This is a fan translation of Road to Mars (Дорога к Марсу) by fifteen Russian science fiction writers.
This chapter was written by Paul Amnuél.
I claim no rights to the contents herein.
Chapter 40
Space Is Our Home
"We're going," Anikeev grunted, examining the silvery surface of a touchscreen. There were no symbols, icons, or text on it, but the Commander could make out dots with a slightly different hue. Maybe those were the control "keys," or maybe they just seemed that way. "It seems that no one but you can control this thing, Ed."
"On the contrary, Commander." The hologram smiled. "No one can but you. My task is to maintain the system in its current state. Yours is to make decisions. Everything is going well. The command 'We're going' is being executed successfully."
Anikeev wanted to say that making decisions was not the same as knowing how to control an unfamiliar craft, but he didn't have time to finish that thought. Ahead and, a moment later, to the left and right, large windows or maybe screens appeared in the walls of the cabin, and the spacers froze in their seats, amazed at the panorama they saw. The Orion entered the atmosphere, and the air outside didn't have time to get hot, no one was feeling any g-forces that had to be present. Mars was floating under them just like Earth when they'd still been at a low orbit and hadn't started their flight. Mars? The green planet below with blue spots of seas and light-brown "streams" of various hues that looked like mountain ridges had nothing to do with the Mars the interplanetary probes had been studying for the entire 20th century. For a moment, Anikeev thought that the Orion had ended up in another star system. After everything he'd seen, even this possibility didn't seem out of the question. Possibly realizing the Commander's feelings, Givens said, "This is Mars, Commander. The real Mars. Are we landing in the same place or…"
"Valles Marineris, yes," Anikeev said firmly. "Assuming that valley exists on this Mars."
"Initiating landing," Givens said, and the hologram disappeared.
Anikeev waited for the retrorockets to fire for twenty seconds before the beginning of their aerodynamic descent, hot air would move past them, g-forces would press them into their seats and maybe would end up so strong (considering the actual thickness of the atmosphere) that the spacers would lose consciousness, and the fate of the expedition would only be in the hands of Givens…
Instead, the surface of the planet suddenly grew closer, as if the Orion dropped a hundred kilometers in an instant. He was now able to clearly make out the blue bands of rivers, and there were now yellow gaps in the greenery, where they could see movement, but Anikeev couldn't tell what was moving or even that it wasn't an optical illusion. No g-forces, no sensation of movement at all, only the picture on the screens kept changing. At one point, Anikeev thought that the screens were gone, so deep and natural the landscape outside was, as if he were flying in a hang glider, cool streams of air on his face, and the smell of steaming grass in his nose, making him want to just keep inhaling…
Anikeev thought he was unconscious for a moment. He'd had had the same sensation when he had to take a medical test under general anesthesia. His mind had shut off and was then back on again, and minutes, or maybe even hours, had passed him by.
The Orion was hovering motionless fifty meters over a forest clearing.
"Whoa!" Anikeev heard Kartashov exclaim. Several excited voices shouted something, and Anikeev himself was probably screaming before remembering that he was the commander who still had to make decisions.
"Landing!" he said. "Everyone get ready!"
The Orion started to descend slowly in complete silence, and then Anikeev heard the last sound he'd been expecting: a cricket was chirping loudly either in the cockpit or outside. Anikeev couldn't mistake it for anything else, as he'd fallen asleep to these sounds as a boy when staying at his grandmother's house in Odintsovo for the summer. At times, at night, after waking up because the full and serious Moon was staring at him through the window, he heard the same sound, as if the cricket hadn't stopped for a second, marking the time between sunset and sunrise.
"Am I the only one hearing that?" Bruno's voice brought Anikeev out of his musings that had no place now. "A cicada? Here?"
The movement ceased.
They were on Mars.
On Mars? A forest clearing, the sounds…
In the meantime, the transformation continued. The people were still recovering from the shock. They were sitting in landing seats and examining the landscape outside, feeling themselves under the dome of the Martian sky, surrounded on all sides by the strange trees of the Martian forest. The sky wasn't yellow-brown the way they'd expected, it was bright-green with a blue hue, with translucent silvery clouds slowly floating through it like boats on a river. And the forest… These weren't the same trees the Commander had loved as a boy, and yet Anikeev sensed something familiar in the wantonness of the greenery, even though he couldn't recall where and how he'd seen such a landscape. He left the reflections and search for analogies for later.
"We're on Mars," he said. "The Orion has landed."
Kartashov heard questioning notes in the Commander's words, as if Anikeev wanted someone to confirm that he wasn't seeing things, and they really were on Mars. He didn't have time to reply because Givens spoke first, appearing at full height in front of the control console.
"Gentlemen," the Caretaker said triumphantly, "we're on mars. The Orion has landed."
"Why," Anikeev said grumpily, trying to bring his friends back to reality with his intonation, "has Mars become different?"
