Stanislaw Lem: The Futurological Congress

"Mascons… "I said. "I seem to know that word. Yes!

Those mechanical dogs they used to have at football games. But how does that tie in with this…?"

"It doesn't. The word has taken on-excuse me, tasted on-an altogether different meaning. From mask, masquerade, mascara. By introducing properly prepared mascons to the brain, one can mask any object in the outside world behind a fictitious image-superimposed-and with such dexterity, that the psychemasconated subject cannot tell which of his perceptions have been altered, and which have not. If but for a single instant you could see this world of ours the way it really is-undoctored, unadulterated, un-censored-you would drop in your tracks!"

"Wait a minute. What world? Where is it? Where can I see it?

"Why, anywhere. Here, even!" he whispered in my ear, glancing nervously around. Then he pulled his chair up and slipped me-under the table-a small flask with a worn cork, saying with an air of dark conspiracy:

"This is up'n'at'm, one of the vigilanimides, a powerful countersomniac and antipsychem agent. A derivative of di-methylethylhexabutylpeptopeyotine. Merely carrying it upon your person, let alone using it, is a federal offense! Remove the cork and sniff-but only once, mind you, and carefully. Like smelling salts. And then, for heaven's sake control yourself, don't panic, remember where you are!"

My hands were trembling as I pulled the cork and lifted the flask to my nostrils. A whiff of bitter almonds made my eyes well up with tears, and when I wiped them away, and could see again, I gasped. The magnificent hall, covered with carpets, filled with palms, the ornamented majolica walls, the elegance of the sparkling tables, and the orchestra in the back that played exquisite chamber music while we dined, all this had vanished. We were sitting in a concrete bunker, at a rough wooden table, a straw mat-badly frayed-beneath our feet. The music was still there, but I saw now that it came from a loudspeaker hung on a rusted wire. And the rainbow-crystal chandelier was now a dusty, naked light bulb. But the worst change had taken place before us on the table. The snow-white cloth was gone; the silver dish with the steaming pheasant had turned into a chipped earthenware plate containing the most unappetizing gray-brown gruel, which stuck in globs to my tin-no longer silver-fork. I looked with horror upon the abomination that only moments ago I'd been consuming with such gusto, savoring the crackling golden skin of the bird and crunching-in sweet, succulent counterpoint-the croutons, crisp on the top and soaked with gravy on the bottom. And what I had taken for the overhanging leaves of a nearby potted palm turned out to be the drawstrings on the drawers of the person sitting (with three others) right above us-not on a balcony or platform, but rather a shelf, it was so narrow. For the place was packed beyond belief! My eyes were practically popping from their sockets when this terrifying vision wavered and began to shift back, as if touched with a magic wand. The drawstrings near my face grew green and once again assumed the graceful shape of palm leaves, while the slop bucket reeking a few feet away took on a dull sheen and turned into a sculptured pot. The grimy surface of our table whitened back to the purest snow, the crystal goblets gleamed, the awful gruel grew golden, sprouting wings and drumsticks in the proper places, and the tin of our cutlery regained its former silvery shine… as the waiters' tailcoats went fluttering, flapping all around. I looked at my feet-the straw was a Persian rug once more. I had returned to the world of luxury. But examining the ample breast of the pheasant, I couldn't forget what it concealed…

"Now you are beginning to understand," whispered Trottelreiner, looking carefully in my face, as if afraid the shock may have been too great. "And note that this is one of the most expensive establishments! Had I not provided for the contingency of letting you in on the secret, who knows, we might have gone to a restaurant, the sight of which could have seriously affected your mind."

"You mean… there are places… even worse?"

"Yes."

"That's impossible."

"Here at least we have real tables, chairs, plates, knives and forks; there, people lie on planks-stacked in many tiers-and eat with their fingers from buckets moving by on conveyor belts. And what they eat in the guise of pheasant there, is, I assure you, much less palatable."

"What is it?"

"Not poison, Tichy, but simply a powdered concentrate of grass and beets, soaked in chlorinated water and mixed with fish meal; usually they add gelatin and vitamins, plus synthetic emulsifiers and oils to keep the stuff from sticking in your throat. Did you notice the smell?"

"Yes! Yes!"

"There, you see?"

"For God's sake, Professor, what is this? Please, I must know! Tell me! Is it some diabolical treachery? An evil scheme? A plot to destroy the human race?"

"Really, Tichy. Don't be so demonic. Ours is simply a world in which more than twenty billion people live. Did you read today's Herald? The government of Pakistan claims that in this year's famine only 970,000 perished, while the opposition gives a figure of six million. In such a world where are you going to find Chablis, pheasants, tenderloin with sauce béarnaise? The last pheasant died a quarter of a century ago. That world is a corpse, only excellently preserved, for we have become masters of its mummification-or rather: we have learned how to hide its death."

"Wait a minute! Let me get this straight… You're saying that-"

"That no one wishes you ill. On the contrary, it is out of a deep sense of compassion and for the highest humanitarian reasons that this chemical hoax has been perpetrated, this camouflage, this bedecking of reality in plumage it does not possess… "

"Professor, then is the deception everywhere?"

'"Yes."

"But I eat at home, I don't go out, so how… "

"How do you absorb the mascons? You're asking that, you? They're in the air we breathe, atomized. Don't you remember the LTN bombs in Costa Rica, the aerosols? Those were the hesitant first attempts, like Montgolfier's with jet propulsion."

"And everyone knows of this? And accepts it?"

"Of course not. No one knows."

"But are there no rumors?"

"Rumors there will always be. But remember, we have amnesol. There are things, my boy, that everyone knows, and things that no one knows. Pharmacocracy has its open as well as its secret side; the first depends upon the second."

"No, I can't believe it."

"And why not?"

"Because someone has to look after these straw mats, and someone has to make the plates we're really using, and this pap that passes for food. And everything!"

"Certainly. You're right. Everything must be manufactured and maintained. What of it?"

"The people that do this, they see, they know!"

"Nonsense. Your reasoning is archaic. The people think they are going to a beautiful glass greenhouse-orangery; upon entering they are given vigilax and become aware of the bare concrete walls and the workbenches."

"And they want to work?"

"With the utmost enthusiasm, for they've also been given a good dose of selfsacrifine. Work is thus a consecration, a lofty act. And when they've finished, a spoonful of amnesol, perhaps nepethanol, is sufficient to erase everything that was seen!"

"And all along I was afraid I might be living in a dream. Lord, what a fool I was! If only, if only I could get back! What I wouldn't give to get back!"

"Get back where?"

"Back to the sewer underneath the Hilton."

"Tichy, this attitude of yours is most irresponsible, if not downright stupid. You ought to be doing what everyone does, eating and drinking like the rest of us. Then you would get the necessary amounts of optimistizine and seraphinil in your bloodstream-the minimum daily requirements-and be in the best possible humor."