Memoirs of a Space Traveler

LET US SAVE THE UNIVERSE (An Open Letter from Ijon Tichy)

After a long stay on Earth I set out to visit my favorite places from my previous expeditions — the spherical clusters of Perseus, the constellation of the Calf, and the large stellar cloud in the center of the Galaxy. Everywhere I found changes, which are painful for me to write about, because they are not changes for the better. There is much talk nowadays about the growth of cosmic tourism. Without question tourism is wonderful, but everything should be in moderation.

The eyesores begin as soon as you are out the door. The asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is in deplorable condition. Those monumental rocks, once enveloped in eternal night, are lit up now, and to make matters worse, every crag is carved with initials and monograms.

Eros, the particular favorite of lovers, shakes from the explosions with which self-taught calligraphers gouge inscriptions in its crust. A couple of shrewd operators there rent out hammers, chisels, and even pneumatic drills, and a man cannot find an untouched rock in what were once the most rugged areas.

Everywhere are graffiti like IT WAS LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT ON THIS HERE METEORITE, and arrow-pierced hearts in the worst taste. On Ceres, which for some reason large families like, there is a veritable plague of photography. The many photographers there don’t just rent out spacesuits for posing, but cover mountainsides with a special emulsion and for a nominal fee immortalize on them entire groups of vacationers. The huge pictures are then glazed to make them permanent. Suitably posed families — father, mother, grandparents, children — smile from cliffs. This, as I read in some prospectus, creates a “family atmosphere.” As regards Juno, that once beautiful planetoid is all but gone; anyone who feels like it chips stones off it and hurls them into space. People have spared neither nickel-iron meteors (which have gone into souvenir signet rings and cuff links) nor comets. You won’t find a comet with its tail intact any more.

I thought I would escape the congestion of cosmobuses, the family portraits on cliffs, and the graffiti doggerel once I left the Solar System. Was I wrong!

Professor Bruckee from the observatory complained to me recently that both stars in Centaurus were growing dim. How can they not grow dim when the entire area is filled with trash? Around the heavy planet Sirius, the chief attraction of this system, is a ring like those of Saturn, but formed of beer bottles and lemonade containers. An astronaut flying that route must dodge not only swarms of meteors but also tin cans, eggshells, and old newspapers. There are places where you cannot see the stars, for all the rubbish. For years astrophysicists have been racking their brains over the reason for the great difference in the amounts of cosmic dust in various galaxies. The answer, I think, is quite simple: the higher a civilization is, the more dust and refuse it produces. This is a problem more for janitors than for astrophysicists. Other nebulae have not been able to cope with it, either, but that is small comfort.

Spitting into space is another reprehensible practice. Saliva, like any liquid, freezes at low temperatures, and colliding with it can easily lead to disaster. It is embarrassing to mention, but individuals who fall sick during a voyage seem to consider outer space their personal toilet, as if unaware that the traces of their distress will orbit for millions of years, arousing in tourists bad associations and an understandable disgust.

Alcoholism is a special problem.

Beyond Sirius I began counting the huge signs advertising Mars vodka, Galax brandy, Lunar gin, and Satellite champagne, but soon lost count. I hear from pilots that some cosmodromes have been forced to switch from alcohol fuel to nitric acid, there being nothing of the former left to use for takeoff. The patrol service says that it is difficult to spot a drunken person from a distance: people blame their staggering on weightlessness. And the practices of certain space stations are a disgrace. I once asked that my reserve bottles be filled with oxygen, after which, having traveled no more than a parsec, I heard a strange burbling and found that I had been given, instead, pure cognac! When I went back, the station director insisted that I had winked when I spoke to him. Maybe I did wink — I have a stye — but does that justify such a state of affairs?

Confusion reigns on the main routes. The huge number of accidents is not surprising, considering that so many people regularly exceed the speed limit. The worst offenders are women: by traveling fast they slow the passage of time and age less. Also, one frequently encounters rattletraps, like the old cosmobuses that pollute the length of the ecliptic with their exhaust.

When I landed on Palindronia and asked for the complaint book, I was told that it had been smashed the day before by a meteorite. And the supply of oxygen is running short. Six light-years from Beluria it cannot be obtained anywhere, people who go there to sightsee are forced to freeze themselves and wait, reversibly dead, for the next shipment of air, because if alive they would have not a thing to breathe. When I arrived, there was no one at the cosmodrome; they were all hibernating in the coolers. But in the cafeteria I saw a complete assortment of drinks — from pineapples in cognac to pilsner.

