Boris Strugatsky - Noon - 22nd Century

The Hunter had once heard a story, in the Spacers’ Club in Leningrad, about how an engineer had almost gotten burned alive on the planet Crookes. He had climbed out of the ship with a defective oxygen tank. There was a leak in it, and the Crookesian atmosphere was saturated with light hydrocarbons that react violently with free oxygen. Fortunately, they had managed to tear the burning tank off the poor fellow, and he had escaped with only minor burns. As the Hunter had listened to this story, a violet flash over a black hillcrest appeared before his eyes.

When a strange landing pad had been discovered on Crookes, doubts turned into horrible certainty. The Hunter had run to Kostylin. “What have I killed?” he shouted. “Was it an animal or a person? Lin, what have I killed?”

Kostylin listened to him, his eyes turning bloodshot, and then shouted, “Sit down! Cut the hysterics—you’re like a whining old woman! Where do you get off talking to me this way? Do you think that I, Aleksandr Kostylin, can’t tell the difference between an intelligent being and an animal?”

“But the landing site!”

“You yourself landed on that mesa with Sanders.”

“The flash! I hit his oxygen tank!”

“You shouldn’t have fired thermite bullets in a hydrocarbon atmosphere.”

“Have it your way, but Crookes still didn’t find even one more threefinger! I know it was an alien spacer!”

“Hysterical old woman!” yelled Lin. “It could be they won’t find one more threefinger on Crookes for another century! It’s an enormous planet, filled with caves like a giant Swiss cheese! You simply lucked out, you idiot, and then you didn’t manage to follow it through, so you ended up bringing me charred bones instead of an animal!”

The Hunter clenched his hands so that his knuckles cracked. “No, Lin, I didn’t bring you an animal,” he muttered. “I brought you an alien spacer.”

How many words you wasted, Lin old fellow! How many times you tried to convince me! How many times I thought that doubt had departed forever, that I could breathe easy again and not know myself a murderer. Could be like other people. Like the children playing Martian hide-and-seek. But you can’t kill doubt with casuistry.

He lay his hands on the case and pressed his face to the clear plastic. “What are you?” he asked with sad yearning.

Lin saw him from afar, and, as always, he was unbearably pained by the sight of a man once so daring and cheerful, now so fearfully broken by his own conscience. But he pretended that everything was wonderful, like the wonderful sunny Capetown day. Clicking his heels noisily, Lin went up to the Hunter, put his hand on his shoulder, and exclaimed in a deliberately cheery voice, “The meeting is over! I could eat a horse, Polly, so we’ll go to my place now and have a glorious dinner! Marta has made real Afrikaner oxtail soup in your honor today. Come on, Hunter, the soup awaits us!”

“Let’s go,” the Hunter said quietly.

“I already phoned home. Everyone is aching to see you and hear your stories.”

The Hunter nodded and walked slowly toward the exit. Lin looked at his stooped back and turned to the exhibit. His eyes met the dead white eyes behind the clear pane. Did you have your talk? Lin asked silently.

Yes.

You didn’t tell him anything?

No.

Lin looked at the descriptive plaque. “Quadrabrachium tridactylus. Acquired by Hunter P. Gnedykh. Prepared by Doctor A. Kostylin.” He looked at the Hunter again and quickly, stealthily, after Quadrabrachium tridactylus, with his little finger he traced the word “sapiens. ” Of course not one stroke remained on the plaque, but even so Lin hurriedly erased it with his palm.

It was a burden on Doctor Aleksandr Kostylin too. He knew for sure, had known from the very first.

The ocean was mirror smooth. The water by the shore was so calm that the dark fibers of seaweed that usually swayed on the bottom, hung motionless.

Kondratev steered the minisub into the cove, brought it right up to shore, and announced, “We’re here.”

The passengers began to stir.

“Where’s my camera?” asked Slavin.

“I’m lying on it,” Gorbovsky answered in a weak voice. “Which, I might add, is very uncomfortable. Can I get out?”

Kondratev threw open the hatch, and everyone caught sight of the clear blue sky. Gorbovsky climbed out first. He took some uncertain steps along the rocks, stopped, and poked at a dry mat of driftwood with his foot. “How nice it is here!” he exclaimed. “How soft! May I lie down?”

“You may,” said Slavin. He also got out of the hatch and stretched happily.

Gorbovsky lay down immediately.

Kondratev dropped anchor. “I personally don’t advise lying on driftwood. There are always thousands of sand fleas there.”

Slavin, spreading his legs exaggeratedly wide, started the movie camera chattering. “Smile!” he said sternly.

Kondratev smiled.

“Wonderful!” shouted Slavin, sinking down on one knee.

“I don’t quite understand about fleas,” came Gorbovsky’s voice. “What do they do, Sergei, just hop? Or can they bite you?”

“Yes, they can bite you,” Kondratev answered. “Quit waving that camera at me, Evgeny! Go gather some driftwood and make a fire.” He climbed into the hatchway and got a bucket.

Slavin squatted down and started digging briskly into the driftwood with two hands, picking out the larger pieces. Gorbovsky watched him with interest.

“Still, Sergei, I don’t quite understand about the fleas.”

“They burrow into the skin,” Kondratev explained, rinsing the pail out with industrial alcohol. “And they multiply there.”

“Oh,” said Gorbovsky, turning over on his back. “That’s terrible.”

Kondratev filled the pail with fresh water from the tank on the submarine, and jumped onto the shore. Without talking, he deftly gathered driftwood, lit a fire, hung the pail over it, and got a line, hooks, and a box of bait out of his voluminous pockets. Slavin came up with a handful of wood chips.

“Look after the fire,” Kondratev directed. “I’ll catch some perch. I’ll be back in an instant.” Jumping from stone to stone, he headed toward a large moss-covered rock sticking out of the water twenty paces from the shore, moved around a bit on it, and then settled down. The morning was quiet—the sun, just coming above the horizon, shone straight into the cove, blinding him. Slavin sat down tailor-fashion by the fire and started feeding in chips.

“Amazing creatures, human beings,” Gorbovsky said suddenly. “Follow their history for the past ten thousand years. What an amazing development has been achieved by the productive sector, for instance. How the scope of scholarship has broadened! And new fields and new professions crop up every year. For instance, I recently met a certain comrade, a very important specialist, who teaches children how to walk. And this specialist told me that there is a very complicated theory behind this work.”

“What’s his name?” Slavin asked lazily.

“Elena something. I’ve forgotten her last name. But that’s not the point. What I mean is that here we have the sciences and the means of production always developing, while our amusements, our means of recreation, are the same as in ancient Rome. If I get tired of being a spacer, I can be a biologist, a builder, an agronomist—lots of things. But suppose I get tired of lying around, then what is there to do? Watch a movie, read a book, listen to music, or watch other people running. In stadiums. And that’s it! And that’s how it always has been—spectacles and games. In short, all our amusements come down in the last analysis to the gratification of a few sensory organs. And not even all of them, you’ll note. So far no one has, say, figured out how to amuse oneself gratifying the organs of touch and smell.”