Peace on Earth (25 page)

“Yes. Professor S. told me. He came to see me a week ago.”

“To get you to submit to tests? You refused?”

“I played for time. There’s at least one other character here. He advised me not to be tested. I don’t know who he works for. He pretends to be a patient.”

“There are more of them around you.”

“You said, ‘Followed me.’ The dust is spying?”

“Not necessarily. One can carry a disease without knowing it.”

“And the part about the spacesuit?”

“That’s a tough one. It was put into your pocket or you did that yourself. For some reason. Just as you landed for some reason. And found something. And someone erased your memory afterward. With the callotomy.”

“Then there are at least three parties?”

“It is not the number that matters but how to identify them.”

“But why is this so important? Sooner or later the failure of the whole lunar project will become public knowledge. And even if those selenocytes are the moon’s ‘immune system,’ what does that have to do with Earth?”

“It affects us in two ways. First, it means a return to the arms race, which is no surprise. Second—the surprise—the selenocytes have begun to take an interest in us.”

“In the human race? Earth? Not just me?”

“Precisely.”

“What are they doing?”

“At the moment, only multiplying.”

“In the laboratories?”

“Before our scientists knew what was happening, the dust had got out and spread to all four comers of the globe. Only a small amount has accompanied you.”

“They’re multiplying? And?”

“So far, nothing. They are the size of ultraviruses.”

“And they get their energy—”

“From the sun. It’s estimated that there are a few trillion of them now, in the air, in the oceans, everywhere.”

“And doing nothing?”

“So far. Which has caused great concern.”

“Why?”

“The sense that this was planned. If you landed, there must have been a reason. But what? They want to know.”

“But I remember nothing, and likewise the other half of me…”

“They are unaware that you are now talking to yourself. In addition, there are different kinds of amnesia. Under hypnosis or in certain other ways one can obtain things from a person that he cannot recall for the life of him. They have been careful with you lest some shock or trauma to your brain damage or wipe out completely what you may know though you can’t dredge it up. Anyway our people disagree about how to proceed with the examination … which until now has spared you much.”

“Yes, I think I know where I stand in this game… But why didn’t the reconnaissance flights that followed yield results?”

“Who told you that?”

“My first visitor. The neurologist.”

“What did he say exactly?”

“That the scouts returned but they’d been shown stage sets. That’s how he put it.”

“Not true. As far as I know, there were three more flights. Two teleferic, and all their remotes were destroyed. They didn’t use mine, only conventional remotes. Equipped with special rockets, however, to shoot samples of the soil up to the ship. But nothing came of that.”

“Who destroyed them?”

“Unknown, because communication was cut off early. When they landed, the area in a radius of several miles became covered with a fog opaque to radar.”

“Something new. And the third scout?”

“He went, landed, and returned. With complete amnesia. He woke up back on his ship. Or so I heard. It might not be the truth. I never saw him. The murkier this business becomes, the more secrecy surrounds it. I don’t know if he too brought back dust. I assume they’re examining the poor man but without success, since they’re still taking such good care of you.”

“What should I do?”

“The situation looks bad but is not hopeless. Very soon now the selenocytes will have paralyzed the last of the moon weapons. Shorting them all out. The moon project has already been written off, not officially yet but that’s not the point. A couple of top information scientists here believe that the moon has begun to take an interest in Earth. They say: ‘The selenosphere has entered the biosphere.’”

“An invasion, then?”

“No, probably not, or at least not in any traditional sense. A multitude of genies were sent in well-corked bottles. They broke out, battled each other, and as a side effect microorganisms appeared, vital though not alive. It doesn’t have the look of a planned invasion. Rather of an epidemic, a pandemic.”

“I don’t understand the difference.”

“I can present this only in metaphors. The selenosphere reacts to an intruder the way the immune system reacts to a foreign body or an antigen. Even if that’s not quite right, we have no other way of conceptualizing it. The two scouts who went after you had at their disposal the very latest in weaponry. I don’t know the details, but it was not a conventional device, or nuclear. The Agency is keeping what happened on the moon hush-hush, but the dust clouds were so large that they could be seen and photographed by many observatories. What is more—when the clouds dissipated, the ground was changed. Holes had formed, craters, but completely unlike the moon’s typical craters. This the Agency was unable to keep secret, so it said nothing. It was only then that headquarters began to see that the more strong-arm the methods used for reconnaissance, the more strong-arm the counteroffensive would be.”

