Noon: 23rd Century: The Return of Toivo Book 1

Noon – 23rd Century

The Return of Toivo

Book 1

By Igor Goriatchev

Worlds of Brothers Strugatsky

Part 1.

The Third Impulse.

Although, if you think about it, you can't say that it would be very long either. Yes, my friends, the time is long past when the future was nothing but a repetition of the present and changes hovered on a far horizon. Golem's right: there's no future anymore, it's merged with the present, and now you can't tell the difference.

Of course, man will possess the universe, but there won't be a red-cheeked hero with big muscles, and, of course, man will cope with himself, but first he'll have to transform himself. Nature doesn't deceive, it fulfills its promises, only not the way we thought and often not the way we would have liked."

But it would be interesting to imagine homo super in our times. A good theme.

The Ugly Swans

A. Strugatsky, B. Strugatsky

If mankind only caught a glimpse of what infinite enjoyments,

what perfect forces, what luminous reaches of spontaneous

knowledge, what wide calms of our being lie waiting for us

in the tracts which our animal evolution has not yet conquered,

they would leave all and never rest till they had gained these treasures.

But the way is narrow, the doors are hard to force, and fear, distrust

and skepticism are there, sentinels of Nature, to forbid the turning away

of our feet from her ordinary pastures.

Sri Aurobindo, The thoughts and aphorisms.

Believe in better days.

A plum tree believes,

it will bloom in the spring.

Matsuo Basho

Introduction

I thought I put a period to my memoir that I finished only four years ago. As you remember, it was devoted to the last days of the Big Revelation and, in particular, the outstanding personality of Toivo Glumov, a former progressor, and now a Luden-Metagom. But subsequent events turned out to be so unexpected and sprang so many surprises on mankind that my hand involuntarily reached out for a pen. I felt it my duty to tell an interested reader about the Second Wave of the Big Revelation, which became not a smaller if not a bigger shock for mankind than the First One.

It is necessary to warn the reader at once – now I am not quite (or quite not) that Maxim Kammerer who was the author of the first memoir. I am afraid I am very remotely related to that Maxim Kammerer now. Though my outward corporal form remains the same so far, but the internal content has been already irreversibly changed. And the outward form is soon going undergo radical transformation. Such have been consequences of the Second Wave for me personally which I by no means regret. But while I keep a live connection with that Maxim Kammerer, I reserve the right to address a reader on his behalf. I want to tell you about the dramatic changes that happened to this man for two years only, from 2228 to 2230, which seems rather interesting to me personally. I believe it will be also interesting to the reader.

So, having made all necessary opening remarks, I continue.

Unfortunately, Maya Toivovna Glumova is not still living. She passed away in 2227, but till her dying day she hadn’t lost her hope for the return of her son. She never believed that her Toivo had turned into some kind of universal superman. A few years ago, my wife, Alyona, also left this world. I would remain absolutely alone, if it were not Asya Stasova (Glumova). The events of Big Revelation, and the main event, Toivo's leaving, have brought us closer together. Two lonelies, two victims of the Big Revelation. We have been meeting quite often all these years, and, as well as we could, trying to support each other.

As the fates decree, the Second Wave, as the First One, overwhelmed me before many other people. And now all earthlings have been confronted with an unexpected and grandiose alternative. For myself, I’ve already made my choice. Not so very long ago I believed that we had parted with Toivo for good, and he forgot us and the Earth there, in his transcendental empyrean, but I was wrong… However it is better to tell everything one after another.

This time I choose not so formal style for my memoir as for the first one because I haven’t been an officer of COMCON-2 for a long time and, in addition, the Commission on Control ceased to exist as a separate organization and became only a small division of COMCON-1. It had been primarily engaged in one task till recently: a secret supervision over the foundlings. However, subsequent tragic events put an end not only to the case of the foundlings, but also finally removed all suspicions from Wanderers. Perhaps, it is too early. The future will show.

After the Big Revelation and Ludens’ departure, a threat of an invasion of Earth by a super-civilization began seem to many of us ephemeral, at least, if not mythical. That is what led, in the end, to disbandment of COMCON-2. As it turned out later, it was a mistake that jeopardized the life of the whole planet. I resolutely objected to that, but who listened to me then? Still, I don’t evade my share of responsibility: I didn’t insist then, I was not convincing enough. Simply put, I was not up to it.

This memoir generally consists of diary entries which I was making during the period from 2228 to 2230. In addition, it includes the tape recordings and the reconstructions of the events that I did not witness and in which I didn’t participate, and, sometimes, some official documents. I would like that any interested researcher could completely rely on this memoir as a quite objective document as it reflects the facts and only facts relating to the period of the Second Wave of the Big Revelation. Nevertheless, I say it again, this document is devoid of the air of formality that was inherent in the previous memoir. I take the liberty of taking some lyrical and philosophical digressions sometimes, and adding my own reflections and experiences because, in my opinion, without them my narration would lose the most part of its expression and reliability.

Maxim Kammerer,

Sverdlovsk, 2231

End of introduction

A trickster in an unfashionable rainbow cloak

He came out to Star Square from a zero-T cabin next to the Museum of Extraterrestrial Cultures, but with the same success he could have materialized out of the rain and a fog. He wore an iridescent cloak fashionable last century and a metavisor over his shoulder, his face was narrow, completely pale, with deep folds from the wings of his nose to the chin. A low wide forehead, deep-set eyes, black straight hair to shoulders, like a North American Indian.

The Indian inspected the Square that was empty at these early morning hours, and briskly crossed it obliquely. At the main entrance of the Museum he tarried. Doors were locked, but that detained him only for an instant. He looked back once more, put his wide palm to a massive shutter, and it easily moved aside.

