Stanislaw Lem - Microworlds

This seems to contradict what is said about the radiants discovered by and named after Dr. Pilman; they ostensibly confirm that Someone fired at earth six times from Alpha Centauri in the Cygnus constellation. Nevertheless, between our interpretation and the radiants there stands no contradiction. In astronomy the term “radiant” refers to a likely place in the heavens from which a meteor swarm is approaching. The determination of a radiant in astronomy is not synonymous with taking a fix on the place from which the meteors actually originate. They may approach on an elliptical or parabolic curve; the radiant is a tangent which a terrestrial observer plots on such a curve, and it extends backward (in the opposite direction from the meteors’ fall) until it reaches the place in the heavens where a specific cluster of stars is located. Thus when one names meteors according to their radiants, this by no means signifies that the meteors are in fact emanating from that star cluster after which astronomers have named them. Consequently, the Pilman Radiant offers us no clue at all as to whether what descended in the Zones was actually sent from the principal star of the Cygnus constellation. As to where the six flying objects or probes came from, the Pilman Radiant can tell us nothing, albeit the story directly encourages the impression that it can. That is a false impression, occasioned by Dr. Pilman’s insufficiently precise manner of expressing himself in responding to journalists’ queries at the outset of the story. That what has arrived here actually flew directly from Alpha Centauri to earth is out of the question. Traversing such a distance on a perfect flight path borders on an astronautical impossibility, since on the way innumerable interferences (above all, those of gravitational forces) must influence the trajectory. In addition, it is mathematically demonstrable that the curve that six shots would produce on the surface of a sphere (while the sphere is rotating, as the earth does) cannot be distinguished from the curve resulting from the projection of a segment in the orbital trajectory onto the surface of the sphere. Pilman’s radiant does not altogether exclude the hypothesis of a disintegrated spaceship crashing in six separate sections, one after the other. Once one knows a meteor’s radiant and its final velocity, one can compute the orbital path from which it actually approached, because a meteor, being an inanimate object subject to the laws of celestial mechanics, cannot alter its course at will. From a spaceship’s radiant, on the other hand, one can make out nothing about its place of origin, its course, its travel speed, etc., because a spaceship is a navigable, mechanized body and can execute maneuvers, make course corrections, change its speed, and so forth. In short, from the so-called Pilman Radiant nothing follows in favor of any one of the hypotheses about the landing.

Of course we cannot know for sure that the spaceship was indeed the victim of a catastrophe. Nonetheless, our hypothesis accounts for everything that happened, and does so in the most economical manner. Why should one not properly assume that the landing has miscarried? To suppose that the unusual nature of the objects found in the Zone demonstrates the high level of the visitors’ ingenuity and thus precludes a calamity’s befalling their ship is a logically false inference. The visitors’ perfection, in consequence of which no harm could come to their ship, is neither a fact nor a rationally defensible hypothesis, but merely an article of faith. Perfection to the point of infallibility is, in our judgment, reserved solely for those entities with which theology concerns itself — which is to say, there is no infallible applied science. We are not asserting that an accident definitely occurred, merely that a breakdown would, in one fell swoop, account for everything that happened by reference to a common single cause.

Besides, the facts that we mentioned in point (1) above about the characteristics of the objects found in the Zone make plausible the conjecture that someone sent containers of technological specimens in earth’s direction. Our point (2) (concerning the Zone’s “self-containment”) further increases the likelihood of (1), that the senders, unable to be absolutely certain that no catastrophe would befall their spaceship during its landing, must at least have provided for a minimizing of the consequences, and have done so precisely by installing on board a safety device that would not allow the effects of the catastrophe to spread, but would almost hermetically confine them to one place. This must naturally have been a device meant to survive the aftermath of the catastrophe. Somehow it has survived. The fact mentioned above under my third point heightens the probability that an accident has occurred, because nothing is more natural than that the containers’ contents should be chaotically scattered by the force of the impact with earth. Even the fact cited as my fourth point (i.e., the perils the objects present) becomes understandable as a consequence of the same cause. Not only did the containers burst upon impact, but most of their contents were damaged in various ways. The same thing would happen if someone were to drop containers with foodstuffs, medicines, insecticides, etc., down to the Samoan Islands in what turn out to be defective parachutes. These crash to earth and the containers rupture — in consequence of which, the chocolates are full of hexachlorides, the gingerbread full of emetics, and so on. It is possible for the Samoans to conclude that someone has made a very malicious attempt on their lives; yet in the Samoans’ place scientists ought not to jump to the same conclusion. What we are getting at is that the intention of the “Others” does not manifest itself in the pernicious character of the cosmic offerings: it is not the case that they took pleasure in pelting us with deadly debris, but, rather, that an unfortunate accident — the defect in their spaceship — transformed their well-intended consignment into scrap metal. (We do not want to go into further specifics of our hypothesis here; but in general terms, they would run as follows: since the ship left no trace behind, it must certainly not have landed but simply accomplished the dropping off of the containers. The containers, moreover, need not necessarily have taken the form of material vessels; the objects may have been “packaged,” held together, by a type of force field, whose failure at a crucial moment caused the contents of the “packages” to rain down on earth.)

The Strugatskys might tell us that the hypothesis of “samples” is likewise taken into account in their book. After all, in his conversation with Noonan, Dr. Pilman makes mention of the possibility that “[a] highly rational culture threw containers with artifacts of its civilization onto Earth. They expect us to study the artifacts, make a giant technological leap, and send a signal in response to show we are ready for contact” (3:103). However, this version — which, by the way, does not admit the possibility that the consignments have arrived in a disastrously damaged condition — the story through an ironic undertone utterly discredits. Indeed, how could objects that are more dangerous than explosives and that are dispatched to unknown addressees as gifts be supposed to invite the recipients to make contact? That would be like sending someone an invitation to a ball, but enclosing the invitation in a letter-bomb. In the story’s presentation of it, this hypothesis is therefore the one that is most self-compromised in view of the Zone’s macabre characteristics.

The hypothesis of an accident, on the other hand, not only explains events quite naturally, but also rehabilitates at once the “Others” as Senders and the human beings as Recipients of a “Danaic gift” from the stars. The senders, far from being guilty of wrongdoing, have even — as was their duty — foreseen the worst possibility and provided the shipment with a safety device, thanks to which all of the Zone’s effects are confined to a particular location. Accordingly, the Zone’s peculiarity is most simply explained by the foresight of the senders, who, unable to eliminate the possibility of an accident, therefore took care that its consequences would be kept within bounds. The hypothesis of an accident likewise exonerates humankind, and especially the learned, whose perplexity about the gift becomes understandable, given the additional difficulties they have to overcome because they do not know which of the properties of the objects in the Zone were intended by the designers and which are the result of the damage incurred during the catastrophe.