“So there you are…”

“No. Because we are dealing not with an adversary or enemy, but only with a kind of giant anthill. Such strange theories have occurred to me, I won’t even repeat them. But our time is up. Stay put. As long as they don’t go completely mad, they’ll leave you alone. I’ll be away for three days, will talk to you Saturday at this time if I can. Keep well, intrepid Missionary.”

“Until then,” I said but don’t know if he heard me because there was no answer. I took the olive out of my ear and after a moment of thought wrapped it in tinfoil and hid it in a box of chocolates. I had plenty to think about. I opened the curtains before I got into bed. The moths had left, probably drawn by the bright windows of the other pavilions around the garden. The moon sailed through white, feathery clouds. “We’ve done it this time,” I said to myself, pulling the covers up to my head.

Next morning Kramer knocked at my door while I was still in bed. He told me that yesterday Padderhorn had swallowed a fork. The man had swallowed cutlery before in order to kill himself. Last week he swallowed a shoehorn. They did an esophagoscopy on him—and gave him a new shoehorn a foot and a half long but he pinched someone’s fork in the dining hall.

“You came to talk about flatware?” I asked politely.

Kramer sighed, buttoned the top button of his pajamas, and sat in an armchair beside my bed. “No…” he said in a surprisingly weak voice. “It’s not good, Jonathan.”

“Depends on for whom, Adelaide,” I replied. “In any case I have no intention of swallowing anything.”

“It’s really not good,” Kramer said. He folded his hands over his stomach and twirled his thumbs. “I’m afraid for you, Jonathan.”

“Don’t be,” I said plumping up my pillow behind my head. “I am well protected. Do you know about the selenocytes?”

I took him by such surprise that his mouth fell open. Then his face grew stupid, the face of a millionaire who had nothing left to fantasize about.

“I know you heard me. And perhaps you know about the selenosphere too? Yes? Unless your rank is not high enough for you to be privy. Did they tell you about the sad fate of the quantum collapsar weapon in the last missions? About the clouds above the Mare Ignium? But no, that they wouldn’t tell you…”

He sat staring at me wide-eyed and breathless.

“Do me a favor, Adelaide, and pass that box of chocolates on the desk.” I smiled at him. “I like something sweet before breakfast…”

As he didn’t move, I hopped out of bed and got the box myself. Getting back under the covers, I held it out to him, but keeping my thumb over the piece in the comer.

“Go ahead.”

“How do you know?” he asked in a hoarse voice. “Who…?”

“No need to get upset,” I said, not too clearly because I had caramel on the roof of my mouth. “What I know, I know. And not only what happened to me on the moon but also the troubles of my colleagues.”

He had difficulty breathing. He looked around the room as if he were there for the first time.

“Transmitters, secret lines, antennas, modulators, yes?” I went on. “There’s nothing here except that the showerhead leaks a little. Needs a new washer. Why are you surprised? Can it be you don’t know that
they are inside me?”

He sat speechless. He wiped the sweat from his nose. He tugged on an earlobe. I watched him with sympathy.

The chocolates were good. I had to be careful to leave enough in the box. Licking my lips, I said, “Adelaide, move, speak, you’re making me feel bad. You were afraid for me and now I’m afraid for you. You think you’ll be in trouble? Perhaps, if you behave, I can protect you, you know with
whose
help.”

I was bluffing. But why shouldn’t I? The fact that these few words had so dismayed him proved the powerlessness of whatever power he represented.

“I promise not to name names so I won’t get you into further trouble.”

“Tichy…” he finally groaned. “For God’s sake. No, it’s not possible. That’s not how
they
work.”

“Did I say how? I had a dream, that’s all. Didn’t I tell you, I’m clairvoyant.”

