Noon: 22nd Century Read online

  “Doctor Morganau, as I understand it, was born a year after the takeoff of the Taimyr,” Evgeny replied tiredly.

  “In short, let’s go into the garden,” said Yurii. “Sheila, bring him.”

  They went out into the garden and sat on a bench under an apple tree. It was quite dark, and the trees in the garden looked black. Sheila shivered a bit from the chill, and Evgeny dashed back into the house for her jacket. For some time everyone was silent. Then a large apple broke off a branch and hit the ground with a muffled thunk.

  “Apples still fall,” said Evgeny. “But somehow I don’t see any Newtons.”

  “Polymaths, you mean?” Sheila asked seriously.

  “Yes,” said Evgeny, who had only wanted to make a joke.

  “In the first place, today we’re all polymaths,” Yurii said with unexpected warmth. “From your antediluvian perspective, of course. Because there is no biologist who does not know mathematics and physics, and a linguist like Sheila, for example, would be in real trouble without psychophysics and the theory of historical procession. But I know what you mean! There are, you say, no Newtons! Show me, you say, an encyclopedic mind! Everyone works in a narrow field, you say. When it comes down to the wire, Sheila is still only a linguist, and I’m still only a waste-disposal specialist, and Okada is still only an oceanographer. Why not, you say, all of them at once, in one person?”

  “Help!” shouted Evgeny. “I didn’t want to upset anybody. I was just joking.”

  “Well, do you know, Evgeny, about what we call the ‘narrow problem’? You chew it over all your life and there’s still no end in sight. It’s a tangle of the most unexpected complications. Take that same apple, for instance. Why was it that that apple in particular fell? Why at that particular moment? The mechanics of the contact of the apple with the ground. The process of the transference of momentum. The conditions of the fall. A quantum-mechanical picture of the fall. Finally, how, given the existence of the fall, to get some use out of it?”

  “The last part is simple,” Evgeny said soothingly. He bent over, groped on the ground, and picked up the apple. “I’ll eat it.”

  “It’s still unclear whether that would be the optimum utilization,” Yurii said irritably.

  “Then I’ll eat it,” said Sheila, grabbing the apple away from Evgeny.

  “And anyhow, about use,” Evgeny said. “You, Yurii, like to talk about optimum use all the time. Meanwhile, unimaginably complicated litter robots, gardener robots, moth-and-caterpillar-eating robots, and ham-and-cheese-sandwich-making robots are running all over the place. That’s crazy. It’s even worse than killing flies with a sledge hammer, as we said in my day. It’s building single-occupant studio apartments for ants. It’s sybaritism of the first water.”

  “Evgeny!” protested Sheila.

  Yurii laughed gaily. “It’s not sybaritism at all,” he said. “Quite the opposite. It’s the liberation of thought, it’s comfort, it’s economy. After all, who wants to pick up trash? And even if you did find some such garbage fancier, he’d still work more slowly and less thoroughly than the cybers. And then these robots are by no means as difficult to produce as you think. It’s true that they were a bit hard to invent. They were difficult to perfect. But as soon as they had reached mass production, they were much less trouble to make than… uh… what did they call shoes in your day? Buskins?”

  “Shoes,” Evgeny said briefly.

  “And the main thing is that nowadays no one makes single-purpose machines. So you’re quite wrong to distinguish between litter robots and gardener robots in the first place. They’re the same gadget.”

  “Well, pardon me,” said Evgeny, “but I’ve seen them. Litter robots have these scoop things, and vacuum cleaners. And gardener robots—”

  “It’s just a question of changing their manipulator attachments. And even that isn’t the point. The point is that all these robots, and all sorts of everyday machines and appliances in general, are magnificent ozonizers. They eat garbage, dry twigs and leaves, the grease from dirty dishes, and all that stuff serves them as fuel. You’ve got to understand, Evgeny, these aren’t the crude mechanisms of your time. In essence, they’re quasi-organisms. And in the process of their quasi-life they also ozonize and vitaminize the air, and saturate it with light ions. These are good little soldiers in the enormous, glorious army of waste disposal.”

  “I surrender,” said Evgeny.

