Stanislaw Lem: Peace on Earth

“History never repeats itself exactly,” I said, and poured him another bourbon without asking. He tossed it down and didn’t choke; his bald head reddened a little, that was all. Little flies played in a ray of sunlight coming in from the window.

“The damn flies survive,” Kramer muttered. He looked at the garden where patients in colored bathrobes and pajamas were shuffling along the paths as if nothing had happened. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, the wind made the big chestnut trees sway, and the fountains made little rainbows with their spray. While one world was perishing, departing to an irrevocable past, the new world was not even in diapers yet. I didn’t share this insight with Kramer, it was too banal. I just poured him the rest of the bottle.

“You want to get me drunk?” he asked, but drank. He put down the glass, stood at last, threw his jacket over his shoulder, then hesitated, his hand on the doorknob.

“If you do remember… you know what… write to me. We’ll compare notes.”

“Compare notes?” I said like an echo.

“You see, I have my own theory.”

“About why I landed?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me.”

“Can’t.”

“Why not?”

“It wouldn’t be right. Oath of office, duty, and all that. We sat on opposite sides of the table.”

“The table’s gone. Don’t be such a stickler. I give you my word I’ll keep it to myself.”

“Sure! You’ll put it in your book, then swear that your memory returned.”

“All right, a deal. Six percent of my royalties.”

“You’ll put this in writing?”

“Of course.”

“Twenty!”

“You’re crazy.”

"I’m crazy?”

“I’ve begun to figure out anyway what you’ll tell me.”

“Hm.”

He frowned. You could see that with all the high-level courses he had taken, he hadn’t learned enough. I decided he wasn’t really cut out for his profession but I didn’t tell him. He was retiring anyway.

Kramer let go of the door and went to the window, then sat on the edge of the desk and scratched behind his ear.

“So you tell me,” he said.

“If I tell you, you don’t get a cent…”

Behind him the garden was green. Old Padderhorn came down a path in his wheelchair, an enormous shoehorn in his hand. He held it like a flag. The orderly pushing the chair was smoking one of his cigars. Several steps behind them walked Padderhorn’s bodyguard, in shorts, muscular, with a bronze tan. He wore a wide-brimmed panama and his face was hidden behind a comic book. The holster on his loose belt slapped against his thigh.

“Speak or go, old friend,” I said. “You know that whatever I write, the Agency will deny it…”

“But if you name me as your informant, it could mean unpleasantness for me.”

“The money will make the unpleasantness less unpleasant. I’ll name you if you don’t tell me. Anyway, I think you should get professional help. Your nerves are shot. It’s quite obvious. You can’t hide it.”

He was silent, a broken man. The corners of his mouth twitched. I felt sorry for him.

“You won’t quote me?”

“I’ll change the name and your appearance.”

“They’ll know me even so.”

“Not necessarily. Do you think it was only you they sent to stick to me? But this whole thing was your side’s work, wasn’t it?”

He was indignant.

“We have nothing to do with the Lunar Agency. They were the ones!”

“How and why?”

“I’m not sure how but I know why. It was so you wouldn’t make it back. If you died there, things would remain the same.”

“Not forever. Sooner or later…”

“That was the point, it would be later. They were afraid of the report.”

“Let’s suppose. And the dust? How did it get into my suit? How could they have known about the dust?”

“They didn’t know, but Lax-Gugliborc had his fear. That’s why he fiddled with the dispersant.”

“You learned this?” I was surprised.

“His assistant belongs to us. Lauher.”

I remembered my first meeting with the professor. He had indeed said that one of his colleagues was a spy. It put everything in a different light.

“The callotomy, that was them too?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged, added, “And you will never know. No one will ever know. When the stakes are that high, the truth no longer exists. All that remain are theories. Different versions. As it was with Kennedy.”

“President Kennedy?”

“The stakes here were higher. The whole world! There’s nothing higher. Now write what you promised…”

From the drawer I took a sheet of paper and a pen. Kramer stood at the window, his back to me. I signed the document and handed it to him. He looked and was surprised.

“You made a mistake.”

“No.”

“Ten?”

“Ten.”

“All right. It’s my turn. I’ll tell you. The dispersant was supposed to draw you to the moon.”

“You’re telling me it was Lax-Gugliborc? I don’t believe it!”

“Not the professor. He didn’t know anything. Lauher knew. To the fifty-odd programs he added one. Not hard to do for a programmer.”

“So it was your side after all.”

“No. He was also working for a third party.”

“Lauher was?”

“Yes, but we needed him.”

“All right. The dispersant called me. I landed. But what about the sand?”

“An unplanned factor. Unforeseen by everyone. If you can’t remember that moment, no one will ever know. Ever.”

He folded the paper in two, put it in his pocket, and at the door turned and said:

“So long.”

I watched him walk toward the main pavilion. As he disappeared behind the hedge, my left hand took my right hand and shook it. I can’t say I was thrilled by this gesture of support. But life must go on.

1) The Star Diaries

2) Memoirs of a Space Traveller: Further Reminiscences of Ijon Tichy

3) The Futurological Congress: from the memoirs of Ijon Tichy

4) The Scene of the Crime

5) Peace on Earth

6) Local Inspection

© Copyright by Stanislaw Lem, Krakow 1987

English translation copyright © 1994 by Harcourt Brace & Company

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be mailed to: Permissions Department, Harcourt Brace & Company, 6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 32887-6777.

Lem, Stanislaw.

[Pokój na Ziemi. English]

Peace on Earth/Stanislaw Lem; translated from the Polish by Elinor Ford with Michael Kandel. — 1st U.S. ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-15-171554-8

ISBN 0-15-600242-6 (pbk.)

Translation of: Pokój na ziemi.

“A Helen and Kurt Wolff book.”

I. Title.

PG7158.L39P5713 1992

891.8’537-dc20 91-47970

Designed by Lydia D’moch

Printed in the United States of America

First Harvest edition

J I H G F E D C B