Аркадий Стругацкий: Wanderers and Travellers

He continued to twist it about in his fingers as though trying to get the feel of it, then put it on the grass before me, and rose to his feet. His movements had become slow and irresolute. He went to where his clothes were lying, rummaged among them, found his trousers, and stood still, holding them in front of him.

I was watching him with a vague feeling of unease. Masha was holding the marker ready in her hand to show him how it was used and was also watching Gorbovsky. The corners of her lips: were drawn down piteously. I had noticed long ago that this sort of thing often happened to her, and the expression of her face would take on that of the person she was watching.

Leonid Andreyevich suddenly began to speak in a very soft voice in mocking sort of way.

"That's funny, I must say. What a vivid analogy. For centuries they've lain in the depths and then they rise and enter a strange hostile world. And what drives them? An obscure primitive instinct, you say? Or a method of assimilating information that has reached a level of unbearable curiosity? It would surely be better for them to stop at home in the salt water-but something draws them and draws them to the shore." He roused himself and started putting on his trousers. His trousers were old-fashioned and long. He hopped on one leg as he put them on. "But it's true, isn't it, Stanislav Ivanovich, that we must think they're not ordinary cephalopods?"

"In their own way, yes, of course," I agreed.

But he was not listening. He had turned to the receiver and was staring at it. Masha and I stared too. The set was emitting strident discordant signals resembling the interference caused by an X-ray apparatus. Masha put down the marker.

"6.08 metres," said she in a puzzled tone. "Some service station, but what one?"

He was listening to the signals, eyes closed and his head to one side.

"No, that's not a service station," he murmured. "It's me."

"What?"

"It's me. I'm signalling. Me-Leonid Andreyevich Gorbovsky."

"W-why?"

He laughed mirthlessly.

"Why, indeed? I'd very much like to know why." He put on his shirt. "Why should three pilots and their spaceship, after returning from their flight EN 101-EN 2657, become the transmitters of radio-waves on 6.083 metres?"

Masha and I, of course, said nothing, and he, too, fell silent as he fastened his sandals.

"We've been examined by doctors, we've been examined by physicists." He straightened up and shook the sand and grass from his trousers. "They all came to the same conclusion: it's impossible. We could have died laughing at the sight of their astonished faces. But, believe me, it was no laughing matter for us. Tolya Obozov gave up his holiday and flew to Pandora. He said he preferred to radiate as far away as possible from Earth. Walkenstein has gone to work at an under-water station. I alone am roaming the Earth and emitting radio-waves. And all the time I'm waiting for something. I wait and fear, fear, and wait. Do you understand me?"

"I don't know," I said, and glanced at Masha. "You're right," he said. He took up the receiver and thoughtfully put it against his protuberant ear. "No one knows. It's been going on for a month, without abating and without stopping. Wah-wee, wah-wee. Night and day. Whether we're sad or gay. Hungry or full. At work or idle. Wah-wee… But radiation from Tariel has decreased. Tariel is my spaceship. It's laid up now, to be on the safe side. Its radiation interferes with the control of some aggregates on Venus, and they're sending inquiries and getting annoyed. Tomorrow I'm taking it somewhere further away." He straightened himself again and slapped his thighs with his long arms. "Well, it's time for me to go. Good-bye, and good luck to you. Good-bye, Masha. Don't worry your head over all this. It's no simple riddle, I assure you."

He raised his hand in salute, nodded, and walked away, lanky and awkward. By our tent he stopped and said:

"You know, do try to be as careful as you can with those septopods. Otherwise you're marking them and marking them and it's all very unpleasant for them." And off he went.

I lay a little while longer face downwards and then glanced at Masha. She was still following him with her eyes. I could see at once that Leonid Andreyevich had impressed her. But not me. I was not in the least worried by his talk about the possibility of the possessors of Universal Reason being immeasurably higher than ourselves. Let them be. In my opinion, the higher they were, the less chance there was of our getting in their way. It was like a roach who didn't care a hang for a wide-meshed net. As to pride, humiliation, and shock-we'd probably get over that. I would, at any rate. And the fact that we were discovering and studying the Universe, which they had long ago made themselves at home in, well, what of it? We'd not yet made ourselves at home in it! And for us they were nothing more than a part of the Nature we had set out to explore and study, be they three times as high as us! They were external to us! Though, of course, if they started marking me, as I was marking the septopods…

I glanced at my watch and sat up abruptly. It was time to get on with my work. I noted down the number of the last ampoule and checked my aqualung. Then I went into the tent, got my ultrasonic locator and put it in the pocket of my trunks.

"Help me on with it, Masha," I said, putting on the aqualung.

She was still sitting by the radio listening to the unremitting "wah-wee". She helped me on with the aqualung and we got into the water together. I switched on the locator and it began to emit signals-my marked septopods were drowsily floating about in the lake. We looked meaningly at each other and swam up to the surface. Masha was spitting out the water and pushing the wet hair from her forehead as she said:

"But there is a difference between an astrocraft and wet weed in the branchiate sac."

I told her to get on the bank and dived in again. No, I wouldn't worry as much if I were Gorbovsky. It was all much too frivolous, like his astro-archaeology. Traces of ideas… Psychological shock. There would be no shock. Most probably, we wouldn't notice each other at all. What on earth are we to them, I'd like to know?