The Zone

From Roadside Picnic:

"Listen, Valentine," Noonan said, cutting the meat. "What do you think, how will all this end?"

"What?"

"The Visitation. The Zones, the stalkers, the military-industrial complexes--the whole lot. How can it all end'" Valentine looked at him for a long time with his blind black lenses.

"For whom? Be specific."

"Well, say for our part of the planet."

"That depends on whether we have luck or not. We now know that in our part of the planet the Visitation left no aftereffects, for the most part. That does not rule out, of course, the possibility that in pulling all these chestnuts out of the fire, we may pull out some thing that will make life impossible not only for us, but for the entire planet. That would be bad luck. But, you must admit, such a threat always hovers over mankind." He chuckled. "You see, I've long lost the habit of talking about mankind in general. Humanity as a whole is too fixed a system, there's no changing it."

"You think so? Maybe, you're right, who knows?"

"Be honest, Richard," Valentine said, obviously enjoying himself.

"What has the Visitation changed in your life? You're a business- man. Now you know there is at least one other rational creature in the Universe besides man. So what?"

"What can I say?" Noonan was mumbling. He was sorry that he had ever started the conversation. There was nothing to talk about.

"What has changed for me? Well, for several years now I've been feeling uneasy, insecure. All right. So they came and left right away. And what if they come again and decide to stay? As a businessman, I have to take these questions seriously: who are they, how do they live, what do they need? On the most basic level I have to think how to change my product. I have to be ready. And what if I turn out to be completely superfluous in their system?" He livened up. "What if we are superfluous? Listen, Valentine, since we're talking about it, are there any answers to these questions? Who are they, what did they want, will they return?"

"There are answers," Valentine said, smiling. "Lots of them, take your pick."

"And what do you think yourself?"

"To tell the truth, I never permitted myself the luxury of thinking about it seriously. For me the Visitation is primarily a unique event that allows us to skip several steps in the process of cognition. Like a trip into the future of technology. Like a quantum generator ending up in Isaac Newton's laboratory."

"Newton wouldn't have understood a thing."

"You're wrong. Newton was a very perspicacious man."

"Really? Well, who cares about him anyway. What do you think about the Visitation? You can answer unseriously."

"All right, I'll tell you. But I must warn you that your question, Richard, comes under the heading of xenology. Xenology: an unnatural mixture of science fiction and formal logic. It's based on the false premise that human psychology is applicable to extraterrestrial intelligent beings."

"Why is that false?" Noonan asked.

"Because biologists have already been burned trying to use human psychology on animals. Earth animals, at that."

"Forgive me, but that's an entirely different matter. We're talking about the psychology of rational beings."

"Yes. And everything would be fine if we only knew what reason was.

"Don't we know?" Noonan was surprised.

"Believe it or not, we don't. Usually a trivial definition is used: reason is that part of man's activity that distinguishes him from the animals. You know, an attempt to distinguish the owner from the dog who understands everything but just can't speak. Actually, this trivial definition gives rise to rather more ingenious ones. Based on bitter observation of the above-mentioned human activities. For example: reason is the ability of a living creature to perform unreasonable or unnatural acts."

"Yes, that's about us, about me, and those like me," Noonan agreed bitterly.

"Unfortunately. Or how about this hypothetical definition. Reason is a complex type of instinct that has not yet formed completely. This implies that instinctual behavior is always purposeful and natural. A million years from now our instinct will have matured and we will stop making the mistakes that are probably integral to reason. And then, if something should change in the universe, we will all become extinct--precisely because we will have forgotten how to make mistakes, that is, to try various approaches not stipulated by an inflexible program of permitted alternatives."

"Somehow you make it all sound demeaning."

"All right, how about another definition--a very lofty and noble one. Reason is the ability to use the forces of the environment without destroying that environment." Noonan grimaced and shook his head.

"No, that's not about us. How about this: 'man, as opposed to animals, is a creature with an undefinable need for knowledge'? I read that somewhere."

