The Futurological Congress Read online

  The Futurological Congress

  Stanislaw Lem

  THE FUTUROLOGICAL CONGRESS

  Stanislaw Lem

  (from the memoirs of Ijon Tichy)

  translated from the Polish by Michael Kandel

  The Eighth World Futurological Congress was held in Costa Rica. To tell the truth, I never would have gone to Nounas if it hadn't been for Professor Tarantoga, who gave me clearly to understand that this was expected of me. He also said-pointedly-that space travel nowadays was an escape from the problems of Earth. That is, one took off for the stars in the hope that the worst would happen and be done with in one's absence. And indeed I couldn't deny that more than once I had peered anxiously out the porthole-especially when returning from a long voyage-to see whether or not our planet resembled a burnt potato. So I didn't argue the point with Tarantoga, but only remarked that, really, I wasn't much of an expert on futurology. His reply was that hardly anyone knows a thing about pumping, and yet we don't stand idly by when we hear the cry of "Man the pumps!"

  The directors of the Futurological Association had chosen Costa Rica to be the site of their annual meeting, which this year was to deal exclusively with the population explosion and possible methods of keeping it in check. Costa Rica presently boasts the highest rate of demographic growth in the world; presumably the force of that reality alone was to help spur our deliberations to some successful conclusion. Though there were cynics who observed that only the new Hilton in Nounas had vacancies enough to accommodate all the futurologists, not to mention twice again as many reporters. Inasmuch as this hotel was completely demolished in the course of our conference, I can't be accused of making a plug when I say that the place was absolutely first-rate. These words have particular weight, coming from a confirmed sybarite; for indeed, it was only a sense of duty that had driven me to forsake the comforts of home for the travail of outer space.

  The Costa Rica Hilton soared one hundred and six floors upward from its flat, four-story base. On the roof of this lower structure were tennis courts, swimming pools, solariums, racetracks, merry-go-rounds (which simultaneously served as roulette wheels), and shooting galleries where you could fire at absolutely anyone you liked-in effigy-provided you put in your order twenty-four hours in advance, and there were concert amphitheaters equipped with tear gas sprinklers in case the audience got out of hand. I was given a room on the hundredth floor; from it I could see only the top of the bluish brown cloud of smog that coiled about the city. Some of the hotel furnishings puzzled me-the ten-foot crowbar propped up in a corner of the jade and jasper bathroom, for example, or the khaki camouflage cape in the closet, or the sack of hardtack under the bed. Over the tub, next to the towels, hung an enormous spool of standard Alpine rope, and on the door was a card which I first noticed when I went to triple-lock the super-yale. It read: "This Room Guaranteed BOMB-FREE. From the Management."

  It is common knowledge that there are two kinds of scholar these days: the stationary and the peripatetic. The stationaries pursue their studies in the traditional way, while their restless colleagues participate in every sort of international seminar and symposium imaginable. The scholar of this second type may be readily identified: in his lapel he wears a card bearing his name, rank and home university, in his pocket sticks a flight schedule of arrivals and departures, and the buckle on his belt-as well as the snaps on his briefcase-are plastic, never metal, so as not to trigger unnecessarily the alarms of the airport scanners that search boarding passengers for weapons. Our peripatetic scholar keeps up with the literature of his field by studying in buses, waiting rooms, planes and hotel bars. Since I was-naturally enough-unacquainted with many of the recent customs of Earth, I set off alarms in the airports of Bangkok, Athens and Costa Rica itself, having six amalgam fillings in my mouth. These I was planning to replace with porcelain in Nounas, but the events that followed so unexpectedly made that quite impossible. As for the Alpine rope, the crowbar, the hardtack and the camouflage cape, one of the members of the American delegation of futurologists patiently explained to me that today's hotels take safety precautions unknown in earlier times. Each of the above items, when included in the room, significantly increases the life expectancy of the occupant. How foolish it was of me, not to have taken those words more seriously!

  The sessions were scheduled to begin in the afternoon of the first day, and that morning we all received complete programs of the conference; the materials were handsomely printed up, elegantly bound, with numerous charts and illustrations. I was particularly intrigued by a booklet of embossed sky-blue coupons, each stamped: "Good for One Intercourse."

