Stanislaw Lem: The Futurological Congress

More than ninety-five percent of a hotel's guests are there for some conference or convention. The individual tourist, the single guest without a card in his lapel and briefcase stuffed with programs and memoranda, is as rare as a pearl in the desert. Besides our own group in Costa Rica, there was the Plenary Council of Student Protest Veterans, the Convention of Publishers of Liberated Literature, and the Phillumenist Society (matchbook collectors). As a rule, members of an organization are given rooms on the same floor, but the Management, apparently wishing to honor me, offered me one on the hundredth. It had its own palm tree grove, in which an all-girl orchestra played Bach while performing a cleverly choreographed striptease. I could have done quite well without all this, but unfortunately there were no other vacancies, so I was obliged to stay where they put me. Scarcely had I taken a seat at the bar on my floor when a broad-shouldered individual with a jet-black beard (a beard that read like a menu of all the past week's meals) unslung his heavy, double-barreled gun, stuck the muzzle right beneath my nose and asked, with a coarse laugh, how I liked his papalshooter. I had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but knew better than to admit it. The safest thing in such situations is to remain silent. And indeed, the next moment he confided in me that this high-powered repeater piece of his, equipped with a laser-finding telescopic sight, triple-action trigger and self-loader, was custom-made for killing popes. Talking continually, he pulled a folded photo from his pocket, a picture of himself taking careful aim at a mannequin in a robe and zucchetto. He had become an excellent shot, he said, and was now on his way to Rome, prepared for a great pilgrimage-to gun down the Holy Father at St. Peter's Basilica. I didn't believe a word of it, but then, still chattering away, he showed me, in turn, his airplane ticket, reservation, tourist missal, a pilgrim's itinerary for American Catholics, as well as a pack of cartridges with a cross carved on the head of each bullet. To economize he'd purchased a one-way ticket only, for he fully expected the enraged worshippers to tear him limb from limb-the prospect of which appeared to put him in the best possible humor. I immediately assumed that this was either a madman or a professional terrorist-fanatic (we have no lack of them these days), but again I was mistaken. Talking on and on, though he repeatedly had to climb off the high bar stool, for his weapon kept slipping to the floor, he revealed to me that actually he was a devout and loyal Catholic; the act which he had carefully planned-he called it "Operation P"-would be a great personal sacrifice, for he wished to jolt the conscience of the world, and what could provide a greater jolt than a deed of such extremity? He would be doing exactly what according to Scripture Abraham had been commanded to do to Isaac, except in reverse, as he would be slaying not a son, but a father, and a holy one at that. At the same time, he explained to me, he would attain the utmost martyrdom of which a Christian was capable, for his body would suffer terrible torment and his soul eternal damnation-all to open the eyes of mankind. "Really," I thought, "we have too many of these eye-opening enthusiasts." Unconvinced by his arguments, I excused myself and went to save the Pope-that is, to notify someone of this plot-but Stantor, whom I bumped into on the 77th floor bar, told me, without even hearing me out, that among the gifts offered to Hadrian XI by the last group of American tourists there had been two time bombs and a cask containing-not sacramental wine, but nitroglycerin. I understood Stantor's indifference a little better when I heard that the local guerrillas had recently mailed a foot to the Embassy, though as yet it was uncertain whose. In the middle of our conversation they called him to the phone; it seemed that someone on the Avenida Romana had just set fire to himself in protest. The bar on the 77th had an entirely different atmosphere than the one up on mine: there were plenty of barefoot girls in waist-length fishnet dresses, some with sabres at their sides; a number of them had long braids fastened, in the latest fashion, to neck bands or spiked collars. I wasn't sure whether these were lady phillumenists or perhaps secretaries belonging to the Association of Liberated Publishers-though most likely it was the latter, judging from the color prints they were passing around. I went down nine floors to where our futurologists were staying, and in the bar there had a drink or two with Alphonse Mauvin of Agence France-Presse; for the last time I tried to save the Pope, but Mauvin received my story with stoicism, observing that only last month a certain Australian pilgrim had opened fire in the Vatican, albeit on entirely different ideological grounds. Mauvin was hoping for an interview with one Manuel Pyrhullo. This Pyrhullo was wanted by the FBI, Süreté, Interpol, and a variety of other police organizations. It seems he had started a business which offered the public a new kind of service: that is, he hired himself out as a specialist-consultant on revolution through explosives (he was generally known under the pseudonym of "Dr. Boom"). Pyrhullo took great pride in the fact that his work was wholly nonpartisan. A pretty redhead wearing something that resembled a nightgown riddled with bullet holes approached our table; sent by the guerrillas, she was supposed to conduct a reporter to their headquarters. Mauvin, as he followed her out, handed me one of Pyrullo's fliers, from which I learned that it was high time to dispense with the bungling of irresponsible amateurs who couldn't tell dynamite from melinite, or fulminate mercury from a simple Bickford fuse. In these days of high specialization, the advertisement read, one attempted nothing on one's own, but placed one's trust in the expertise and integrity of certified professionals. On the back of the flier was a list of services, with prices given in the currencies of the world's most advanced and civilized nations.

Just then the futurologists began to congregate in the bar, but one of them, Professor Mashkenasus, ran in pale and trembling, claiming there was a time bomb in his room. The bartender, evidently accustomed to such episodes, automatically shouted "Hit the deck!" and dived under the counter. But the hotel detectives soon discovered that some colleague had played a practical joke on the Professor, placing an ordinary alarm clock in his cookie jar. It was probably an Englishman-only they delight in such childish pranks-but the whole thing was quickly forgotten when Stantor and J. G. Howler, also from UPI, came in with the text of a memo from the United States government to the government of Costa Rica with regard to the matter of the kidnapped diplomats. The language of it was typical of all such official communiques; neither teeth nor feet were named. Jim told me that the local authorities might resort to drastic measures; General Apollon Diaz was currently in power and leaned toward the position of the hawks, which was to meet force with force. The proposal had already been made at Parliament (which stood in permanent emergency session) to counterattack: to pull twice the number of teeth from the political prisoners the abductors were demanding and mail them poste restante, as the address of guerrilla headquarters was unknown. The air edition of the New York Times ran an editorial (Schultzberger) calling for common sense and the solidarity of the human species. Stantor informed me in strictest confidence that the government had commandeered a train carrying secret military supplies- United States property-through Costa Rican territory on the way to Peru. Somehow the guerrillas hadn't yet hit upon the idea of kidnapping futurologists, which would certainly have made better sense from their point of view, inasmuch as there were many more futurologists than diplomats available in the country.