"Please," Givens raised both hands, "lets leave the questions for later. I'll answer them all. By the way," he added, "while answering, I'm going to understand what's happening myself because the… hmm… knowledge doesn't appear in my head right away… You see, Commander, I can feel long-forgotten knowledge appear in my mind. I'd once taken physics courses at the University of Iowa that ended up not getting used later. I thought I'd forgotten them, and then I needed to read a book, and my memories just opened up… you get what I'm trying to say?.."
"We do," Anikeev answered for everyone. "First question: are you a hologram right now or…"
Givens walked up to the Commander's seat and proffered his hand. Anikeev grabbed it and pulled himself up. He'd been expecting to feel unsteady on his feet, but he was standing firmly.
Kartashov, Jeubin, Piccirilli, and Bull were already standing next to him, patting each other's shoulders. Each of them was expressing excitement differently, each wanted to also pat Givens on the shoulder or, at least, touch him to feel that he was real. The Caretaker took a step back and addressed Anikeev, "My mission is complete, Commander, I can feel it. The transformation is done, the goal has been reached. Ask away, I will be extracting everything I can from my memories. But it's your decision."
Anikeev walked up to the huge window.
"This reminds me of something," he said, nodding at the landscape. "I just can't remember what."
"A picture from Groves's Paleontological Atlas," Bull suggested. "This is a Devonian forest."
"With a cricket?" Anikeev chuckled.
"I doubt that's a real cricket," Bull shrugged.
"So are we on Mars or ancient Earth?"
"There's a river here I went down on!" Kartashov said confidently.
"You were going down the river, you were breathing the air…"
"Yes, Commander, and, since I'm not dead…"
"Givens?"
"I understand the question, Commander. You can breathe the air. There are also no microorganisms here dangerous to humans."
"And yet this is Mars?"
The Caretaker nodded.
"If this is a control panel," Anikeev noted, addressing Givens, "then we don't know how to use such a system. And I need information whether telemetry is being sent to Earth. Are there still antennae after the transformation?"
"The signal is powerful enough and is aimed at Earth," Givens interrupted. "I assume they already know that the Orion has landed. In about twenty minutes we're going to hear them."
"I can imagine what's happening in TsUP right now," Kartashov muttered.
"Listen," Piccirilli finally recovered and was excitedly running from one console to another, pressing his face against a window and examining the trees, the sand, and the sky. "Listen, why are we just talking here? Sounds like we can go outside. Without suits! So who's first? Who's going to say, 'That's one small step for man…'? Comandante!"
"No one is going anywhere until we get answers to our questions," Anikeev said calmly. "We have a quarter of an hour until Earth calls us and requests a full analysis of the situation. Sit down, gentlemen. Let's listen to Ed."
The explosion on Phobos was picked up by all the orbital telescopes aimed at Mars. An American TV satellite failed to detect the explosion, as the craft was on the opposite side of the planet at the moment, but the information on the changes on Mars itself was relayed to Earth, and everyone in TsUP saw on their screens how Mars had transformed in the blink of an eye along with the shocking news of the explosion. It looked like science fiction. Everyone in Mission Control Moscow, in Houston, in Hawaiian and Chilean observatories couldn't believe their eyes…
"Houston! Do you see that?"
"Moscow! Are you seeing the same thing we are?"
"A green planet!"
"Is that an ocean? Such a beautiful turquoise color!"
"Incredible!"
"Impossible!"
"Houston! I see a chain of lights on the night side, just like on our own photos of Earth at night! Cities? On Mars?"
"Moscow! We have a signal from the Orion!"
"We see it, Houston! Nick, is that a message of the automated landing!"
"Yes! We're about to get a picture from the external cameras, they're supposed to turn on as soon as they stop. God! Do you see it, Gleb?"
"I see, it's something…"
"A forest?"
"Looks like it, but that can't be! The operator is calling the Orion. No answer yet, I really hope that… Yes! We have it!"
"I hear it too, Gleb! They're alive! Moscow, congratulations on a brilliant, fantastic landing! God, these seven minutes were a nightmare, I admit…"
"Definitely, Nick, we… you saw… we nearly went insane. But what the hell does it all mean? Mars is green? A forest? This goes completely again—"
"Gleb, I see images from the Huygens telescope, photos of Mars, the planet is fully in the frame. On the eighteenth second after—"
"We can discuss this later, Nick, later. Anikeev is on the line!"
"Okay, Gleb, I'm plugging in…"
"Ground control hears us," the Commander announced.