  Present-day scientific conventions, obviously, also suffer from the population explosion. Since the number of futurologists grows in proportion to the increase in magnitude of all humanity, their meetings are marked by crowds and confusion. The oral presentation of papers is quite out of the question; these have to be read in advance. Though there wasn't time for reading anything that morning-the Management treated us all to free drinks. This little ceremony took place without incident, barring the fact that a few rotten tomatoes were thrown at the United States contingent. I was sipping my Martini when I learned from Jim Stantor, a well-known UPI reporter, that a consul and a grade-three attachß of the American Embassy in Costa Rica had been kidnapped at dawn. The abductors were demanding the release of all political prisoners in exchange for the diplomats. To show they meant business, these extremists had already delivered individual teeth of their hostages to the Embassy and various government offices, promising an anatomical escalation. Still, this contretemps did not mar the cordial atmosphere of our morning get-together. The United States ambassador himself was there, and gave a short speech on the need for international cooperation-short, as he was surrounded by six muscular plainclothesmen who kept their guns trained on us all the time. I was rather disconcerted by this, especially when the dark-skinned delegate from India standing next to me had to wipe his nose and reached for the handkerchief in his back pocket. The official spokesman for the Futurological Association assured me afterwards that the measures taken had been both necessary and humane. Bodyguards now employ weapons of high caliber and low penetration, the kind security agents carry on board passenger flights in order that innocent bystanders not be harmed. In the old days it often happened that the bullet which felled the would-be assassin would subsequently pass through five or even six persons who, though minding their own business, were standing directly behind him. Still, the sight of a man at your side crumpling to the floor under heavy fire is not among the most pleasant, even if it is the result of a simple misunderstanding, which ends with an exchange of diplomatic notes and official apologies.

  But rather than attempt to settle the thorny question of humanitarian ballistics, perhaps I ought to explain why I was unable, all that day, to familiarize myself with the conference materials. So then, after hurriedly changing my blood-spattered shirt, I went to the hotel bar for breakfast, which usually I do not do. My custom is to eat a soft-boiled egg in the morning, but the hotel hasn't yet been built where you can have one sent up to your room that isn't revoltingly cold. This is due, no doubt, to the continually expanding size of metropolitan hotels. If a mile and a half separates the kitchen from your room, nothing will keep that yolk warm. As far as I know, the Hilton experts did study the problem; they came to the conclusion that the only solution would be special dumbwaiters moving at supersonic speeds, but obviously sonic booms in an enclosed area would burst everyone's eardrums. Of course you could always have the automatic cook send the eggs up raw and the automatic bellhop soft-boil them right in your room, except that that would eventually lead to people coming in and out with their own chick
en coops. And thus I headed for the bar.