"So have I," said Valentine. "But the whole problem with that is that the average man--the one you have in mind when you talk about 'us' and 'not us'--very easily manages to overcome this need for knowledge. I don't believe that need even exists. There is a need to understand, and you don't need knowledge for that. The hypothesis of God, for instance, gives an incomparably absolute opportunity to understand everything and know absolutely nothing. Give man an extremely simplified system of the world and explain every phenomenon away on the basis of that system. An approach like that doesn't require any knowledge. Just a few memorized formulas pins so-called intuition and so-called common sense."

"Hold on," Noonan said. He finished his beer and set the mug noisily on the table. "Don't get off the track. Let's get back to the subject on hand. Man meets an extraterrestrial creature. How do they find out that they are both rational creatures?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," Valentine said with great pleasure.

"Everything I've read on the subject comes down to a vicious circle. If they are capable of making contact, then they are rational. And vice versa; if they are rational, they are capable of contact. And in general: if an extraterrestrial creature has the honor of possessing human psychology, then it is rational. Like that."

"There you go. And I thought you boys had it all laid out in neat cubbyholes."

"A monkey can put things into cubbyholes," Valentine replied.

"No, wait a minute." For some reason, Noonan felt cheated. "If you don't know simple things like that.... All right, the hell with reason. Obviously, it's a real quagmire. OK. But what about the Visitation? What do you think about the Visitation?"

"My pleasure. Imagine a picnic."

Noonan shuddered.

"What did you say?"

"A picnic. Picture a forest, a country road, a meadow. A car drives off the country road into the meadow, a group of young people get out of the car carrying bottles, baskets of food, transistor radios, and cameras. They light Fires, pitch tents, turn on the music. In the morning they leave. The animals, birds, and insects that watched in horror through the long night creep out from their hiding places. And what do they see? Gas and oil spilled on the grass. Old spark plugs and old filters strewn around. Rags, burnt-out bulbs, and a monkey wrench left behind. Oil slicks on the pond. And of course, the usual mess--apple cores, candy wrappers, charred remains of the campfire, cans, bottles, somebody's handkerchief, somebody's penknife, torn newspapers, coins, faded Bowers picked in another meadow."

"I see. A roadside picnic."

"Precisely. A roadside picnic, on some road in the cosmos. And you ask if they will come back."

"Let me have a smoke. Goddamn this pseudoscience! Somehow I imagined it all differently."

"That's your right."

"So does that mean they never even noticed us?"

"Why?"

"Well, anyway, didn't pay any attention to us?"

"You know, I wouldn't be upset if I were you."

Noonan inhaled, coughed, and threw away the cigarette.

"I don't care," he said stubbornly. "It can't be. Damn you scientists! Where do you get your contempt for man? Why are you always trying to put mankind down?"

"Wait a minute," Valentine said. "Listen: 'You ask me what makes man great?'" he quoted. "'That he re-created nature? That he has harnessed cosmic forces? That in a brief time he conquered the planet and opened a window on the universe? No! That, despite all this, he has survived and intends to survive in the future.'"

There was a silence. Noonan was thinking.

"Don't get depressed," Valentine said kindly. "The picnic is my own theory. And not even a theory--just a picture. The serious xenologists are working on much more solid and flattering versions for human vanity. For example, that there has been no Visitation yet, that it is to come. A highly rational culture threw containers with artifacts of its civilization onto Earth. They expect us to study the artifacts, make a giant technological leap, and send a signal in response that will show we are ready for contact. How do you like that one?"

"That's much better," Noonan said. "I see that there are decent people among scientists after all."

"Here's another one. The Visitation has taken place, but it is not over by a long shot. We are in contact even as we speak, but we are riot aware of it. The visitors are living in the Zones and carefully observing us and simultaneously preparing us for the 'cruel wonders of the future.' "

"Now that I can understand! At least that explains the mysterious activity in the ruins of the factory. By the way, your picnic doesn't explain it."

"Why doesn't it? One of the girls could have forgotten her favorite wind-up teddy bear on the meadow."

