Gorbovsky was silent for a while, looking at Kondratev and blinking. “Yes,” he said finally. “The lecture didn’t come out right, it seems. I started with the middle. The first three problems—planetological, astrophysical, and cosmogonic research. Then verification and further elaboration of the D-principle, id est, taking a brand new D-ship and driving it up against the light barrier until you can’t stand any more. And finally, attempts to establish contact with other civilizations in space—very cautious attempts, so far. My own favorite problem is connected with nonhuman civilizations too. Only we aren’t looking for contacts, but for traces. Traces of the visits of alien space travelers to various worlds. Some people maintain that under no circumstances can this mission be justified. Or did I already say that?”
“You did,” said Kondratev. “But what sort of traces do you mean?”
“You see, Sergei, any civilization must leave a great number of remains. Take us, the human race. How do we treat a new planet? We place artificial satellites around it, and a long chain of radio buoys stretches from there to the Sun—two or three buoys a light-year—beacons, universal direction-finders… If we manage to land on the planet, we build bases, science cities. And we don’t exactly take everything along when we leave! Other civilizations must do likewise.”
“And have you found anything?” asked Kondratev.
“Well, of course! Phobos and Deimos—you must know about that; the underground city on Mars; the artificial satellites around Vladislava… very interesting satellites. Yes… that’s more or less what we do, Sergei.”
“Interesting,” said Kondratev. “But I still would have chosen research into the D-principle.”
“Well, that depends on tastes and inclinations. And anyhow, now we’re all ferrying volunteers. Even proud researchers of the D-principle. Now we’re like the streetcar coachmen of your time.”
“There weren’t any streetcars left by my time,” Kondratev said with a sigh. “And streetcars were driven not by coachmen, but by… they called it something else. Listen, Leonid, have you had dinner?”
Gorbovsky sneezed, excused himself, and sat up. “Hold it, Sergei,” he said, extracting an enormous multicolored handkerchief from his pocket. “Hold it. Have I told you what I came for?”
“To talk spacer to spacer.”
“Right. But I didn’t say anything more? No?”
“No. Right away you got very interested in the couch.”
“Aha.” Gorbovsky blew his nose thoughtfully. “Do you by any chance know Zvantsev the oceanographer?”
“The only person I know is Protos the doctor,” Kondratev said sadly. “And now I’ve just met you.”
“Wonderful. You know Protos, Protos knows Zvantsev well, and I know both Protos and Zvantsev well. Anyhow, Zvantsev is dropping by shortly. Nikolai Zvantsev.”
“Wonderful,” Kondratev said slowly. He realized there was an ulterior motive lurking around here somewhere.
They heard the song of the door signal. “It’s him,” Gorbovsky said, and lay down again.
Zvantsev the oceanographer was enormously tall and extremely broad-shouldered. He had a broad copper-colored face, close-cropped thick dark hair, large steel-blue eyes, and a small straight mouth. He silently shook Kondratev’s hand, cast a sidelong glance at Gorbovsky, and sat down.
“Excuse me,” said Kondratev, “I’ll go order dinner. What would you like, Comrade Zvantsev?”
“I like everything,” said Zvantsev. “And he likes everything.”
“Yes, I like everything,” said Gorbovsky. “Only please, not oatmeal kissel.”
“Right,” Kondratev said, and went into the dining room.
“And not cauliflower!” Gorbovsky shouted.
As he punched out the numbers by the delivery-line cube, Kondratev thought, They had some reason for coming. They’re intelligent people, so they didn’t come out of simple curiousity—they came to help me. They’re energetic and active people, so they scarcely dropped by to console me. But how do they plan on helping? I need only one thing…. Kondratev narrowed his eyes and stood still for a moment, with his hand braced against the lid of the delivery cube. From the living room came:
“You’re lying around again, Leonid. There’s something of the mimicrodon in you.”
“Lolling is an absolute necessity,” Gorbovsky said with deep conviction. “It’s philosophically unassailable. Useless motions of the arms and legs steadily increase the entropy of the universe. I would like to say to the world, ‘People! Lie around more! Beware the heat death!’”
“I’m surprised you haven’t yet taken up crawling.”
“I thought about it. Too much friction. From the entropic point of view, locomotion in the vertical position is more advantageous.”
“Blatherer,” said Zvantsev. “Get up, and now!”
Kondratev opened the lid and set the table. “Dinner is served!” he shouted in a violently cheerful voice. He felt as if he were facing an exam.
There was noise of horseplay in the living room, and Gorbovsky answered, “I’m being brought.”
He appeared in the dining room, however, in a vertical position.
“You must excuse him, Comrade Kondratev,” said Zvantsev, who appeared close behind. “He’s always lying around. First in the grass, and later, without even cleaning himself up, he lies on the couch!”
“Where’s the grass stain? Where?” Gorbovsky shouted, and began looking himself over.
With difficulty, Kondratev smiled.
“I’ll tell you what,” Zvantsev said as he sat down at the table. “I see by your face, Sergei, that preambles are superfluous. Gorbovsky and I came to recruit you for work.”
“Thank you,” Kondratev said softly.
“I am an oceanographer and am working in an organization called the Oceanic Guard. We cultivate plankton—for protein—and herd whales—for meat, fat, hides, chemicals. Doctor Protos has told us that you are forbidden to go offplanet. And we always need people. Especially now, when many are leaving us for the Venus project. I’m inviting you to join us.”
There was a moment of silence. Gorbovsky, not looking at anyone, assiduously ate his soup. Zvantsev also began eating. Kondratev crumbled his bread. “Are you sure I’ll be up to it?” he asked.
“I’m sure,” said Zvantsev. “We have many former spacemen.”
“I’m about as former as you can get,” said Kondratev. “You don’t have any others like me.”
“Give Sergei a little more detail about what he could end up doing,” said Gorbovsky.
“You could be a supervisor on a laminaria plantation,” said Zvantsev. “You could guard the plankton plantations. There’s patrol work, but for that you need special qualifications—that will come with time. Best of all, there’s whale herding. Get into whale herding, Sergei.” He laid down his knife and fork. “You can’t imagine how fine that is!”
Gorbovsky looked at him with curiosity.
“Early, early in the morning… quiet ocean… reddish sky in the east. You rise up to the surface, throw open the hatch, climb out onto the turret and wait and wait. The water below your legs is green, clear; up from the deep rises a jellyfish—it turns over and goes off under the minisub… A big fish swims lazily past… It’s really fine!”
Kondratev looked at his dreamy, satisfied face, and suddenly, so unbearably that he even stopped breathing, he wanted to be on the ocean, in the salt air, instantly.
“And when the whales move to new pasture!” Zvantsev continued. “Do you know how it looks? In front and in back go the old males, two or three to a herd—they’re enormous, bluish-black, and they surge forward so evenly that it seems that they’re not moving, it’s the water rushing past them. They go in front, and the young ones and pregnant females after them. We’ve got the old males tamed—they’ll lead wherever we want, but they need help. Especially when young males are growing up in the herd—they always try to split it up and take part off with them. That’s where we have our work. This is where the real business begins. Or all of a sudden grampuses attack.”