  More than ninety-five percent of a hotel's guests are there for some conference or convention. The individual tourist, the single guest without a card in his lapel and briefcase stuffed with programs and memoranda, is as rare as a pearl in the desert. Besides our own group in Costa Rica, there was the Plenary Council of Student Protest Veterans, the Convention of Publishers of Liberated Literature, and the Phillumenist Society (matchbook collectors). As a rule, members of an organization are given rooms on the same floor, but the Management, apparently wishing to honor me, offered me one on the hundredth. It had its own palm tree grove, in which an all-girl orchestra played Bach while performing a cleverly choreographed striptease. I could have done quite well without all this, but unfortunately there were no other vacancies, so I was obliged to stay where they put me. Scarcely had I taken a seat at the bar on my floor when a broad-shouldered individual with a jet-black beard (a beard that read like a menu of all the past week's meals) unslung his heavy, double-barreled gun, stuck the muzzle right beneath my nose and asked, with a coarse laugh, how I liked his papalshooter. I had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but knew better than to admit it. The safest thing in such situations is to remain silent. And indeed, the next moment he confided in me that this high-powered repeater piece of his, equipped with a laser-finding telescopic sight, triple-action trigger and self-loader, was custom-made for killing popes. Talking continually, he pulled a folded photo from his pocket, a picture of himself taking careful aim at a mannequin in a robe and zucchetto. He had become an excellent shot, he said, and was now on his way to Rome, prepared for a great pilgrimage-to gun down the Holy Father at St. Peter's Basilica. I didn't believe a word of it, but then, still chattering away, he showed me, in turn, his airplane ticket, reservation, tourist missal, a pilgrim's itinerary for American Catholics, as well as a pack of cartridges with a cross carved on the head of each bullet. To economize he'd purchased a one-way ticket only, for he fully expected the enraged worshippers to tear him limb from limb-the prospect of which appeared to put him in the best possible humor. I immediately assumed that this was either a madman or a professional terrorist-fanatic (we have no lack of them these days), but again I was mistaken. Talking on and on, though he repeatedly had to climb off the high bar stool, for his weapon kept slipping to the floor, he revealed to me that actually he was a devout and loyal Catholic; the act which he had carefully planned-he called it "Operation P"-would be a great personal sacrifice, for he wished to jolt the conscience of the world, and what could provide a greater jolt than a deed of such extremity? He would be doing exactly what according to Scripture Abraham had been commanded to do to Isaac, except in reverse, as he would be slaying not a son, but a father, and a holy one at that. At the same time, he explained to me, he would attain the utmost martyrdom of which a Christian was capable, for his body would suffer terrible torment and his soul eternal damnation-all to open the eyes of mankind. "Really," I thought, "we have too many of these eye-opening enthusiasts." Unconvinced by his arguments, I excused myself and went to save the Pope-that is, to notify someone of this plot-but Stantor, whom I bumped into on the 77th floor bar, told me, without even hearing me out, that among the gifts offered to Hadrian XI by the last group of American tourists there had been two time bombs and a cask containing-not sacramental wine, but nitroglycerin. I understood Stantor's indifference a little better when I heard that the local guerrillas had recently mailed a foot to the Embassy, though as yet it was uncertain whose. In the middle of our conversation they called him to the phone; it seemed that someone on the Avenida Romana had just set fire to himself in protest. The bar on the 77th had an entirely different atmosphere than the one up on mine: there were plenty of barefoot girls in waist-length fishnet dresses, some with sabres at their sides; a number of them had long braids fastened, in the latest fashion, to neck bands or spiked collars. I wasn't sure whether these were lady phillumenists or perhaps secretaries belonging to the Association of Liberated Publishers-though most likely it was the latter, judging from the color prints they were passing around. I went down nine floors to where our futurologists were staying, and in the bar there had a drink or two with Alphonse Mauvin of Agence France-Presse; for the last time I tried to save the Pope, but Mauvin received my story with stoicism, observing that only last month a certain Australian pilgrim had opened fire in the Vatican, albeit on entirely different ideological grounds. Mauvin was hoping for an interview with one Manuel Pyrhullo. This Pyrhullo was wanted by the FBI, Süreté, Interpol, and a variety of other police organizations. It seems he had started a business which offered the public a new kind of service: that is, he hired himself out as a specialist-consultant on revolution through explosives (he was generally known under the pseudonym of "Dr. Boom"). Pyrhullo took great pride in the fact that his work was wholly nonpartisan. A pretty redhead wearing something that resembled a nightgown riddled with bullet holes approached our table; sent by the guerrillas, she was supposed to conduct a reporter to their headquarters. Mauvin, as he followed her out, handed me one of Pyrullo's fliers, from which I learned that it was high time to dispense with the bungling of irresponsible amateurs who couldn't tell dynamite from melinite, or fulminate mercury from a simple Bickford fuse. In these days of high specialization, the advertisement read, one attempted nothing on one's own, but placed one's trust in the expertise and integrity of certified professionals. On the back of the flier was a list of services, with prices given in the currencies of the world's most advanced and civilized nations.

  Just then the futurologists began to congregate in the bar, but one of them, Professor Mashkenasus, ran in pale and trembling, claiming there was a time bomb in his room. The bartender, evidently accustomed to such episodes, automatically shouted "Hit the deck!" and dived under the counter. But the hotel detectives soon discovered that some colleague had played a practical joke on the Professor, placing an ordinary alarm clock in his cookie jar. It was probably an Englishman-only they delight in such childish pranks-but the whole thing was quickly forgotten when Stantor and J. G. Howler, also from UPI, came in with the text of a memo from the United States government to the government of Costa Rica with regard to the matter of the kidnapped diplomats. The language of it was typical of all such official communiques; neither teeth nor feet were named. Jim told me that the local authorities might resort to drastic measures; General Apollon Diaz was currently in power and leaned toward the position of the hawks, which was to meet force with force. The proposal had already been made at Parliament (which stood in permanent emergency session) to counterattack: to pull twice the number of teeth from the political prisoners the abductors were demanding and mail them poste restante, as the address of guerrilla headquarters was unknown. The air edition of the New York Times ran an editorial (Schultzberger) calling for common sense and the solidarity of the human species. Stantor informed me in strictest confidence that the government had commandeered a train carrying secret military supplies- United States property-through Costa Rican territory on the way to Peru. Somehow the guerrillas hadn't yet hit upon the idea of kidnapping futurologists, which would certainly have made better sense from their point of view, inasmuch as there were many more futurologists than diplomats available in the country.

