Stanislaw Lem - Peace on Earth

When it began its my-brother routine again, I spoke to it, but it didn’t hear me. Or gave no sign of hearing me. I stood, my shadow fell on its head, and it stopped in the middle of a word. I stepped back, and it continued. So it was activated by the sun. I wondered what to do next. This manikin-trap was of little interest, too primitive to be much of a “war machine.” And even the lunar armorers must consider these long-legged figures obsolete and worthless, seeing as they used them to test the effects of a nuclear hit. Because its lifeless refrain made it hard for me to concentrate, but to tell the truth it may have been for another reason, I picked up some larger pieces of rubble and threw them at the thing’s head and then its torso, as if to bury it. It fell silent, and all I heard was a thin squeaking. At first I thought the squeaking was from the corpse, and looked around for more rocks, but then I realized it was Morse code. — t-i-c-h-y — 1-i-s-t-e-n — t-h-i-s — i-s — c-o-n-t-r-o-l — s-a-t-e-1-l-i-t-e — m-a-l-f-u-n-c-t-i-o-n — s-o-u-n-d — w-i-1-1 — r-e-t-u-r-n — s-o-o-n — w-a-i-t — t-i-c-h-y.

So one of the Trojan satellites between us had gone on the fritz. They would fix it soon, sure, I thought sarcastically. I couldn’t reply, there was no way. For the last time I looked at the charred remains, and at the ruins white in the sun on the other side of the dune, and I ran my eyes over the black sky trying in vain to find the micropes. I walked toward a large convex wall of rock that rose from the sand like the gray hulk of a whale. I made for a break in the rock, which was black as tar in shadow, like the mouth of a cave. I blinked. Someone was standing there. A human figure, almost. Short, broad-shouldered, in a gray-green spacesuit. I raised an arm, thinking it was again my reflection and that the color of the suit was only from a shadow, but the figure did not move an inch. I hesitated, perhaps from fear or some premonition. But I hadn’t come here to run, besides where would I run to? I stepped forward. He looked just like a squat man.

“Hello,” came his voice. “Hello… Can you hear me?”

“I hear you,” I said without much enthusiasm.

“Come over here… I have a radio too!” That sounded pretty idiotic, but I went to him. There was something military in the style of his suit. Shining metal bands across his chest. His hands held nothing. Well, that was something, I thought, approaching but more slowly. He came toward me and lifted his arms in a simple gesture of greeting an old friend.

“Welcome! Welcome! How good of you to come at last! We can talk… you and I together… about bringing peace to the world…”

He spoke in an effusive, vibrant, strangely penetrating voice as he came toward me through the deep sand, arms held out, and his whole bearing expressed such cordiality that I didn’t know what to think. He was now only a few steps from me, the dark glass of his helmet blazing with the sun. He embraced me, hugged me, and we stood that way on the gray slope. I tried to see his face but saw nothing, even as close as a hand’s breadth, because the glass was opaque. It wasn’t even glass, more a mask covered with glass. How could he see me then?

“You’ll feel at home here with us, old friend…” He bumped my helmet with his as if trying to kiss me on both cheeks. “At home… we don’t want war, we are peace-loving, meek, you’ll see…” And with that he kicked me so hard that I fell on my back, and jumped on me, both knees in my stomach. I saw stars, literally, the stars of the black lunar sky, while my “friend” held my head down with his left hand and with his right pulled off his metal bands which themselves twisted into horseshoe hoops. I said nothing, dazed, as he fastened my arms to the ground one at a time with the hoops, driving them in with powerful, unhurried blows of his fist, and continued:

“At home, old friend… We’re simple folk, kind, I like you and you like me, old friend…”

“And not ‘my brother’?” I asked, now unable to move either arms or legs.

“Brother?” he said thoughtfully, as if trying out the word. “So be it, brother! I’m good, you’re good, brother for brother!”

He stood, quickly and expertly tapped my sides, legs, found my pockets, took out everything I had, the flat box of tools, the Geiger counter, the folding shovel, and frisked me again, harder this time, especially under the arms, and tried to work his fingers into the top of my boots, and during this careful search of my person not for a moment did he stop talking.

“My brother, you said. Maybe yes, maybe no. Did one mother give birth to us? Ah, mother. Motherhood. Mother is a saint, and you’re a saint too, brother, no weapon on you, none. A clever brother… just taking a little stroll, to pick mushrooms. Lots of boletus here, but the forest is hard to see. Yes, old friend… I’ll make it better for you soon, all better. We’re simple folk, meek, and we will inherit the earth.”

He took a kind of flat knapsack off his back and opened it. Sharp instruments gleamed. He hefted one in his hand, put it back, selected another, powerful shears like the cutters used by soldiers in battle to get through barbed wire, and turned to me, the blades sparkling in the sun. He sat on my stomach, lifted the tool, and with the words “To your health” thrust it into my chest. It hurt but not much. Evidently my remote had pain dampers. I knew that this lunar friend of mine would open me like a fish and that I should return to the ship and leave him the body to cut up, but I was so fascinated by the contrast between his words and his actions that I lay as if mesmerized.

“Why don’t you speak?” he said, slicing through my suit with a crackling sound. Excellent shears, made of incredibly hard steel.

“I can say something?” I asked.

“Go ahead!”

“Hyena.”

“What?”

“Jackal.”

“You insult me, my friend? Not nice. Not friend but enemy. Treacherous. You came here unarmed to confuse me. I wished you well, but an enemy must be searched. My duty. That’s the rule. I was attacked. With no declaration of war you stepped upon this sacred ground. Your own fault. My brother, hah. Brother of a dog! Worse than a dog, and you’ll regret calling me hyena and jackal, but not for long, because memory ends with life.”

The last of my chest welds gave way, and he began to break and pry apart things. He looked inside and hmmed.

“Interesting little gadgets,” he said, getting up. “Fancy stuff. Our experts will figure it out. You wait here. But where can you go? Nowhere. You’re ours now, my friend!”

The ground shook. Turning my head to the side as far as I could, I saw others like him. They marched in formation, goose-stepping the dust up. My executioner stood at attention, preparing to make his report, I supposed.

“Tichy, answer, where are you?” roared in my ears. “The sound is back. Wivitch here. Control. Can you hear me?”

“I hear you,” I said.

Some of this must have been overheard by the soldiers, because they broke into a run.

“Do you know what sector you’re in?” Wivitch asked.

“Yes. I’ve just realized. They’ve taken me prisoner! I’m cut open!”

“Which country?” Wivitch began, but my executioner drowned him out.

“Emergency!” he shouted. “Seize him!”

“Tichy!” cried Wivitch from far away. “Don’t let them take you!”

I understood. Letting Earth’s latest technology fall into robot hands was to be avoided at all cost. I couldn’t move even a finger, but there was still a way. I bit down as hard as I could, heard a snap like an overwound spring, and was plunged into total darkness. Instead of sand under my back was the soft upholstery of my chair. I was on the ship. A little dizzy, I couldn’t find the right button immediately, but then saw it. I broke the plastic cover and hit the red button with my fist so the remote would not be examined by them. Below, a pound of ecrasite blew it to smithereens. I felt sorry for the LEM but I had to do it. And so ended the second reconnaissance.