  “Modern waste disposal, Evgeny, isn’t disposal towers. We don’t simply annihilate garbage, and we don’t pile up disgusting dumps on the seabed. We turn garbage into fresh air and sunlight.”

  “I surrender, I surrender,” said Evgeny. “Long live waste-disposal specialists! Convert me into sunlight.”

  Yurii stretched with pleasure. “It’s nice to meet someone who doesn’t know anything. The best recreation of all is to blab on about things everybody knows.”

  “Well, I’m sick of being the man people recreate on,” said Evgeny.

  Sheila took his hand, and he fell silent.

  The thin squeal of a radiophone sounded.

  “It’s mine,” Yurii whispered, and then said, “Hello.”

  “Where are you?” inquired an angry voice.

  “In the garden with Slavin and Sheila. I’m sitting and recreating.”

  “Have you thought of anything?”

  “No.”

  “What a guy! He’s sitting and recreating! I’m going out of my mind, and he’s recreating! Comrade Slavin, Sheila, throw him out!”

  “I’m going, I’m going, you don’t have to shout!” said Yurii, getting up.

  “Get right to a screen. And listen to this: now I’m completely sure that the benzene processes are not the answer.”

  “What did I tell you!” shouted Yurii, and with much crackling he crawled through the bushes toward his own cottage.

  Sheila and Evgeny went back inside.

  “Shall we go have supper?” Evgeny asked.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “That’s how it always is! You fill up on apples and then you’re not hungry.”

  “Don’t growl at me!” said Sheila.

  Evgeny started hugging her.

  “I’m frozen,” she said plaintively.

  “That’s because you’re hungry,” Evgeny declared. “I’m a little frozen too, and I don’t at all feel like going to a restaurant. Is it really impossible to organize life so as to have supper at home?”

  “Anything is possible,” said Sheila. “But what’s the point of it? Who eats at home?”

  “I eat at home.”

  “Evgeny, dear,” said Sheila, “would you like for us to move to the city? There’s the delivery line there, and you could eat at home all you wanted.”

  “I don’t want to live in the city,” Evgeny said stubbornly. “I want to live out in the open air.”

  Sheila looked at him thoughtfully for some time. “Would you like me to drop by the restaurant right now and bring supper home? It will only take a couple of minutes… Or maybe we could go together? Sit for a while and chat a bit with the guys?”

  “I want just the two of us,” said Evgeny. Nonetheless he fetched his jacket and started putting it on. “You know, Sheila, I have an idea,” he said suddenly, and stuck his hand into his pocket. “Just listen to this.”

  “What?” asked Sheila.

  “An advertisement. Somehow it ended up in my pocket. Listen. ‘The Krasnoyarsk Appliance Factory…’ Well, we can skip that. Here. ‘The Universal Kitchen Machine, Model UKM-207, the Krasnoyarsk, is simple to operate and features a cybernetic brain rated for sixteen interchangeable programs. The UKM-207 includes a device for the trimming, peeling, and washing of raw or semiprepared foods, and an automatic dishwasher. The UKM-207 can prepare simultaneously two different three-course dinners, including first courses of various borschts, bouillons, ok-roshki, and other soups.”

  “Evgeny!” Sheila laughed. “That’s a machine for restaurants and dining halls.”
/>   “So?”

  Sheila tried to explain. “Imagine a new housing development. Or a temporary settlement, a camp. The delivery line is far away. And there’s no link with Home Delivery—supply for the whole place is centralized. So they need a UKM.”

  Evgeny was very disappointed. “So they wouldn’t give us one like that?” he asked, downcast.

  “Well, they would, of course, but… but, you see, that’s pure sybaritism.”

  “Sheila, sweetling! Sheila, dearest! May I order a machine like that? It’s not going to hurt anybody! And then we wouldn’t be forced to go anywhere in the evenings.”

  “Have it your way,” Sheila said briefly. “But we’re still having supper in the restaurant today.”

  They left—Evgeny following her docilely.

  Early in the morning, Evgeny Slavin was awakened by the snorting of a heavy-duty helicopter. He jumped out of bed and ran to the window. He was just in time to see a dark blue helicopter fusilage with HOME DELIVERY printed on it in large white letters. The helicopter passed over the garden and disappeared behind the treetops, which were sparkling with dew and full of the chatter of birds. A large yellow box stood on the garden path by the porch. An emerald-green gardener robot stomped uncertainly around the box on its L-shaped legs.