Kramer suddenly decided. Putting his finger to his lips, he left quickly. Certain that he would be back, I hid the box of chocolates under my shirts in the closet and had time to shower and shave before I heard him knock lightly. He wore a white suit and under his arm held a large bundle wrapped in a towel. He drew the curtains and from the bundle pulled apparatuses that he positioned with their black funnels pointed at all the walls. From a black box he plugged a cord into a wall socket and fiddled with something else, wheezing, because he was really quite fat, his belly altogether authentic, and was probably pushing sixty. Face flushed, he knelt and struggled with his electronics, then finally straightened with a grunt and a sigh.

“Now we can talk,” he said.

“About?” I asked, putting on my nicest shirt, the one with the blue collar. “But you first. You might want to tell me about the gray hair I’ve given you. After your boss assured you I was as insulated here as a fly in a bottle. But say what you like, speak, confess, unburden yourself. You’ll see how much better you feel.”

And suddenly, apropos of nothing, like a poker player who wins the pot with a pair of threes, I tossed off: “What division are you in, the fourth?”

“No, the first—”

He stopped himself.

“What do you know about me?”

“Enough of that.” I sat on a chair, its back in front of me. “Surely you don’t think I’m giving you something for nothing.”

“What do you want to know?”

“We could start with Shapiro,” I said pleasantly.

“He’s from the LA. That’s a fact.”

“And more than just a neurologist.”

“He has another job.”

“Go on.”

“What do you know about the selenosphere?”

“What do
you
know?”

It occurred to me that maybe I’d overplayed my hand. If he was a secret agent, it didn’t matter for whom, he wouldn’t know that much. Scientists didn’t usually involve themselves in such activity. But this was an unusual case, so I could be wrong.

“Enough of this hide-and-seek,” said Kramer. He was desperate. His white jacket had patches of sweat under the arms. “Sit here next to me,” he muttered, getting down on the carpet.

We sat as if to smoke a peace pipe, in the center of a circle of gizmos and wires.

Before he had time to open his mouth, the drone of an engine could be heard above us and a great shadow swept across the garden and windows. Kramer grew bug-eyed. The throbbing faded, then returned. A helicopter hung just above the trees. There were two reports, as if someone had uncorked enormous bottles of champagne. The helicopter was so low, I could see the people in its cabin. One of them opened the door and shot another flare downward. Kramer jumped up. I didn’t dream he could move so fast. He rushed from the room, his head down. From the helicopter something shiny fell and was lost in the grass. With a roar the machine lifted and flew off. On his knees in the high grass, Kramer opened a container no larger than a soccer ball, took out something, an envelope, and tore it open. The message must have been important because the paper shook in his hands. He looked in my direction. He was pale, changed. Again he read the paper, and stood. He crumpled it in his fist, put it in his pocket, and slowly crossed the lawn, not bothering to take the path. He came back in and without a word kicked one of the antibug devices. Something in it crackled and there was a little blue smoke from it. I still sat on the floor, and Kramer stamped on his equipment and tore at the wires as if he’d gone insane in earnest. Finally, out of breath, he took off his jacket and sank into the armchair. Then he looked at me as if seeing me for the first time, and grunted.

“I just lost my temper,” he explained. “They’ll retire me. Your career too is finished. Forget about the moon. You can send a postcard to Shapiro. Care of the Agency. They’ll still be there for a while, out of inertia.”

I said nothing, suspecting some new trick. Kramer took a large plaid handkerchief from his pocket, mopped his brow, and regarded me, I thought, with a mixture of pity and resentment.

“It started two hours ago and is going like a house on fire, everywhere. Incredible. We’re pacified, all right, here and overseas and from pole to pole! The global loss—trillions of dollars. Including space, because the satellites were the first to go. Why are you gaping?” he added, irritated. “Haven’t you figured it out? I got a letter from our Uncle Sam…”

“What does it say?”

“You think we’re still playing? No, my friend, the game is over. Sit down and write about your adventures, the Agency, the Mission, whatever you like. Maybe it will be a bestseller. And no one will touch a hair on your head. But don’t put it off, or the guys at the Agency may scoop you. They may already be starting their memoirs about the old order…”