He was standing in front of the console, trying to understand at least on the intuitive level what the colorful hues on the silvery square field indicated. Anikeev turned and saw that only Givens was standing in the middle of the cockpit with his hands folded on his chest and staring at the Commander. Everyone else was walking next to the huge windows, peering into the landscape that could only be called terrestrial at first glance. Yes, they were trees, but with very thick trunks and thin canopies, the leaves were long, intertwining like lianas, and the color… The leaves were changing their color every second: from dark green to light green with hints of stunning blue and then back to dark hues. It was as if the leaves were talking to each other in the language of colors. Anikeev thought about it and, for some reason, felt he wasn't mistaken. The cricket was also trying to say something: the sound alternated between cutting off and growing louder. It was almost like a song that also started including other sounds they hadn't heard before: something outside was hissing like air leaving through a narrow valve, something was hooting very quietly but clearly, as if a large animal was making its way through a thicket somewhere in the distance.
"Gentlemen," Anikeev said firmly, "let's leave that for later. Sit down. We need to finally understand what happened to us all."
"To us and the world around us," the Frenchman said, taking his place. The landing seat instantly changed its shape, receiving Jean-Pierre into its embrace.
"I think," Anikeev looked into Givens's eyes, and he didn't look away, "we'll get our explanations from the man calling himself the Caretaker."
"I hope," Edward muttered. "You see, Commander, at some point I felt something inside me… No, that's not it. I just stopped being myself. I felt that I was the Caretaker, able to change and shape space and time, matter and fields on a whim. I realized that I could do it with a thought… Actually, I used thought to call up already existing programs that, in turn, engaged the forces… It's a sensation… I don't have the words to describe it…"
"Don't try to find the words if they don't pop into your head right away," Anikeev asked. "You were talking about nanobots when the transformation began."
"Yeah," Givens nodded. "It was like an insight, like knowledge that suddenly… I realized that Phobos was actually an automatic center that has been functioning for a long time… And I don't mean thousands of years — millions."
"An alien intelligence?" Kartashov asked.
"I don't know. For some reason, it feels… Something inside me is resisting that theory…"
"Andrei," Anikeev said, "hold off on your close encounters. Let Ed speak."
"Thank you, Commander. The Center on Phobos controls… controlled… all the information humanity was receiving from Mars… We were seeing Mars the way the Center was showing us. The way Mars looked through telescopes, the way it was observed by interplanetary probes, the way it was seen by landing craft, no matter the distance or direction of the observation. Everything we've known about Mars since ancient times, everything we've associated Mars with is a result of the Center affecting our senses and even our equipment."
"Why?!" Jeubin couldn't hold back an exclamation. "So many years of deceit."
"Jean-Pierre," Anikeev said with reproach, but Givens ignored the Frenchman. It was as if he was deep within himself, his gaze was faded, he was speaking while listening to what seemed to be appearing in his mind, either floating up from the depth or being told to him.
"Occasionally, meteorites would fall on Phobos, but that never got in the way of the machinery working deep under the surface. But once… I can't tell you when, I don't see it… Phobos collided with an asteroid that was only three times smaller than the moon. The Stickney crater appeared with the Kepler Dorsum, and the Center experienced a malfunction. The systems reconstructed themselves and continued working as normal, but for a time… maybe a hundred or two hundred years… the people of Earth were able to see Mars in its natural state. They saw it as green… At times, the Center's systems experienced… no, not malfunctions… but errors, and then astronomers observed canals on Mars… In mid-20th century, the Soviet Union and then the United States started launching automated probes to Mars, and the Center had to change its operating mode. It started creating phenomena that prevented the interplanetary craft from seeing things the way they were. Occasionally, sandstorms happen in Martian deserts. But no one expected the sand nightmare that started when Mars 1 and Mars 2 approached the planet. No one observed such a global storm before or after. The mission of the first Marses was incomplete… The Center reacted to the appearance of the first interplanetary probes, and its tactics changed again. The Mariners got closer to the planet and were able to obtain clear enough pictures of the surface to bury the idea of canals built by Martians… The surface of Mars turned out to be cut up by craters like the Lunar surface. There were also tall mountains unseen on Earth. Subsequent Soviet Marses, equipped with better navigation and new equipment, missed and passed far from the target, failing to send back any information, as the Center managed to alter the probes' trajectory… American Mariners and Vikings sent back pictures of Mars that confused scientists. A woman's face looking up was photographed in the Martian desert. Yes, it was a mountain, but it had such a strange shape! Could nature create something like that?.. While the astrophysicists were discussing it, and everyone else was admiring the strange pictures, the Viking landers descended to the surface and sent back data from the surface that was considered to be reliable. Sand and sharp rocks all the way to the horizon. No signs of life… As if someone had made an oversight by showing the humans a piece of the true Mars and then realized their mistake… The Center fixed its mistakes quickly… But we were learning quickly too. The contradicting data from Mars was alarming. At almost the same time, Russia and US created special research groups examining the craziest theories to explain what was happening. And then, largely by accident, they were able to determine that Martian nanobots were active on Earth. Like viruses, they enter the human body and make us see the surrounding world a little different from the way it really is. Only powerful psychotronics or an immunity allow someone to bypass the clever blocks set up by the Center on Phobos in the human mind. By the way, since the early 21st century, the leaders of our nations undergo immunization. And not just them. Unfortunately, side effects are unpredictable, so we only make use of the procedure in extreme cases. For useful specialists, deep psychocoding was enough — it tricked the Center, which turned out not to be prepared for the sophistication of the human mind. An AI is never going to compare to a living brain. Moreover, we learned how to use the ancient nanobots for our own purposes by creating a modified version. That was how the Caretaker Project came to be. And I was a part of it. One of twenty specially prepared people, but it was I who ended up here with you."