Sanitary conditions, particularly on those planets within the Great Preserve, are outrageous. In the Voice of Mersituria I read an article calling for the extermination of those splendid beasts, the swallurkers. These predators have on their upper lips a number of shiny warts in diverse patterns. In the last few years, however, a variety with warts arranged in the form of two zeroes has been appearing more frequently. Swallurkers usually hunt in the vicinity of campsites, where at night, under cover of darkness, they lie, with wide-open jaws, in wait for people seeking a secluded spot. Doesn’t the author of the article realize that the animals are completely innocent, that one should blame not them but those responsible for the lack of proper plumbing facilities?

On this same Mersituria the absence of public conveniences has caused a whole series of mutations among insects.

In places famous for beautiful views one often sees comfortable wicker chairs that seem to invite the weary stroller. If he eagerly sits down between the arms, the supposed chair attacks, for it is actually thousands of spotted ants (the bottombiter chair ant, Multipodium psuedostellatum Trylopii) that group together and mimic wicker furniture. Rumor has it that certain other varieties of arthropods (fripples, scrooches, and brutalacean rollipedes) have mimicked soda stands, hammocks, and even showers with faucets and towels, but I cannot vouch for the truth of such assertions, having myself seen nothing of the kind, and the myrmecological authorities are silent on this point. However, I should give a warning about a rather rare species, the snakefooted telescoper (Anencephalus pseudoopticus tripedius Klaczkinensis). The telescoper also stations itself in scenic spots, extending its three long, thin legs like a tripod and aiming its tubular tail at the scenery. With the saliva that fills its mouth opening, it imitates the lens of a telescope, enticing the careless tourist to take a peek, with extremely unpleasant consequences. Another snake, the trippersneak (Serpens vitiosus Reichenmantlii), found on the planet Gaurimachia, lurks in bushes and trips unwary passers-by with its tail. However, this reptile feeds exclusively on blondes and does not mimic anything.

The universe is not a playground, nor is biological evolution an idyll. We ought to publish brochures like those I saw on Derdimona, warning amateur botanists about the cruella (Pliximiglaquia bombardons L.). The cruella has gorgeous flowers, but they must not be picked, because the plant lives in symbiosis with the brainbasher, a tree bearing fruit that is melon-sized and spiked. The careless botanizer need pluck only one flower, and a shower of rock-hard missiles will descend upon his head. Neither the cruella nor the brainbasher does any harm to the victim afterward; they are content with the natural consequences of his death, for it helps fertilize the surrounding soil.

But marvels of mimicry occur on all the planets in the Preserve. The savannas of Beluria, for example, abound with colorful flowers, among which there is a crimson rose of wondrous beauty and fragrance (the Rosa mendatrix Tichiana, as Professor Pingle named it, for I was the first to describe it). This flower is actually a growth on the tail of the herpeton, a Belurian predator. The hungry herpeton hides in a thicket, extending its extremely long tail far ahead, so that only the flower protrudes from the grass. When an unsuspecting tourist stoops to smell it, the beast pounces on him from behind. Its tusks are almost as long as an elephant’s. What a strange, extraterrestrial confirmation, this, of the adage that every rose has its thorns!

If I may digress a little, I cannot help recalling another Belurian marvel, a distant relative of the potato — the sentient gentian (Gentiana sapiens suicidalis Pruck). The name of this plant derives from certain of its mental properties. It has sweet and very tasty bulbs. As a result of mutation, the gentian will sometimes form tiny brains instead of the usual bulbs. This mutant variety, the crazy gentian (Gentiana mentecapta), becomes restless as it grows. It digs itself out, goes into the forest, and gives itself up to solitary meditation. It invariably reaches the conclusion that life is not worth living, and commits suicide.

The gentian is harmless to man, unlike another Belurian plant, the furiol. This species has adapted to an environment created by intolerable children. Such children, constantly running, pushing, and kicking whatever lies in their path, love to break the eggs of the spiny slothodile. The furiol produces fruits identical in form to these eggs. A child, thinking he has an egg in front of him, gives vent to his urge for destruction and smashes it with a kick. The spores contained in the pseudo-egg are released and enter his body. The infected child develops into an apparently normal individual, but before long an incurable malignant process sets in: cardplaying, drunkenness, and debauchery are the successive stages, followed by either death or a great career. I have often heard the opinion that furiols should be extirpated. Those who say this do not stop to think that children should be taught, instead, not to kick objects on foreign planets.

I am by nature an optimist and try to have faith in man, but it is not always easy. On Prostostenesa lives a small bird known as the scribblemock (Graphomanus spasmaticus Essenbachii), the counterpart of the terrestrial parrot, except that it writes instead of talks. Often, alas, it writes on fences the obscenities it picks up from tourists from Earth. Some people deliberately infuriate this bird by taunting it with spelling errors. The creature then begins eating everything in sight. They feed it ginger, raisins, pepper, and yellwort, an herb that lets out a long scream at sunrise (it is sometimes used as an alarm clock). When the bird dies of overeating, they barbecue it. The species is now threatened with extinction, for every tourist who comes to Prostostenesa looks forward to a meal of roast scribblemock, reputed to be a great delicacy.