  “I’ll get you, waste-disposer!” yelled Evgeny, and he started climbing through the window. “Sheila! Sheila dear! It’s come!”

  The gardener robot dashed off into the bushes. Evgeny ran up to the box and walked all the way around it without touching it.

  “It’s here!” he said, deeply moved. “Great lads, Home Delivery. Krasnoyarsk,” he read off the side of the box. “It’s here.”

  Sheila came out onto the porch, wrapping her bathrobe round her. “What a wonderful morning!” she said, yawning sweetly. “What are you making so much noise for? You’ll wake up Yurii.”

  Evgeny looked toward the garden, where, behind the trees, he could see the white walls of Yurii’s cottage. Something over there suddenly gave a crash, and they heard indistinct exclamations. “He’s awake already,” said Evgeny. “Give me a hand, Sheila, eh?”

  Sheila came down from the porch. “What’s that?” she asked. Near the box lay a large paper bag with a colorful label with pictures of various foods.

  “That?” Evgeny stared absently at the colorful label. “That must be the raw ingredients and the semiprepared foods.”

  Sheila said with a sigh, “Well, okay. Let’s pick up your toy.”

  The box was light, and they dragged it inside without difficulty. Only at this point did Evgeny realize that the cottage did not have a kitchen. What do I do now? he thought.

  “Well, what are we going to do with it?” asked Sheila.

  By dint of superhuman mental effort Evgeny instantly pounced upon the necessary solution. “Into the bathroom with it,” he said lightly. “Where else?”

  They put the box in the bathroom, and Evgeny ran back for the bag. When he returned, Sheila was doing her exercises. Evgeny started singing off key, “Monday roast beef, Tuesday string beans…” and tore the side off the box. The Krasnoyarsk, Model UKM-207, looked very inspiring. Much more inspiring than Evgeny had expected.

  “Well?” asked Sheila,

  “Now we’ll get down to it,” Evgeny said briskly. “I’ll fix you a meal right off.”

  “I’d advise you to call for an instructor.”

  “Nonsense. I’ll figure this machine out myself. After all, it said ‘simple to operate.’”

  The machine, enclosed in a smooth plastic housing, sparkled proudly amid piles of crumpled paper.

  “It’s all very simple,” declared Evgeny. “Here are four buttons. It’s perfectly clear that they correspond to the soup course, the main course, the dessert course, and…”

  “… the after-dessert course,” Sheila put in helpfully.

  “Exactly, the after-dessert course,” Evgeny affirmed. “Tea, for instance. Or cocoa.”

  He squatted down and opened a lid that said “Control System.”

  “It’s spaghetti inside,” he muttered, “spaghetti. God help us if it ever breaks down.” He stood up. “Now I know what the fourth button is for—slicing bread.”

  “An interesting conclusion,” Sheila said thoughtfully. “Did it occur to you that the four buttons might correspond to the four elements of Empedocles? Earth, air, fire, and water.”

  Evgeny smiled reluctantly.

  “Or the four arithmetic operations,” Sheila added.

  “All right,” Evgeny said, and started unloading the bag. “Talk is talk, but I want goulash. You still don’t know how I cook goulash, Sheila. Here’s the meat, here’s the potatoes… right… parsley… onion… I want goulash! Followed by cybernetic dishwashing! So the grease on the dishes turns into air and sunlight!”

  Sheila went into the living room and brought back a chair. Evgeny, holding a piece of meat in one hand and four large potatoes in the other, was standing indecisively in front of the machine. Sheila put the chair beside the washbasin, and sat down comfortably.

  Addressing no one in particular, Evgeny said, “I would be much obliged if somebody would tell me where the raw food goes in.”

  Sheila said, “I saw a cyberkitchen two years ago. It wasn’t at all like this one, but I remember it had a sort of opening for the raw food on the right.”

  “I thought so!” Evgeny shouted happily. “There are two openings here. So the one on the right is for raw food, and the one on the left is for cooked dinners.”

  “Evgeny, dear,” said Sheila, “you know, we should really go to a restaurant.”