Givens swept the crew with his gaze, and the impressionable Piccirilli, ignoring Anikeev's gesture, rose, walked up to Givens, unexpectedly for everyone (and maybe even to himself) embraced Edward, and, trying to catch his slipping gaze, said, "Poor guy… I can imagine how difficult it was for you."
Givens stepped back, and Anikeev finally made the Italian get back to his place. But Piccirilli didn't sit down, remaining standing behind the Commander's seat.
"Earth is listening to us right now," Givens's voice shook. "The first part of my speech has reached the antennae in Hawaii, and everything I'm saying is being heard in the American and Russian mission control centers. Since 2011, the Center on Phobos has been actively trying to prevent our expedition. But it failed. From now on, Mars belongs to us, the people of Earth."
Givens scratched the bridge of his nose, as if trying to think what else to say. He glanced at Anikeev, switched his gaze to Kartashov, and smiled suddenly. The smile looked embarrassed.
"I'm sorry, Andrei," Givens muttered, "that I wasn't able to help you when it was critical."
"It was for the good of mankind…" Kartashov replied. "No need for apologies."
Givens walked up to the console and glanced at the colorful game, the shades of silver moving onto one another. Anikeev took advantage of the pause to ask, "So the device you called Ghost 5 was altering the course of Ares and the Chinese? Through the use of gravity waves?"
"Gravity waves?" Givens asked and, listening to something, shook his head. "No, it's not gravity waves. I'm afraid I can't explain it." Givens was noticeably nervous, shifting from one foot to the other, his hands were in constant motion, his fingers alternating between intertwining and coming apart. "I… Sorry, friends, I just don't know the right words. It… someday."
"Technology of the future?" Jeubin chuckled.
"Basically, yeah… It does involve the gravitational field, but not as waves, it's very different physics, I don't…" He once again smiled in embarrassment and shrugged. "I'm just the Caretaker," Givens said. "For now."
"What about the Chinese?" Bull spoke for the first time, asking an unexpected question. "Do they have a Caretaker of their own aboard the Boat? Which of them?"
"Neither," Givens replied, moving away from the difficult question on the physical nature of the Ghost with obvious relief. "It was assumed that the Millennium Boat was going to dock with the Orion, and the Chinese crew would come over to our ship."
"Nonsense!" Jeubin exclaimed. "What were you bosses thinking when they forecasted this development?!"
"Yes, events did go out of control. Far too many competing interests, far too many seeking their piece of the pie. And also the Center, which managed to play on those contradictions…" Givens was silent for a moment then added sadly, "As a result, the Millennium Boat burned up. The angle of the dynamic descent turned out to be too steep, the atmosphere too thick… They're dead."
The spacers exchanged glances. Bull turned away and buried his face in his hands. With unseeing eyes, Anikeev was looking at the sky that still had clouds floating through it, although they were purple with an orange hue now. The clouds were shaped like ovals, making them look like airships flying in formation.
"I'd also like to say…" Givens's voice was growing quieter, his hands lowered and were hanging like whips, but his gaze… there was something in Edward's gaze that made Anikeev instinctively get up, walk up to Givens, and hold him up by the shoulders while the engineer's body was slowly slumping to the floor. Givens's eyes closed, he was breathing evenly. It seemed he was asleep.
Anikeev found himself standing on his knees and supporting Givens's head. Kartashov was kneeling next to him, with Bull, Piccirilli, and Jeubin bent over them.
"What's… with him?" the Frenchman muttered.
"Looks like he fell asleep," Anikeev replied uncertainly and, suddenly feeling that he was the commander again and that his every word carried the weight of an order, demanded, "Bruno, Jean-Pierre, take care of him. There has to be a portable diagnostic unit on board. Assuming the transformation hadn't affected it… Andrei, you need to prepare to go outside. I don't know what this Mars is like. No one does. There's life here. But what sort of life is it? You're the specialist!"
Jeubin and Piccirilli lifted Givens. The Caretakers body felt heavy in their arms.
"Let's get to work," Anikeev said. "Our expedition is just beginning."
As if in confirmation of his words, the voice of a man used to commanding seemed to appear in the cabin, "Orion, respond! You're about to be addressed by the President of the Russian Federation."
