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Ye-es, Fokin said, and looked around carefully.
Komov seemed to come to himself. Ryu! he quickly shouted. I have to get
hold of the Sunflower immediately. Fokin, Tanya, make a photograph of this
display! I ll be back in half an hour.
He jumped off the roof and started walking quickly, then broke into a run,
heading down the street toward the base. Ryu followed him without saying
anything.
What s going on? yelled Fokin.
Mboga squatted down, got out his small pipe, puffed at it unhurriedly, and
said, They re people, Boris. Even animals can steal things, but only people
can bring back what they have stolen.
Fokin moved back and sat on the wheel of the helicopter.
Komov returned alone. He seemed very excited, and in a high-pitched metallic
voice he ordered them to break camp immediately. Fokin started showering him
with questions. He demanded explanations. Then Komov recited in the same
metallic voice: By order of the captain of the starship Sunflower: Within
three hours the meteorological base and laboratory, and the ar-cheological
camp will be dismantled; all cybernetic systems will be shut down; and all
personnel, including Atmosphere Physicist Waseda, will return on board the
Sunflower. Fokin submitted out of sheer surprise and set to work with unusual
diligence.
In two hours the helicopter made eight trips, and the cargo robots trampled
down a broad road through the grass from the base to the boat. Of the base,
only empty construction sites remained all three systems of construction
robots had been herded inside the storehouse and completely deprogrammed.
At six o clock in the morning local time, when the east had begun to glow with
the green dawn, the exhausted humans gathered by the boat, and here, at last,
Fokin lost patience.
Well, all right, he began in an irate hoarse whisper. You relayed us
orders, Gennady, and we have carried them out honestly. But I would like to
find out at last how come we re leaving here! Why? he yelped suddenly in a
falsetto, picturesquely throwing up his hands. Everyone jumped, and Mboga
dropped the pipe from his teeth. Why? We look for Brothers in Reason for
three hundred years, and run off with our tails between our legs as soon as
we ve discovered them? The best minds of humanity
Good grief, said Tanya, and Fokin shut up.
I don t understand a thing, he said then in a hoarse whisper.
Do you think, Boris, that we are capable of representing the best minds of
humanity? asked Mboga.
Komov muttered gloomily, We ve sure messed things up here! We burned out a
whole field, trampled crops, shot guns. And around the base! He waved his
hand.
But how could we know? Ryu said guiltily.
Yes, said Mboga. We made many mistakes. But I hope they ve understood us.
They re civilized enough for that.
What sort of a civilization is this! said Fokin. Where are the machines?
Where are the tools? Where are the cities?
Shut up, Boris, said Komov. Machines, cities just open your eyes! Do we
know how to fly on birds? Have we bred animals that produce honey? Has our
last mosquito been long exterminated? Machines. ...
A biological civilization, said Mboga.
What? asked Fokin.
A biological civilization. Not machines, but selection, genetics, animal
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training. Who knows what forces they ve mastered? And who can say whose
civilization is superior?
Imagine, Boris, said Tanya,
Fokin twirled his mustache furiously.
And we re clearing out, said Komov, because none of us has the right to
take upon himself the responsibility of first contact. Oh, am I sorry to
leave! he thought. / don V want to go I want to search them out, to meet them,
to talk, to see what they re like. Can this really have happened at last? Not
some brainless lizards, not some sort of leeches, but a real human race. A
whole world, a whole history .... Did you have wars and revolutions? Which did
you get first, steam or electricity? And what is the meaning of life? And
might I perhaps have something to read? The first essay in the comparative
history of intelligent species. And we have to go. Oh boy, oh boy, do I ever
feel like staying! But on Earth there has already for fifty years been a
Commission on Contacts, which for all those years has been studying the
comparative psychology offish and ants, and arguing over in what language to
say the first uh. Only now you can t laugh at them any more. I wonder
whether any of them had foreseen the possibility of a biological civilization.
Probably. What haven t they foreseen?
Gorbovsky is a man of phenomenal penetration, said Mboga.
Yes, said Tanya. It s frightening to think what old Boris could have done
if he d had a gun.
Why single me out? Fokin said angrily, What about you? Who was it that went
swimming with a hacker?
We re all a fine bunch, Ryu said with a sigh.
Komov looked at his watch. Takeoff in twenty minutes, he announced.
Stations, please.
Mboga hesitated in the airlock and looked back. The white star EN 23 had
already risen over the green plain. It smelled of moist grass, warm earth,
fresh honey. Yes, said Mboga. Really a planet with all the conveniences.
Why did we ever think nature could have created anything like it?
Part Four: What You Will Be Like
*
18. Defeat
going to the island of Shumshu You re, Fischer announced.
Where is that? Sidorov asked gloomily.
The northern Kurils. Your flight leaves today at twenty-two thirty. A
combined cargo-passenger run from Novosibirsk to Port Provideniya.
They planned on testing embryomechs under varied conditions. Mostly the
Institute did work for spacemen, and consequently thirty research groups out
of forty-seven had been sent to the Moon and to various planets. The remaining
seventeen were to work on Earth.
All right, Sidorov said slowly. He had hoped that they would assign him a
space group, even if only a lunar one. It seemed to him that he had a good
chance, for it had been a long time since he had felt as well as he had
recently. He was in excellent shape, and had continued to hope up to the last
minute. But for some reason Fischer had decided otherwise, and Sidorov
couldn t even talk to him man to man, since some glum-faced strangers were
sitting in the office. So this is how Pm going to grow old, thought Sidorov.
All right, he repeated calmly.
Severokurilsk already knows, Fischer said. The exact site of the experiment
will be decided in Baikovo.
Where s that?
On the island of Shumshu. It s Shumshu s administrative center. Fischer
hooked his fingers together and started looking out the window. Sermus is
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