  A hundred-story hotel is an organism so vast and so comfortably isolated from the rest of the world, that news from the outside filters in as if from another hemisphere. So far the futurologists hadn't panicked; the Hilton travel desk wasn't swamped by guests making flight reservations back to the States or elsewhere. The official banquet and opening ceremonies were scheduled for two, and still I hadn't changed into my evening pajamas, so I rushed up to my room, dressed and took an elevator down to the Purple Hall on the 46th. In the foyer two stunning girls in topless togas, their bosoms tattooed with forget-me-nots and snowflakes, came over and handed me a glossy folder. Without looking at it I entered the hall, which was still empty, and gasped at the sight of the tables-not because the spr
ead was so extremely lavish, but the trays of hors d'oeuvres, the mounds of páté, the molds, even the salad bowls, everything was arranged in the unmistakable shape of genitalia. For a moment I thought it might be my imagination, but a loudspeaker somewhere was playing a song, popular in certain circles, which began with the words: "Now to make it in the arts, publicize your private parts! Critics say you can't offend 'em with your phallus or pudendum!"

  The first banqueters ambled in, gentlemen with thick beards and bushy whiskers, though they were really rather young, some in pajamas and some in nothing at all. When six waiters brought in the cake and I got a glimpse of that most indecent of desserts, there was no longer any doubt: I had accidentally strayed into the wrong hall and was sitting at the banquet for Liberated Literature. On the pretext that I couldn't find my secretary I beat a hasty retreat and took the elevator down a floor to the Purple Hall (I'd been in the Lavender), which by now was packed. My disappointment at the modesty of the reception I hid as best I could. It was a cold buffet, and there was nowhere to sit; all the chairs had been removed, so to eat anything one had to display an agility common to such occasions, particularly as there was an impossible crowd around the more substantial dishes. Senor Cuillone, a representative of the Costa Rican section of the Futurological Association, explained with an engaging smile that any sort of Lucullean abundance here would have been quite out of place, considering that a major topic of the conference was the imminent world famine facing humanity. Of course there were skeptics who said that the Association's allotments must have been cut, since only that could account for such heroic frugality. The journalists, long accustomed to doing without, busied themselves among us, seeking spot interviews with various foreign luminaries of prognostication. Instead of the United States ambassador, only the third secretary of the Embassy showed up, and with an enormous bodyguard; he was the only one wearing a tuxedo, perhaps because it would have been difficult to hide a bulletproof vest beneath a pair of pajamas. I learned that the guests from the city had been frisked in the lobby; supposedly there was already a growing pile of discovered weapons there. The meetings themselves were not to begin until five, which meant we had time to relax, so I returned to my room on the hundredth. I was terribly thirsty from the oversalted slaw, but since the bar on my floor had now been seized and occupied by the student protesters-dynamiters and their girls-and anyway one conversation with that bearded papist (or antipapist) had been quite enough-I made do with a glass of water from the bathroom sink. The next thing I knew, all the lights were out, and the telephone, no matter what number I dialed, kept connecting me with an automated recording of the story of Rapunzel. I tried to take the elevator down, but it too was out of order. The students were singing in chorus, shooting their guns in time to the music-in the other direction, I hoped. Such things happen even in the best hotels, which doesn't make them any the less aggravating, yet what perplexed me the most were my own reactions. My mood, fairly sour since that conversation with the Pope's assassin, was now improving by the minute. Groping about in my room, I overturned some furniture and chuckled indulgently in the dark; even when I cracked my knee against a suitcase it didn't diminish my feeling of good will towards all mankind. On the night table I found the remains of the brunch I'd had sent up to my room, took one of the convention folders, rolled it up and stuck it in the leftover butter, then lit it with a match: that made a sort of torch-it sputtered and smoked, but gave enough light. After all, I had more than two hours to kill, counting on at least an hour on the staircase, since the elevator wasn't working. I sat back in an armchair and observed with the greatest interest the fluctuations and changes that were taking place within me. I was cheerful, I was never happier. No end of reasons for this wonderful state of affairs came rushing to my mind. In all seriousness it seemed to me that this hotel room, plunged in Stygian darkness, filled with stench and floating ashes from a homemade torch, totally cut off from the rest of the world, with a telephone that told fairy tales-was one of the nicest places on the face of the earth. Moreover I felt an irresistible urge to pat someone on the head, or at least squeeze a hand and look long and soulfully into a pair of eyes.