"Victor…" Nina adjusted her husband's tie and quickly pressed her cheek to his. "Victor, you're nervous, which means you're not sure of what you're going to say."
Bykov glanced into the mirror over his wife's shoulder, smiled at his reflection, and, still holding Nina by the shoulders, said, "If I was absolutely calm, then I'd have no place at this meeting. I'd just be saying nonsense by reading off the prepared text." Bykov kissed Nina on the lips and added, "Just keep thinking about me…"
They'd gotten married six months ago and spent their honeymoon in the halls, corridors, and officers of TsUP because Anikeev's crew was constantly on the line. The Orion had lifted off Mars and set course for Earth only the previous week. They'd gathered so much information on the planet that only recently been called red that, according to astronomers and astrobiologists, processing it would take months. Everything that had happened was making his head spin, and he had to report to the President of his conclusion, which were still preliminary, if not in two words, then at most in the half-hour the President had set aside for the report today.
Nina had thought she knew Victor well. After all, they'd worked together for three years, seeing each other almost every day. But it was only now that she realized just how internally solid this man was and how strongly mental patience and scientific romanticism were joined inside him.
"Yes," she said. "I'll be thinking only of you."
The car was waiting for him outside.
In the office he'd seen many times on TV, Bykov first saw the picture of the area where the Orion had landed. It took up the entire wall behind the President's desk. The shot had been taken from a low orbit at the moment when the five people on Mars were standing next to the ship and releasing the balloons with the flags of the nations.
Besides the President, there were also Yelena Serebryakova, who's discovered the Phobos nanovirus, and General Andrei Ukolov, with whom Bykov had spent many hours over the last several weeks. The General was a man who'd from the beginning been aware of all the problems: old, new, and, as Bykov sometimes thought, those yet to appear. Ukolov gave Bykov a friendly wink and smiled before growing serious once again.
"Please take your seats," the President offered after brief pleasantries. "Now," he said, taking his seat under the picture of Mars, "I'd like to hear… To hear what I'm probably not going to fully understand."
"Fully?" Bykov took the President's words as a suggestion to begin his report. "Unfortunately, it's going to be a while before it will be possible to fully understand what happened."
The President nodded, "There have been many attempts to explain to me what was really happening during the flight and after the landing and, most importantly, what awaits us now… But I'd also like to listen to the opinions of competent specialists."
"I'll do my best," Bykov muttered.
He remembered Nina's instructions and pushed away the annoying thoughts about how he, still not quite understanding the true and deep nature of what had happened was supposed to clearly and comprehensively explain what the scientists had come up with to the president of the country, a man who was, of course, intelligent, but who didn't understand quantum cosmology or the theory of evolution of the mind… Then again, was there anyone currently on Earth who could definitively say, "I know"? Einstein had said once that only two or three people in the world understood his Theory of Relativity. Later, the same was said of quantum physics. And now…
The President was staring into Bykov's eyes impatiently, so he began, "There are two versions of what happened: a crazy one and a really crazy one—"
"And which of them is crazy enough to be true?" the President asked, interrupting Bykov's chain of thought. He got confused and looked at the other man with reproach.
The President smiled encouragingly, "My apologies, I'm not going to interrupt you again. I'm listening."
"Yes, well… The first explanation came to us when we put together the facts that were beyond doubt: the appearance of ghosts on board, a phenomenon that was subsequently also observed in TsUP, the strange activity of the device called Ghost 5 on the Martian surface, the visions seen by some of the crewmembers and some people on Earth, and also the events like the Ares passing through the comet's tail, the discovery of artificial structures on Phobos, and, of course, the completely unexpected transformation of Mars, to say nothing of the statements made by Edward Givens calling himself the Caretaker… We should also remember the nanobots discovered by Dr. Serebryakova…" Bykov turned to her, who gave him a brief nod in reply.
"And the psychoenergetic influence on the subconscious of the people involved in the Martian program," she added.
"And the cessation of that influence after the explosion on Phobos," Bykov picked up. "All that basically struck the same point and led to the only assumption nearly everyone agrees with now. Specifically, that for the past several millennia, a center of a more advanced civilization has been located deep within Phobos. There's no single opinion on whose center it could've been. Maybe it belonged to a Martian civilization that had existed millions of years ago and died out, leaving behind a functional artifact… Or it could be the actions of aliens from other worlds whom we're preliminarily calling 'Phaetians'… The latter version hasn't found authoritative supporters for a fairly understandable reason: the distances between stars are far too great for regular and frequent trips."
"If I understand correctly, they're able to manipulate gravity," the President interrupted again. "That indicates very advanced technology, doesn't it? So why wouldn't that hypothetical civilization not sure the properties of space of which we can't even suspect at this point for traveling? What do you call them…" he hesitated. "Wormholes?"