"Just skip it. That's some teddy bear. The earth around it is shaking! On the other hand, maybe it is somebody's teddy. How about a beer? Rosalie! Two beers for the xenologists! You know, it really is nice chatting with you," he said to Valentine. "Cleaning out the old brains, like pouring Epsom salts under my skull. You know, you work and work, and lose sight of why, and what will happen, and how you'll soothe your savage breast."

The beer came. Noonan took a sip, watching over the head of foam as Valentine examined his mug with a look of distaste.

"You don't like it?"

"I usually don't drink," Valentine said hesitantly.

"Really?"

"The hell with it!" Valentine moved the mug of beer away from him. "Why don't you order me a cognac in that case."

"Rosalie!" Noonan called out, finally cheering up.

The cognac arrived. Noonan spoke.

"But you really shouldn't go on like that. I'm not talking about your picnic--that's too much--but even if we accept the version that this is a prelude to contact, I still don't like it. I can understand the bracelets and the empties. But why the witches' jelly? The mosquito mange spots and that disgusting fluff?"

"Excuse me," Valentine said, taking a slice of lemon. "I don't quite understand your terminology. What mange?"

Noonan laughed.

"That's folklore. Stalkers' slang. Shop talk. The mosquito mange spots are areas of heightened gravitation."

"Ah. Graviconcentrates. Directed gravity. That's something would enjoy talking about for a couple of hours, but you wouldn't understand a thing."

"Why wouldn't I? I'm an engineer, you know.'

"Because I don't understand it myself. I have systems of equations, but no way to interpret them. Witches' jelly, is that colloidal gas?"

"The very same. Did you hear about the catastrophe at the Currigan labs?"

"I heard something about it."

"Those idiots put a porcelain container with the jelly into a special room, highly insulated and isolated. That is, they thought it was isolated. And when they opened the container with manipulators the jelly went through metal and plastic, like water through a sieve, and outside. And everything it touched also turned into jelly. Thirty-five people were killed, more than a hundred were crippled, and the entire building was destroyed. Did you ever go there? Marvelously equipped place! And now the jelly has seeped down into the basement and the lower Boors. Some prelude to contact."

Valentine made a face.

"Yes, I know all that. But you must agree, Richard, that the visitors had nothing to do with it. How could they have known about the existence of our military-industrial complexes?"

"They should have known," Noonan insisted.

"Their answer to that would be that the military-industrial complexes should have been done away with a long time ago."

"That's for sure. That's what they should have taken care of, if they're so powerful."

"You mean you're suggesting interference in the internal affairs of the human race?"

"Hmmm," Noonan said. "I guess we're going too far. Let's drop it. Instead, let's go back to the beginning of our discussion. How will it all end? Well, look at you, for instance, you're a scientist. Are you hoping for something fundamental to come out of the Zone, some- thing that will alter science, technology, our way of life?"

Valentine shrugged.

"You're barking up the wrong tree, Richard. I don't like to indulge in empty fantasizing. When the subject is something serious, I prefer to revert to healthy careful skepticism. Based on what we've already received, a whole range of possibilities is raised, and I can say nothing specific about it."

"All right, let's try another approach. What do you think you've already received?

"You'll find this amusing--very little. We've unearthed many miracles. In a few cases, we've even learned how to use these miracles for our own needs. A monkey pushes a red button and gets a banana, pushes a white button and gets an orange, but it doesn't know how to get bananas and oranges without the buttons. And it doesn't understand what relationship the buttons have to the fruit. Take the so-so's, for example. We've learned how to use them. We've even learned the circumstances under which they multiply through a process similar to cell division. But we still haven't been able to make a single so-so. We don't know how they work, and judging by present evidence, it will be a long time before we will."

"I would put it this way. There are objects for which we have found uses. We use them, but almost certainly not the way the visitors use them. I am positive that in the vast majority of cases we are hammering nails with microscopes. But at least we're using some things--the so-so's, and the bracelets to stimulate life processes. And the various types of quasibiological masses, which have created a revolution in medicine. We have received new tranquilizers, new types of mineral fertilizers, a revolution in agriculture. But why am I giving you a list! You know this at ]east as well as I--I notice you wear a bracelet. Let's call this group of objects beneficial. It can be said that mankind has benefited from them in some degree, even though it should never be forgotten that in our Euclidean world every stick has two ends."

