The Final Circle of Paradise

"I'll stay here for a while, Val," I said. "I have a notion that this Mr. Pebblebridge will be back. It won't be necessary to announce that I am here. In the meantime, you are free to go."

"Yes, sir," he said.

When he left, I rang up the service bureau and dictated a telegram; "Have found the meaning of life but am lonely brother departed unexpectedly come at once Ivan." Then I turned on the radio again, and again it howled and screeched. I took off the back and pulled out the local oscillator-mixer. It was no mixer. It was a slug. A beautiful precision subassembly, of obviously mass-produced derivation, and the more I looked at it, the more it seemed that somewhere, sometime, long before my arrival here, and more than once, I had already seen these components in some very familiar device. I attempted to recollect where I had seen them, but instead, I remembered the room clerk and his face with a weak smile and his understanding, commiserating eyes. They are all infected. No, they hadn't tried slug – heaven forbid! They hadn't even seen one! It is so indecent! It is the worst of the worst! Not so loud, my dear, how can you say that in front of the boy… but I've been told it's something out of this world… Me?… How can you think that, you must have a low opinion of me after all… I don't know, they say over at the Oasis, Buba has it, but as for myself – I don't know… And why not? I am a moderate man – if I feel something is not right, I'll stop…

Let me have five packets of Devon, we have made up a fishing party (hee, hee!). Fifty thousand people. And their friends in other towns. And a hundred thousand tourists every year. The problem is not with the gang. That's the least of our worries, for what does it take to scatter them? The problem is that they are all ready, all eager, and there is not the slightest prospect of the possibility to prove to them that it is terribly frightening, that it is the end, that it is the last debasement.

I clasped the slug in my fist, propped up my head on it, and stared at Rimeyer's dress jacket with the ribbon bar on it, hanging on the back of the chair. Just like me, he must have sat in this chair a few months ago, and also held the slug and radio for the second time, and the same warm flick of desire wandered through the depths of his consciousness: there is nothing to worry about, because now there is light in any darkness, sweetness in any grief, joy in any pain…

…There, there, said Rimeyer. Now you have got it. You just have to be honest with yourself. It is a little shameful at first, and then you begin to understand how much time you have lost for nothing…

…Rimeyer, I said, I wasted time not for myself. This cannot be done, it simply cannot, it is destruction for everyone, you can't replace life with dreams…

…Zhilin, said Rimeyer, when man does something, it is always for himself. There may be absolute egotists in this world, but perfect altruists are just impossible. If you are thinking of death in a bathtub, then, in the first place, we are all mortal, and in the second place, if science gave us slug, it will see to it that it will be rendered harmless. And in the meantime, all that is required is moderation. And don't talk to me of the substitution of reality with dreams. You are no novice, you know perfectly well that these dreams are also part of reality. They constitute an entire world. Why do you then call this acquisition ruin?…

…Rimeyer, I said, because this world is still illusory, it's all within you, not outside of you, and everything you do in it remains in yourself. It is the opposite of the real world, it is antagonistic to it. People who escape into this illusory world cease to exist in the real world. They become as dead. And when everyone enters the illusory world – and you know it could end thus – the history of man will terminate…

…Zhilin, said Rimeyer, history is the history of people. Every man wants to live a life which has not been in vain, and slug gives you such a life… Yes, I know that you consider your life as not having been in vain without slug, but, admit it, you have never lived so luminously, so fully as you have today in the tub. You are a bit ashamed to recollect it, and you wouldn't risk recounting it to others. Don't. They have their life, you have yours…

…Rimeyer, I said, all that is true. But the past! Space, schools, the struggle with fascists, gangsters – is all that for naught? Forty years for nothing? And the others – they did it all for nothing, too?…

…Zhilin, said Rimeyer, nothing is for nothing in history. Some fought and did not live long enough to have slug. You fought and lived long enough…

…Rimeyer, I said, I fear for mankind. This is really the end. It's the end of man interacting with nature, the end of the interplay of man with society, the end of liaisons among individuals, the end of progress, Rimeyer. All these billions of people submerged in hot water and in themselves… only in themselves…