Because It’s beginning to dawn on me how the world works — my world, at any rate, the world in which I have a huge task to fulfil, the world in which I must succeed.
I realise now — and it is inconceivably stupid of me not to have thought of it before — that I should have got hold of the aerial photographs before I came here. Long before. I should have had them back in Amsterdam. I should have told Sibbelee: There’s no point in going up north without seeing the aerial photographs first.
But this isn’t the most important thing I’ve realised.
Even more important is that I’m having serious doubts about Sibbelee. After all, he’s the one with experience in these matters.
I’m thirty years younger and still only a student, really, and off I went on a trip just because my mentor advised it. An ill-considered action maybe, but an excusable one. Because It’s up to Sibbelee to decide whether or not I’m a brilliant student, and whether or not I’ ll succeed in my career. I couldn’t afford to get on the wrong side of him.
Excusable or not, what I find incomprehensible is that Sibbelee let me go off without the photographs in the first place. What he should have said is: I’ve written to Nummedal requesting those aerial surveys you need, but he’s not responding. So I would advise you to choose another subject for your research. Aerial photography is such a highly efficient, modern instrument of orientation that it would be absurd to take pot luck and rush off into the wilds without photographs. As absurd as putting out to sea in a modern liner without a compass, radio or radar.
Sibbelee is no fool. It is inconceivable that these considerations did not enter his mind. But he kept his mouth shut.
He let me go. Why?
Why? With the stereoscope in one hand and the batch of photographs in the other, I hobble over to Mikkelsen. Reaching him, I say:
‘Thank you very much for letting me see the photographs.’
‘Already ready?’ he asks.
‘Yes, ready.’
‘Please, put zem before my tent, will you?’
I oblige, setting his possessions down on the sheet of plastic in front of their tent.
Why did Sibbelee let me go? It must have had something to do with Nummedal’s hostility towards him. What’s in it for Sibbelee? If anything, that I’ll discover something that puts Nummedal in the wrong.
Another complicating factor. It wasn’t until I got to Oslo that I found out that Nummedal was no friend of Sibbelee’ s. How could I have foreseen that? Sibbelee never said anything about him and the celebrated Professor Nummedal not seeing eye to eye. Of course not! Sibbelee wouldn’t dream of telling his students: By the way, the great Nummedal doesn’t think very highly of me.
Sunk in thought, I limp down the slope, away from the tents. It is not until I am at the water’s edge that I become aware of my surroundings. The sun has been released from its cover of clouds and the ripples on the lake turn into threads of molten copper. Nothing to be seen, nothing to be heard, except for the mosquitoes circling round my head.
‘This is,’ I say aloud, in a solemn voice, ‘what you might call a defining moment in the life of an inexperienced young man.’
I’m in a situation where I have no alternative but to carry on with what I’m doing even though I fear It’s a mistake. Like knowing you’ re going in the wrong direction, but It’s too late to turn back, or realising halfway through the race you’ ve bet on the wrong horse. Is Alfred going to the races today? No, he is not. Because if I take all the possibilities going through my mind to their logical conclusion, the best thing for me now is clearly to go straight back to Holland and tell Sibbelee: I’m sorry, Professor, but It’s no go, the research you recommended is not going to yield the results that either of us was hoping for. Good day, sir.
And then what? I’ ll be back where I started, knowing that I must achieve some great feat, but not knowing how to go about it. How will I ever find out?
My mother won’t understand when I tell her I gave up because I realised there was no point in what I was doing. She’ ll think I’m ill. Sibbelee won’t understand. No-one will.
What am I to do?
I cast my eyes over the lake, the sloping banks where nothing stirs. Few people have ever set foot here. Surely there is something worth finding. Something that has never been found before. There are so few places left in the world where no-one has been.
‘Alfred! Where are you?’
*
I am being called to supper. This is like being a lodger. It’s them taking all the decisions. They treat me as their guest. I’m sure Qvigstad was only being polite when he asked Mikkelsen to let me see his photographs.
Making my way back to the camp, where the three of them are sitting around the primus, it comes to me that Arne may well have been thinking: if there really were any meteor craters around here, we’d discover them ourselves — no need for some student to come all the way from Holland to find them.
An uncharitable thought, but most likely that was what was going through Arne’s mind, for all that he’s my friend and the one I know best. Because I find it very hard to believe that Arne was in the dark about Mikkelsen having the photographs.
Downcast, suspicious even, afraid they have been laughing at me behind my back, I sit myself down. The porridge is ready. As Mikkelsen starts dishing up he inadvertently jolts the pan, making the contents slop over the side and onto the burner, which goes out, hissing and fuming.
We all jump up, swear in various languages, laugh.
Arne pours the remaining porridge onto three plates, then scrapes the bottom of the pan with his spoon for himself. Making fresh porridge is not an option. We’ re low on paraffin as it is.
We finish our meal with two pieces of knäckebröd each. One with a slice of cheese, which is getting mouldier by the day in its greasy wrapper, and one with honey from a tube.
‘Maybe,’ Qvigstad says, ‘it won’t be long before they’ re capable of constructing computers that are cleverer than the cleverest human beings. Those computers can then be programmed to design new computers that are even more intelligent. Once we’ ve got a computer capable of devising problems that are so complex that they couldn’t possibly arise in the brain of a human being — and once we’ ve got other computers to work out the solutions — that’ ll be the end of science as we know it. Science will become something like sport. Like archery contests at folkloric festivals, or rowing, or speed walking.’
‘Or chess,’ Arne says.
‘Oh no, not chess, because we’ll have unbeatable computers. Or it’ll be possible to look up every single chess move in some kind of computerised logarithm table. Everything will have been calculated by then. Winning at chess will be a question of memory. No, chess won’t be played any more. Makes you wonder what people will do for entertainment.’
Arne: ‘Same as now: poker games, gossip, fishing, football and a daily fare of the same old newspapers and the same old shows on TV.’
Qvigstad: ‘Well, yes. But what about the people who are special? There will be a whole lot of unused talent floating around. What an idea! To think: yes I have this talent, but everything I could have done with it has already been done. There’s a machine with more talent than me.’
‘Poor us,’ Arne says, ‘because science will become more anonymous than ever. No fame, no personal triumphs. Individual scientists will be swallowed up by their own discoveries. In due course everything about nature will have been discovered, and nobody will care a hoot who did the discovering.’
‘Yes, anonymous,’ Qvigstad says. ‘Like the people who discovered fire and invented things like wheels and spinning tops. That won’t stop the universities from giving out academic robes, degrees and honorary doctorates, though.’