"Undesirable applications?"

"Precisely. Say the use of so-so's in the defense industry. But that's not what I'm talking about. The action of every beneficial object has been more or less studied and more or less explained. Our technology is holding us up In fifty years or so we'll know how to make them ourselves and then we can crack nuts to our hearts' content. It's more complicated with the other group of objects--more complicated because we have found no application for them, and their qualities within the framework of our present concepts are definitely not understandable. For instance, the magnetic traps. We know that they're magnetic traps, Panov has proven it very wittily. But we don't know the source of such a powerful magnetic Field and what causes their superstability. We don't understand a thing about them. We can only weave fantastic theories about properties of space that we never suspected before. Or the K-23. What do you call it? The pretty black beads that are used for jewelry?"

"Black sprays."

"That's it, the black sprays. That's a good name. Well, you know their properties. If you shine a ray of light into one of those beads, the transmission of the light is delayed and the delay depends on the bead's weight, size, and several other parameters. And the unit of light coming out is always smaller than the one entering. What is this? Why? There is a wild theory that the black sprays are gigantic expanses of space with properties different from those of our space and that they became curled up under the influence of our space." Valentine sighed deeply. "In short, the objects in this group have absolutely no applications to human life today. Even though from a purely scientific point of view they are of fundamental importance. They are answers that have fallen from heaven to questions that we still can't pose. Perhaps Sir Isaac wouldn't have figured out lasers, but he would at least have understood that such a thing is possible, and that would have influenced his scientific outlook greatly. I won't go into detail, but the existence of such objects as the magnetic traps, the K-23, and the white ring has invalidated most of our recently developed theories and has brought forth completely new ideas. And there is still a third group."

"Yes," Noonan said. "The witches' jelly and other goodies."

"No, no. Those fall either into the first or second category. I'm talking about objects that we know nothing about or have only hearsay information. The things that the stalkers stole from under our noses and sold to God knows who, or have hidden. The things that they don't talk about. The things that have become legends or semi- legends. The wish machine, Dick the Tramp, and the jolly ghosts."

"Wait a minute! What are those things? I can figure out the wish machine, but. . . ."

Valentine laughed.

"You see, we have our own shop talk, too. Dick the Tramp--that's the hypothetical wind-up teddy bear wreaking havoc in the old plant. And the jolly ghost is a type of dangerous turbulence that occurs in some parts of the Zone."

"First I've heard of it."

"You understand, Richard, that we've been digging around in the Zone for twenty years but we don't even know a thousandth of what it contains. And if you want to talk of the Zone's effect on man. ... By the way, it looks as though we'll have to add another category, the fourth group. Not of objects, but of effects. This group has been shamefully neglected, even though as far as I'm concerned, there are more than enough facts for research. And you know, sometimes my skin crawls, Richard, when I think about those facts." Zombies," Noonan said.

"What? Oh, no, that's merely puzzling. How can I put it--at ]east, that's imaginable. I mean when suddenly for no reason at all things start happening, nonphysical, nonbiological phenomena."

"Oh, you mean the emigrants."

"Exactly. Statistics is a very precise science, you know, even though it deals with random occurrences. And besides, it's an eloquent and beautiful science."

Valentine seemed to be tipsy. His voice was louder, his cheeks were red, and his eyebrows had crept up high over his dark glasses, wrinkling his forehead into a washboard.

"I really like nondrinkers," Noonan said.