"Unlikely," Bykov shook his head. "In the world of science, we generally don't explain an unexplained phenomenon with another phenomenon whose existence has not been proven… If we're talking about an extraterrestrial intelligence, then an intelligence that has arisen within the Solar System and apparently died out for some reason is a significantly more… hmm… natural hypothesis."
"But they can control gravity!"
"Yes. Well, they could."
"This center," the President hesitated, collecting his thoughts, "it was creating an illusion of a red lifeless Mars… why? But it was also affecting the subconscious of all the humans on Earth, right? So they… its creators… knew what modern science has yet to figure out: how the human mind and subconscious work!"
"Yes," Bykov nodded. "It seems that they know… knew that too."
"But why?!" the President exclaimed. "All right, so they knew that. Their science was that advanced… I assume they must've visited Earth."
"More than likely," Bykov replied cautiously.
"Then why this massive interference in the human psyche? Why make Mars appear different from what it really is? Can you explain that to me?"
"Alien souls…" Bykov muttered. "We don't have any obvious explanations and too many non-obvious ones, and choosing one of them… I don't know, there's no such explanation yet."
"But something! What do you personally think?"
"I'm not a specialist…" Bykov said. "All right. I believe… and this is my personal opinion… that they colonized the Solar System long ago… Millions of years ago. The inhabitants of Mars or some other plant that no longer orbits the Sun. They would've colonized Earth too, but there was already life here. They didn't want to interfere, didn't even want humans to know of the existence of an alien intelligence. They wanted for Earth's civilization to develop along its own path and not rely on fellow intelligent beings for help. That was why the center on Phobos was created. More than likely, there's one on Earth too. After all, it's difficult to imagine that all the control was being accomplished from a single center located far from our planet."
"But no such center has been found on Earth, right?" the President already knew it but wanted to hear another confirmation.
"Not yet," Bykov shook his head, "although Edward Givens insists that it definitely exists."
"It does," General Ukolov echoed. "We're looking…"
"I see," the President nodded. "To be honest… It's not a very pleasant feeling to suddenly realize that we've all been manipulated by some alien intelligence for centuries…" He was silent for a few moments. "And the second hypothesis, the one you called really crazy?"
"The second…"
Bykov thought that he didn't have much time left and would have to ignore… No, he was going to say what he wanted, and if the President wasn't going to let him finish, then… then so be it!
"A hundred years ago, Vladimir Vernadsky suggested the idea of the noosphere, a sphere of the mind that surrounded Earth. For a long time, that theory was seen as more of a pretty and useful metaphor rather than physical reality. And it was natural, as the noosphere only started manifesting itself after humans first went into space."
Bykov paused, unhappy at himself. That was not how he'd intended to start talking about this. He was still nervous and needed to get ahold of himself.
"There's no extraterrestrial intelligence! And there has never been. We're alone in the universe. The thing is, humanity is a single cosmic organism made up of billions of cells. When man was still unintelligent, this organism was at its most primitive level of development and never manifested itself. But as humans invented new things, made discoveries, built civilization, the unified organism—humanity—was also undergoing its own stages of development, of which we were not aware until recently."
"Yes, yes," the President said impatiently. "Dr. Serebryakova tried to explain it to me… But I don't understand… The cells of the human body are not intelligent, but they're a part of a single organism, they're connected by chemistry, molecular interactions, that I understand. But humanity, the noosphere… People are different. There's no physical contact. There are billions of us on all the continents. What single organism can there be? What connects all humans? Telepathy?"
"No. Telepathy doesn't exist the way it used to be understood. And yet each person is connected to all other people from the moment they're born…"
"From the moment they're born?" the President asked, and Bykov realized that he knew more than he wanted to show.
Losing his train of thought, Bykov drawled, "Maybe from the moment of conception… There's no single opinion on that… People used to argue when the human soul appeared. It's basically the same argument."
What am I talking about? Bykov thought. I'm only going to confuse myself, and then…
"These connections," he hurried to get back to his prepared text, "got more complicated as the number of people on Earth grew and the brain developed. As we understand it, all humans are connected by the field that penetrates our entire universe and makes it expand."
"Dark energy?" the President nodded. "But I don't understand how—"
"No one does," Bykov said. "It's still being speculated…"
"Speculated?" the President raised his eyebrows, clearly knowing the meaning of the word but trying to reduce the tension. He was how anxious Bykov was and wanted to give him a friendly pat on the hand, but, forced to obey protocol, permitted himself this small liberty.
"Speculation," Bykov failed to get the hint, "is a reasoning that has yet to be formulated as a scientific hypothesis. But there's no other explanation… Dark energy, like the electromagnetic field, permeates all of space, including each of us. This field has nearly the same intensity… hmm… let's say strength…"
"I know what field intensity is," the President replied dryly.