  He did not answer. He put the meat and potatoes into the opening on the right, and set off, cord in hand, for the wall socket. “Turn it on,” he said from a distance.

  “How?” said Sheila.

  “Push the button.”

  “Which one?”

  “The second, dear. I’m making goulash.”

  “We should go to a restaurant,” Sheila repeated, getting up reluctantly.

  The machine responded to the push of the button with a muffled roar. A white light on its front panel went on, and Sheila, looking into the opening at the right, saw that there was nothing there. “It seems to have taken the meat,” she said with surprise. This was more than she had expected.

  “There, you see!” said Evgeny proudly. He stood up and admired his machine, listening to it hum and click. Then the white light went out and a red one came on. The machine stopped humming.

  “That’s it, Sheila my sweet,” Evgeny said with a wink. He bent down and got the dishes out of the bag. They were light and shiny. He took two, put them in the opening on the left, then stepped back a step and and folded his arms across his chest. He and Sheila were silent for a minute.

  Finally Sheila, shifting her eyes in puzzlement from Evgeny to the machine and back, asked, “Just what exactly are you waiting for?”

  Uncertainty appeared in Evgeny’s eyes. If the goulash were ready, he realized, it should have appeared in the opening on the left whether or not there were dishes there. He stuck his head into the opening on the left and saw that the dishes were still empty.

  “Where’s the goulash?” he asked distractedly.

  Sheila did not know where the goulash was. “There are levers of some sort over here,” she said.

  On the upper part of the machine there were indeed levers of some sort. Sheila grabbed them with both hands and pulled toward herself. Out of the machine came a white box, and a strange odor spread through the room.

  “What’s inside?” asked Evgeny.

  “Look for yourself,” Sheila answered. She stood up, holding the box in her hands and, squinting, examined its contents. “Your UKM has converted the meat into air and sunlight. Maybe the instructions were here?”

  Evgeny looked into the box and gave a cry. There lay a packet of some sort of thin sheets—red, speckled with white spots. A stench rose up from them. “What’s this?” he asked with irritation, taki
ng the top sheet with both hands. It fell apart, and the pieces dropped onto the floor, jangling like tin cans.

  “Wonderful goulash,” said Sheila. “Tinkling goulash, yet. A fifth element. I wonder what it tastes like.”

  Evgeny, turning beet red, stuck a piece of “goulash” in his mouth.

  “What a daredevil!” Sheila said enviously. “My hero!”

  Evgeny silently put down the bag of groceries. Sheila looked to see where to get rid of the mess, and dumped the contents of the machine’s box onto the pile of packing paper. The odor got stronger.

  Evgeny got out a loaf of bread. “Which button did you push?” he asked sternly.

  “The second from the top,” Sheila answered timidly, and immediately got the feeling that she had pushed the second from the bottom.

  “I’m sure you must have pushed the fourth button,” declared Evgeny. He stuck the loaf decisively into the opening on the right. “That’s the bread-slicing button!”

  Sheila started to ask how that could explain the strange metamorphoses undergone by the meat and potatoes, but Evgeny shoved her away from the machine and pushed the fourth button. A sort of clank sounded, and they could hear frequent muffled blows.

  “You see,” said Evgeny with a sigh of relief, “it’s cutting the bread. I wish I knew just what was going on inside right now.” He imagined what was going on inside right now, and shuddered. “But for some reason the light hasn’t come on,” he said.

  The machine knocked and whinnied. The noise continued a fairly long time, and Evgeny started looking to see what to push to make it stop. But then the machine gave a pleasant-sounding ring, and the red light began blinking, while the machine continued to hum and knock. Evgeny looked at his watch and said, “I’d always thought that slicing bread was easier than cooking goulash.”

  “Let’s go to a restaurant,” Sheila said timidly.

  Evgeny was silent. After three minutes he walked around the machine and then looked inside. He saw absolutely nothing there which could serve as food for thought. Nothing that could serve as food period, for that matter. He straightened up and met his wife’s eyes. In answer to her inquiring glance he shook his head. “Everything’s fine there.” He risked nothing in making that declaration. There were two buttons yet to be investigated, and also a quantity of possible permutations and combinations of the four.