The owner of the unfashionable raincoat crossed the halls of the main exposition in silent leaps and plunged into the special sector of the artifacts of unknown purpose. Automatic artificial light reacted to his appearance with delay for some reason, but the Indian perfectly oriented himself in pitch darkness. He quickly found what he was looking for in the empty museum at this early hour.

It was a massive case of bright amber color. In strong fingers of the longhaired Indian, it easily broke up in two baring an interior covered with whitish lint. Inside, round gray disks lay among barely perceptibly moving fibers. Three disks were missing. Pinkish-brown hieroglyphs, slightly blurred, as if drawn with colored ink on damp paper, were imprinted on the disks’ surfaces.

The Indian flashed perfectly white teeth, rolled up the sleeve of his coat above the elbow and brought his hand to one of the empty sockets. On his elbow’s bend he had the birthmark resembling a stylized Russian letter zheor the Japanese hieroglyph «sanju». Silver-gray fibers, similar to those that lined the case inside, stretched from his birthmark to the empty socket. It seemed the strange birthmark radiated dim light and each ray of it wiggled like a tiny worm. Another disk has been created of these worms inside of the fleecy socket. Admiring the newly created disk on the surface of which there was an enlarged replica of the birthmark on his elbow, the Indian repeated the same operation with other two empty sockets. Then he rolled a sleeve down, closed the case and carefully set it back in place. Half an hour later the Indian left the museum through the service entrance as if nothing had happened.

An hour later his metavisor could be already seen at the Koltsovo-4 spaceport. The weather service stopped rain and dispersed fog. Hot sun rays splintered against glass facets of the passenger terminal. The line at the check-in counter of the flight Earth — Pandora moved quickly. There were no more than three people in front of the Indian. He took off the iridescent raincoat, flung it over his hand and pt on huge dark glasses.

The registering biodetector marked out with a melodious ring one more passenger whose health gave no reason for the slightest concern. Insignificant deviations from anthropological norm found in the psychophysiological profile of the passenger were easily explained by errors of adjustment and did not raise biomedical concerns for subspace travel.

In two and a half hours the Indian left the Phantom type spacecraft and emerged under a dazzling blue sky with the greenish hue of the planet Pandora . Near the gangway a cyber porter met the newcomer, but the passenger had no luggage. The man with a metavisor over his shoulder proceeded lightly to the platform with gliders. He chose a low-powered, but extremely maneuverable Dragonfly, climbed into the driver's seat, slammed the spectrolite cap and, like an arrow, shot up into the sky. In a few moments the Dragonfly reached the ceiling — the air corridor, the permissible maximum for personal transport on the Pandora – and headed towards the Ridge of the Brave.

The unsteady moons were rising in single file over the flat top of Everina when the Dragonfly found room for itself at the edge of the landing pad thoroughly crammed with gliders and helicopters. Night was falling. Dark green twilight was deepening over the mountain. All the tables on the veranda of the legendary Cafe Hunter were already taken. Some couples were shifting their feet wearily on the dance floor to nostalgic Light Rhythm. Amateur hunters returned from black, prickly jungles that, like thunderclouds, curled at the bottom of the three hundred meter cliff, sat at the tables. The spicy wind was ruffling up hairs of men and women and cooling their excited faces. Cyber-waiters were like crazy scurried about between the tables. The air was tinged with the pungent smell of fried meat. Glass mugs with wine they called Takhorg Blood deafly clattered after every toast announced in a loud voice.

Attention was paid to the Indian. The laws of hospitality were not broken. In a trice, there was a free chair at a rather free table. According to the custom of hunting brotherhood the traditional set of dishes of beginners was ordered for the longhaired owner of the metavisor: huge tubers of marsh tulips stuffed with marinated liver of a takhorg and a big-bellied flask of Takhorg Blood. All that, as expected, a beginner, without asking unnecessary questions, had to put away at one sitting, and the newcomer did it with an admirable coolness and self-control.

Soon the multilunar pandorian night exerted a calming influence on the raucous crowd. The music ceased, the dancing couples returned to their tables. Loud toasts turned to quiet conversations. The newcomer was not pestered with questions. He himself didn’t enter into conversations, preferring to listen to others. The Indian was lucky. He found himself at the table with two inveterate amateur hunters disappointed with a small tourist set how one of them, a portly, slash seven feet at the shoulders, red-haired Stepan, expressed it.

Is this really a hunt at the White Rocks! he exclaimed. "It is a playpen for babies! The electrified jungle and vending machines at every turn! And takhorgs are lured. It is a shame to shoot at them, they are almost tame.

Well, what do you suggest, Stepan? Greg, an undersized blond culinary specialist asked phlegmatically.

We must fly to Hot bogs, Stepan replied. Handseaters are found there. And Gippotsetes too.

"Gippotsetes, that's great, but who let us go there, buddy? Haven’t you looked at the map? This is, by the way, a Contact Zone! Comcon people will turn us back at the first checkpoint.

Stepan lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper: And if – bypassing checkpoints?

Ha! You look at him! Greg addressed himself to the frostily smiling Indian. An amateur smuggler... He believes that complacent idiots work in COMCON. Let it be known to you that every vehicle on the Pandora equipped with special sensors that raise alarm if any red-bearded Viking tries to slip on his Drakkar where he is not supposed to be.

Devil, Stepan muttered, clenching his huge freckled fists. Then what the hell we dragged ourselves to the Pandora?! We had better fly to Yayla...

I can relieve your grief, the long-haired said quietly, but clearly.

The friends stared at