"Yes, my apologies… Nearly the same intensity in any point in the universe. The key is the word 'nearly.' Our instruments are unable to detect dark energy for the same reason we typically don't see the air we breathe until it gets mixed in with something like fog or smog. We see the air if we look far away, and then the sky looks blue to us. It's not an exact analogy, but we can't think of any other. We also don't notice dark energy because all of us, including our instruments, are 'floating' in this energy and only detect its manifestations at intergalactic distances, just like we see the blueness of the sky when we look at the distant horizon…"
Bykov paused, looked over those present, trying to gauge if they were paying attention. The President had his hands on top of his desk and was staring at Bykov's chin, Serebryakova's eyes were closed. As Bykov thought, she wasn't as much listening to him as comparing his words with what she knew. Ukolov was looking at Bykov encouragingly; he knew no more about physics than the President, but he'd frequently attended the science group's discussions and spent a lot of time talking to Anikeev.
"The idea was put forth by Eysenck from Harvard…"
The President's shoulder twitched ever so slightly. Bykov understood the gesture and said, "Our physicists probably didn't have as much information. Unfortunately… It happened before in the Soviet Union…"
"Yes, yes," the President grimaced. "It's a flaw. I know there was criticism, I know that Eysenck eventually abandoned the idea, and it was then developed by Beskin at the Sternberg Astronomical Institute and by you, right?"
Bykov nodded. He didn't think he'd developed Eysenck's hypothesis in any significant way, but he had participated in discussions, put in his two cents, and they were heard.
"The idea is that, as a result of interactions with dark energy, which is, I repeat, fill the entire universe nearly uniformly, the tension of the field is the same in Moscow, Australia, and on Mars. Ever since the time of the Neanderthals, humanity has been a single developing quantum system."
"An organism needs to have an organ responsible for the interaction, right?" the President asked. "This field… it's very weak."
"Extremely. But there is such an organ, of course. The brain. This function hasn't been studied yet, even though Sir Roger Penrose, a well-known physicist, brought up the possibility in the last twentieth century. Meaning that the human brain follows quantum laws rather than those of classical physics. In effect, the brain is a quantum system that is in a state of entanglement with many other quantum systems, which, as is believed now, determines our place in the universe — the dark energy field. There have been many examples in history… I mean to say that we've been seeing manifestations of our influence on the world around us for a long time. List ghosts. Clairvoyants. Prophets. As a single cosmic organism, humanity creates the phenomena it needs to survive. As a single organism, humanity behaves instinctively but does everything preserve itself and evolve. Unlike an ant civilization, where each ant is non-intelligent, while the anthill exhibits certain strange signs of intelligence, it's the opposite with humanity. Each person, a cell of the humanity organism, is intelligent, but the organism itself does not possess intelligence, only instincts and reflexes developed over millions of years. At some point, the survival instinct demanded polytheism, and so the gods of Olympus appeared. They appeared for real. When the evolution of the organism demanded monotheism, the Judaic God appeared…"
"So you're trying to say—"
"That Moses did indeed… well, more than likely, if we want to be careful about drawing conclusions… saw a burning bush and heard the voice of God. In essence, it was the voice of humanity itself, it can be compared to our own inner voice, but it's real, just like many of the phenomena described in the Old and New Testaments."
"Christ?.."
"Of course! And then… ghosts that appeared to people. And there were also prophets that could, without understanding the truth, really see certain future events… Time is meaningless in the quantum realm. The future, the present, and the past are equally real, and the brain is capable of, under certain conditions, observing things that have yet to happen, things that happened many years ago to any other person… When we went out into space, this also changed the cosmic manifestation of humanity as an organism. Vernadsky's noosphere is a brilliant insight, but it's merely the outer layer of the real Homo cosmicus. Why were there a great number of unidentified flying objects in the late-20th century? Why were there aliens and contactees on Earth?.. There have never been any aliens! It's all a product of our mind, a physical response, humanity's reaction to the changes in our environment… It was a strange contradiction. On the one hand, scientists were certain that alien civilizations didn't exist, there were no signals, space was silent, and that became the subject of many scientific discussions. On the other hand, ufologists and contactees saw alien visitors. Humans were being abducted, returned, humans were being shown strange images and told how humanity needed to develop. Scientists considered it a fad, a fantasy, as a mass arrival of aliens went against the laws of physics. In reality, humanity was creating fairly real phenomena for itself, which helped the development of the unique being called Homo cosmicus."
"Telepathy?" the President went back to his earlier thought.
"Not in that sense… Transmitting thoughts far away is impossible if only due to the inverse-square law. Any such signal, assuming it even existed, would grow too weak to be noticeable. And yet there is a transmission that takes place through that same dark energy field that, as I already said, is virtually the same everywhere."
