some important idea he was thinking over

carefully. But not with Asya. Only not with Asya. With her he was

Demosthenes, Cicero, Apostle Paul; he intoned, quipped, created maxims --

damn it, he even ironized! It was difficult to imagine just how different

the two men were; silent, slow Toivo Glumov-at-Work and animated, chatty,

philosophizing, constantly erring and agitatedly defending his errors Toivo

Glumov-at-Home. At home, he even ate with an appetite and with taste. He

even complained about the food. Asya worked as a gastronomic degustator and

did all the cooking herself. That's the way it had been in her mother's

home, and in her grandmother's home. This tradition, which delighted Toivo

Glumov, went back in the Stasov family to the depths of centuries, to those

unimaginable times before molecular cuisine, when an ordinary hamburger had

to be cooked by means of very complicated and not very appetizing

procedures...

And Toivo also had a mother. Every day, no matter how busy or where he

was, he always found a minute to call her on the videochannel and exchange

at least a few words. They called that their "check-in call" Many years ago,

I met Maya Toivovna Glumova, but the circumstances of our meeting were so

sad that subsequently we never met again. Not through any fault of mine. No

one's fault, really. In brief, she had a very bad opinion of me, and Toivo

knew it. He never spoke of her with me. But he spoke with her about me

frequently -- I learned that much later...

This duality undoubtedly irritated and depressed him. I don't think

that Maya Toivovna said bad things about me. It is completely improbable

that she would have told him the terrible story of Lev Abalkin's death. Most

likely, whenever Tolvo brought up the subject of Kammerer, she simply coldly

refused to speak on that topic. But that was more than enough.

For I was more than a boss for Toivo. After all, I was the only person

who shared his views, the only person in the enormous COMCON-2 who treated

the issue that engrossed him totally with complete seriousness and without

any allowances. Besides which, he felt great piety toward me. Say what you

will, but his boss was the legendary Marc Sim! Toivo hadn't even been born

when Mare Sim was blowing up ray towers and fighting fascists on Saraksha...

The peerless White Queen! The organizer of Operation Virus, after which

Excellency himself called him Big Bug! Toivo was just a schoolboy when Big

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