"Don't get off the subject!" Valentine said. "Listen, what can I tell you? It's very strange." He raised his glass, drank half in one gulp, and went on. "We don't know what happened to the poor Harmonites at the very moment of the Visitation. But now one of them decides to emigrate. Your most typical man in the street. A barber. The son of a barber and the grandson of a barber. He moves, say, to Detroit. He opens up a barbershop and all hell breaks loose. Over ninety percent of his clients die during a year: they die in car crashes, fall out of windows, are cut down by gangsters or muggers, drown in shallow waters, and so on and so forth. A number of natural disasters hit Detroit and its suburbs. Typhoons and tornadoes, not seen since eighteen-oh-something, suddenly appear in the area. And all that kind of stuff. And such cataclysmic events take place in any city, any area where an emigrant from a Zone area settles. The number of catastrophes is directly proportional to the number of emigrants who have moved to the city. And note that this reaction is caused only by emigrants who actually lived through the Visitation. Those born after the Visitation have no effect on the disaster and accident statistics. You've lived here for ten years, but you moved in after the Visitation and it would be safe to relocate you even in the Vatican. How can this be explained? What should we reject? The statistics? Or common sense?" Valentine grabbed the glass and finished his drink in a gulp.

Richard Noonan scratched his head.

"Hmmm, yes. Of course, I'd heard all that before, but I, uh, assumed that it was all, to put it mildly, exaggerated. Really, from the point of view of our highly developed science...."

"Or, for instance, the mutagen effect of the Zone," Valentine interrupted. He removed his glasses and stared at Noonan with his dark, myopic eyes. "Everyone who spends enough time with the Zone undergoes changes, both of phenotype and genotype. You know what kind of children stalkers can have and you know what happens to the stalkers themselves. Why? Where is the mutation factor? There is no radiation in the Zone. While the air and soil in the Zone have their own specific chemical structure, they pose no mutation dangers at all. What should I do under the circumstances --believe in sorcery? In the evil eye?"

"I sympathize. But, frankly, I am much more upset by corpses come to life than by your statistics. Especially since I've never seen the statistics, but I have seen the zombies--and smelled them."

Valentine waved away the statement.

"Bah, your zombies. Richard, you should be ashamed of yourself. You are an educated man, after all. First of all, they are not corpses. They are moulages - reconstructions on the skeletons, dummies. And I assure you, from the point of view of fundamental principles, your moulages are no more amazing than the eternal batteries. It's just that the so-so's violate the first law of thermodynamics, and the moulages violate the second. We're all cave men in one sense or another. We can't imagine anything scarier than a ghost. But the violation of the law of causality is much more terrifying than a stampede of ghosts. And all the monsters of Rubenstein, or is it Wallenstein?"

"Frankenstein."

"Of course. Frankenstein. Mrs. Shelley. The poet's wife. Or daughter." He suddenly laughed. "Our moulages have a curious property--autonomic life capability. For example, if you cut off some part of their bodies, the part will live on. Separately. Without any physiological solutions to nourish it. They brought one like that to the institute recently. A lab assistant from Boyd told me about it."

Valentine laughed uproariously.

"Isn't it time we headed for home, Valentine?" Noonan asked, glancing at his watch. "I still have some important business."

"Let's go." Valentine tried hard to insert his face into the glasses and finally had to take the frame with both hands to put them on his nose. "Do you have a car?"

"Yes. I'll drive you." They paid the check and headed for the door. Valentine kept making mock salutes, greeting lab workers who were curiously watching one of the great men of world physics. At the door, greeting the broadly smiling doorman, he knocked off his glasses, and all three of them scrambled to catch them.

"Tomorrow I'm running an experiment. You know, it's an interesting thing...." Valentine was muttering as he climbed into the Peugeot.

He went on to describe the experiment. Noonan drove him to the science complex.

They're afraid, too, he thought, getting back into the car. The highbrows are also scared. And that's the way it should be. They should be more afraid than all us regular folk put together. We don't understand a thing, and they understand how much they don't. They look into the bottomless pit and know that it's inevitable, they must go down into it. Their hearts catch, but they must go down, and descend they do, but how, and what will they find at the bottom, and most important, will they be able to climb out? Meanwhile, we mere mortals look the other way, so to speak. Listen, maybe that's how it should be. Let it all run its course, and we'll just get by on our own. He was right: humanity's most heroic deed was surviving and intending to survive. But he'd still tell the visitors to go to hell, if he could. Why couldn't they have had their picnic somewhere else. Like the Moon. Or Mars. You heartless trash, he thought, just like all the rest, even if you do know how to curl up space. So they had themselves a picnic. A picnic.