Bykov reached the main part of his, in his opinion, far too long speech. He'd been practicing it, memorized it almost word for word, but he'd still gotten sidetracked and had to hurry now in order to have time to speak his conclusion.
"When man went out into space and, in particular, when the flight to Mars began, our space organism showed itself in a very unpredictable and, at the same time, obvious way! The organism reacted to the changes in its environment! Nothing more. And it reacted in ways strange to us: visions aboard the ship, physical doubles on Earth, a center we know almost nothing about on Phobos… A strange formation on Mars we called Ghost 5. Right after the Ares has landed, all the hallucinations ended, and the Ghost disappeared too, which, as a creation of the cosmic humanity, fulfilled its mission and was destroyed, the way we might throw away an expended battery."
"So that means…" The President hesitated. "We can't take a step without someone watching or playing tricks on us…"
"No one is watching us, and no one is playing tricks on us! We're doing it all… It's not a very good analogy, but I'll get back to an organism and its cells. Each cell of Homo cosmicus, being intelligent, believes that it is being watched, sent strange phenomena, manipulated… But it participates in all of it as a part of the organism. And the organism is simply behaving the way the laws of survival demand. Every cell—every individual human—is important to the organism, but if a cell needs to be sacrificed…"
"And the cells," the President spoke thoughtfully, "instead of working for the organism together, are fighting each other to the death. How does this fit into your theory?"
"It's not mine… and it's not a theory yet…" Bykov muttered. "It's very simple: the organism is evolving. Through contradictions, yet. Wars, revolutions, religious strife, ideals, vices, achievements — it all affects Homo cosmicus… in essence, our common fate."
"Do you think we're going to survive?"
Bykov shrugged.
"Actually," he said, "any organism strives to preserve itself… Maybe that's why we haven't started Armageddon, even though we were close to the edge many times…"
"Thank you," the President said and rose.
Bykov also rose, nearly toppling his chair.
"Thank you, Dr. Bykov," the President repeated.
It looked like he wanted to shake Bykov's hand but restrained himself from doing this gesture that went against protocol.
"As a young man," the President went on, "I loved science fiction. I remember Lem's words… From Solaris, wasn't it? 'Among the stars, the unknown awaits us.' And also about the time of frightening miracles. It seems that we're the ones creating the unknown and the miracles with our presence in space. Is my understanding correct?"
Bykov nodded.
"We're going to have to account for all that," he said, "in future space expeditions. Make allowances for the whims of our own minds. Assuming the second hypothesis is proven true rather than the first."
The President smiled.
"Man has always created difficulties for himself and then had to overcome them."
"True… But now we'll have to treat many known things differently."
Bykov glanced at his watch. Strange, it always worked perfectly, but now the second hand was fluttering lazily, crawling from one second to the next instead of hopping over, as if wondering whether it even had to mark time. Bykov lifted his gaze at the electronic clock over the door and was shocked to discover that it had been an hour and thirty-five minutes. He'd been talking for three times as long as he thought.
"You did everything well," General Ukolov whispered in his ear.
The President was standing at his desk and waiting for his guests to leave the office. Sensing his gaze, Bykov turned and let Serebryakova and Ukolov go first. The President's gaze seemed to be ordering him to wait a minute. The thought seemed ridiculous to Bykov, but, when the General left the office, he paused, waiting for… what? Bykov didn't know.
"God created man in his own image," the President said quietly. "Is that true?"
Bykov wasn't ready for the question, but he still said, "Humanity, Homo cosmicus is God for humans…"
"Someday that being… the noosphere… cosmic humanity… Homo cosmicus, as you call it… will become intelligent. It's going to stop entertaining itself by creating flying saucers, ghosts, hallucinations for us…"
Bykov understood what was bothering the President.
"When humanity becomes intelligent, the cells of its body will stop killing each other."
The President nodded in agreement. Although maybe he'd been talking about something else.
It was evening. A quick, warm summer rain had passed recently, and the air was permeated with humidity. The car was waiting for Bykov at the entrance, but he wanted to take a walk, so he caught up to Yelena Serebryakova, who also looked like she wanted to get a breath of fresh air after the difficult conversation with the President. Then again, she'd ended up mostly being quiet and listening, but Bykov had said everything correctly, so her intervention was unnecessary. And yet she was just as tired.
"Nice evening, isn't it?" Bykov walked next to her.
"Look." Serebryakova touched Bykov's sleeve and looked up.
A bright green emerald was shining brightly over the ancient walls of the Kremlin in the night sky of Moscow, surrounded by the still dim stars.
"You know," Serebryakova said, "I regret that I didn't get to fly towards them."
"You will," Bykov smiled. "A specialist like you will probably be needed in future expeditions."
"What about you?"
"My place is on Earth," Bykov sighed. "Everything important is still down here, right?"
The green planet Mars was rising over the horizon. Not the fearsome Greek god of war, but a symbol of the future peaceful life.