His Master's Voice

by Stanisław Lem

the President, who had assured him that all the research of the Project would be published, except information that might be detrimental to the national interest of the United States.

It was one of those typical situations of the scientist of our time—zeroed in on and magnified, a prime specimen. The easiest way to keep one’s hands clean is the ostrich-Pilate method of not involving oneself with anything that—even remotely—could contribute to increasing the means of annihilation. But what we do not wish to do, there will always be others to do in our place.

If I know that something is happening that is extremely important but at the same time a potential menace, I will always prefer to be at that spot than to await the outcome with a clear conscience and folded hands.

he constantly wanted to do more than he was able.

Everything he said, he said in quotes, with an artificial, exaggerated emphasis, and with the elocution of someone playing a succession of improvised, ad hoc roles. Therefore, whoever did not know him long and well was confounded, for it seemed impossible ever to tell what the man thought true and what false, and when he was speaking seriously and when he was merely amusing himself with words.

trick, in principle very simple, through consistent application rendered him quite impossible to pin down or catch.

With humor, with self-irony, he built up around his person such a system of invisible fortifications that even those—like me—who had known him for years could not predict how he would react. I think that he strove particularly for this, and that the things he did, which sometimes indeed bordered on the clownish, he did with secret design, though they seemed perfectly spontaneous.

he placed knowledge of man over knowledge of nature.

one naturally assumed he understood himself well, too. A mistaken assumption, I believe.

He had the special penetration of the richly endowed, who are able to take hold of any problem, even one foreign to them, immediately from the proper angle, as if instinctively.

He was convinced that the culmination of humanity had already taken place, long ago, possibly in the Renaissance, and that a long, accelerating downhill career had begun.

He had no political ambitions himself; or, if he did, he kept them even from me. But various and sundry gubernatorial candidates, their spouses, Congressional hopefuls or “in” Congressmen, and gray-haired, doddering Senators, as well as those hybrid types only half politico, or a quarter, who occupy positions veiled in mist (but mist of the best quality), were all to be found, all the time, at his house.

those contacts bore fruit, because during the screening of candidates for the post of science director of the Project it came to light that they all—all the advisers, experts, board members, committee chairmen, and five-star generals—wanted only Baloyne, trusted only Baloyne.

He, however, and I know this, was not at all eager to assume the post, smart enough to realize that sooner or later there would be conflict, and ugly conflict, between the two groups that it would be his job to keep united.

remember the Manhattan Project and the fate of people among those who directed it but were scientists, not generals. While the latter were all promoted and could tranquilly set about writing their memoirs, the former, with surprising regularity, met with “o...

besides everything else, he must have been driven by a genuine curiosity.

only a man to whom fear, day by day, is a stranger can be cowardly with the full knowledge that he is being cowardly. One who is timorous and unsure will lack the courage to expose himself so horribly, confirming, as it were—to himself as well—the

Osier’s

we were both aware of the ineradicable ridiculousness of the situation.

As long as we regarded each other with what I might call a purely animal sympathy, nothing marred the harmony of our reunion. But, though curious about the secret, I first questioned him on the Project’s position with respect to the Pentagon and the Administration, and, specifically, about the extent of freedom allowed in using the possible results of the research. He tried, though halfheartedly, to avail himself of that ponderous dialect employed by the State Department; I became, therefore, more acerbic with him than I intended, as a result of which a tension arose between us, and it was washed away only by the red wine

he had not at all contracted the infection of officialdom,

spoken so as to invest the maximum amount of sound with the minimum of meaning—because his office was riddled with bugging devices. Practically all the buildings, and the labs, ...

none of them went anywhere without a little scrambling apparatus; they took a childish delight in foiling the ubiquitous protection placed over them.

the telephones, I was advised, were not to be used for matters other than making dates with the girls

There were no people in uniform, as I said, not even the type who brought uniforms to mind, in the entire community.

All this did not amuse me in the least,

though I have a fairly active sense of humor.

How reliable is his narrative?

Nye represented a very real power, and neither his manners nor his love of Hu...

he who was the quietly smiling spiritus movens of the Project—or, rather, its velvet-gloved ruler.

even if he is insulted, the insult is not addressed to him personally but to the power he represents. Thus he can identify himself with that power—a convenient arrangement, since such impersonalization provides him with a sense of constant, safe superiority.

objects—I detest such people, and am unable to transform the feeling into its comical or ironic equivalent.

Nye gave me a wide berth, as one does with a vicious dog; otherwise the man would not have been able to fulfill his function. I showed him my contempt, and he definitely paid me back with interest, in his impersonal way, though he was always extremely polite. Which, of course, only irritated me the more.

My human form was, in the eyes of people like him, a mere casing that contained an instrument needed for higher goals—goals...

possibly they were only a goo...

Even more un-American and...

This kind of rational husbandry, in Rappaport’s opinion, was what awaited the scientists; it was in fact already being put into practice in our own case. He made me this prediction in all seriousness. The wholesale dealer takes no interest in the inner life of the trained pig that runs about for the truffles; all that exists for him are the results of the pig’s activity, and it is no different between us and our authorities.

rational husbandry of scientists admittedly has been hindered by relics of tradition, those unthinking sentiments that came out of the French Revolution,

the well-equipped sties—that is to say, the shining laboratories—other installations should be provided, to deliver us from a...

Availing himself appropriately of outlets here and there, the scientist-pig—explained Rappaport—can then, without further distraction, devote himself to the hunting of truffles, for the benefit of the rulers but to the undoing of humanity, as indeed the new stage in history will demand of him.

one’s personal experience in life is fundamentally unconveyable. Nontransmittable.

the subordinates had to behave that way; they were hiding from the victims in the hatred of them, but the hatred could not be produced in themselves except through acts of brutality.

it made the faces hideous, inhuman, and in this way—I am quoting Rappaport—there did not appear, in what was done, a gap through which horror might peer, or compassion.

if no one stepped forward, all would die: hence whoever now came forth from the line really would be risking nothing. It was simple, clear, and certain.

Rappaport then asked me why the officer requested a volunteer and had been prepared, in the absence of one, to kill the lot of them, though that would have been “unnecessary”—on that particular day, at any rate—and why, moreover, he did not even consider announcing that nothing would happen to the volunteer. I did not, I confess, pass this test:

Although he spoke to us, you see, we were not people. He knew that we comprehended human speech but that nevertheless we were not human; he knew this quite well. Therefore, even if he had wanted to explain things to us, he could not have. The man could do with us what he liked, but he could not enter into negotiations, because for negotiation you must have a party in at least some respect equal to the party who initiates it,

Rappaport, innocent and surprised, shook his head several times, held up his hands, and said that he had nothing, absolutely nothing to say.

Rappaport ~ German in his story

the central figures of the Project from a less official angle,

special atmosphere of a community sealed off ...

an ersatz diplomatic corps representing mankind vis-à-vis the Universe.

But which group -- senders or the receivers -- is the diplomat and which the native?

Although different, we joined to become an organism that studied the “letter from the stars”; we formed a group that had its own customs, tempo, and social patterns, with subtle variations on the official, semiofficial, and private levels. All this, taken together, created the “spirit” of the institution, but more than that, too—what

~ ANDROMEDA STRAIN