Some people believe that it is all right if humans eat creatures from other planets, but when the reverse takes place they raise a hue and cry, call for military assistance, demand punitive expeditions, etc. Yet it is anthropomorphic nonsense to accuse extraterrestrial flora or fauna of treachery. If the deadly deceptorite, which looks like a rotten tree stump, stands posing on its hind legs to mimic a signpost along a mountain trail, leads hikers astray, and devours them when they fall into a chasm — if, I say, the deceptorite does this, it is only because the rangers in the Preserve do not maintain the road signs. The paint peels off the signs, which causes them to rot and resemble that animal. Any other creature, in its place, would do the same.

The famous mirages of Stredogentsia owe their existence solely to man’s vicious inclinations. At one time chillips grew on the planet in great numbers, and warmstrels were hardly ever found. Now the latter have multiplied incredibly. Above thickets of them, the air, heated artificially and diffracted, gives rise to mirages of taverns, which have caused the death of many a traveler from Earth. It is said that the warmstrels are entirely to blame. Why, then, don’t their mirages mimic schools, libraries, or health clubs? Why do they always show places where intoxicating beverages are sold? The answer is simple. Because mutations are random, warmstrels at first created all sorts of mirages, but those that showed people libraries and adult-education classes starved to death, and only the tavern variety (Thermomendax spirituosus halucinogenes of the family Anthropophagi) survived. This special adaptation of the warmstrel, brought about by man himself, is a powerful indictment of our vices.

Not long ago I was incensed by a letter to the editor in the Stredogentsia Echo. The writer demanded the removal of both the warmstrels and the solinthias, those magnificent trees that are the pride of every park. When their bark is cut, poisonous, blinding sap squirts out. The solinthia is the last Stredogentsian tree not carved from top to bottom with graffiti and initials — and now we are to get rid of it? A similar fate appears to threaten such valuable fauna as the vengerix, the maraudola, the morselone, and the electric howler. The latter, to protect itself and its offspring from the nerve-racking noise of countless tourist radios in the forest, has developed, through natural selection, the ability to cancel out particularly loud rock-and-roll music. The electrical organs of the howler emit superheterodyne waves, so this unusual creation of nature should be placed under protection at once.

As for the foul-tailed fetido, I admit that the odor it gives off has no equal. Doctor Hopkins of the University of Milwaukee has calculated that particularly active specimens can produce up to five kr (kiloreeks) per second. But even a child knows that the fetido does this only when photographed. The sight of an aimed camera triggers a reaction known as the lenticular-subcaudal reflex — it is nature attempting to shield this innocent creature from the intrusions of rubbernecks. Although it is true that the fetido, being rather nearsighted, sometimes takes for a camera such objects as ashtrays, lighters, watches, and even medals and badges, this is partly because some tourists use miniature cameras; it is easy to make a mistake. As for the observation that in recent years fetidos have increased their range and now produce up to eight megareeks per acre, I must point out that the cause here is the widespread use of telephoto lenses.

I do not wish to give the impression that I consider all extraterrestrial animals and plants beyond criticism. Certainly carnivamps, saprophoids, geeklings, dementeria, and marshmuckers are not particularly likable, nor are the mysophilids from the family Autarchiae, including Gauleiterium flagellans, Syphonophiles pruritualis, and the throttlemor (Lingula stranguloides Erdmenglerbeyeri). But think the matter over carefully and try to be objective. Why is it proper for a human to pick flowers and dry them in a herbarium, but unnatural for a plant to tear off and preserve ears? If the echoloon (Echolalium impudicum Schwamps) has multiplied on Aedonoxia beyond all measure, humans are to blame for this, too. The echoloon derives its life energy from sound. Once thunder served it as a food source; in fact, it still likes to listen to storms. But now it has switched to tourists. Each tourist treats the echoloon to a volley of the filthiest curses. It is amusing, they say, to watch the creature literally blossom under a torrent of abuse. It does indeed grow, but because of the energy absorbed from sonic vibrations, not because of the profanities shouted by excited tourists.

Where is all this leading? Such species as the blue wizzom and the drillbeaked borbit have disappeared; thousands of others are dying out. Sunspots are increasing due to clouds of rubbish. I still remember the time when the great treat for a child was the promise of a Sunday trip to Mars; but now the little monster will not eat his breakfast unless Daddy produces a supernova especially for him! By squandering nuclear energy, polluting asteroids and planets, ravaging the Preserve, and leaving litter everywhere we go, we shall ruin outer space and turn it into one big dump. It is high time we came to our senses and enforced the laws. Convinced that every minute of delay is dangerous, I sound the alarm: let us save the Universe.