“Forty thousand people in the stadium,” put in Slavin, “and all sniff as one. The ‘Roses in Ketchup Symphony.’ And the critics—with enormous noses—will write, ‘In the third movement, with an impressive dissonance, into the tender odor of two rose petals bursts the brisk fragrance of a fresh onion.’”
When Kondratev returned with a string of fresh fish, the spacer and the writer were guffawing in front of a dying fire.
“What’s so funny?” Kondratev inquired curiously.
“It’s just joie de vivre, Sergei,” Slavin answered. “Why don’t you ornament your own life with some merry jape?”
“All right,” said Kondratev. “Right now I’ll clean the fish, and you take the guts and stick them over under that rock. I always bury them there.”
“The ‘Gravestone Symphony,’” said Gorbovsky. “First movement, allegro ma non troppo.”
Slavin’s face grew long, and he fell silent, staring glumly at the fatal rock. Kondratev took a flounder, slapped it down on a flat stone, and took out a knife. Gorbovsky followed his every movement with absorption. Kondratev cut off the flounder’s head slantwise in one blow, deftly stuck his hand under the skin, and swiftly skinned the flounder whole, as if he were peeling off a glove. He threw the skin and the intestines over to Slavin.
“Leonid,” Kondratev said, “fetch the salt, please.” Without saying a word, Gorbovsky got up and climbed into the submarine. Kondratev quickly dressed the flounder and started in on a perch. The pile of fish intestines in front of Slavin grew.
“And just where is the salt?” called Gorbovsky from the hatch.
“In the provisions box,” Kondratev shouted back. “On the right.”
“And she won’t start off?” Gorbovsky asked cautiously.
“Who is ‘she’?”
“The sub. The control board is what is on the right down here.”
“To the right of the board is a box,” said Kondratev.
They could hear Gorbovsky moving around in the cabin.
“I found it,” he said happily. “Should I bring all of it? There must be over five kilos of the stuff.”
Kondratev raised up his head. “What do you mean, five kilos? There should be a little packet.”
After a minute’s pause, Gorbovsky said, “Yes, you’re right. Coming up.” He got out of the hatch, holding the packet of salt in one hand. His hands were covered with flour.
Putting the packet down near Kondratev, he groaned, “Ah, universal entropy!” He was preparing to lie down when Kondratev said, “And now, Leonid, fetch a bay leaf, please.”
“Why?” Gorbovsky asked with great astonishment. “Do you mean that three mature, nay, elderly people, three old men, cannot get along without bay leaf? With their enormous experience, with their endurance—”
“Oh, come now,” said Kondratev. “I promised you that you would have some proper relaxation, Leonid, but I didn’t mean you could fall asleep on me. We can’t have this! The bay leaf, on the double!”
Gorbovsky fetched the bay leaf, and then fetched the pepper and sundry other spices, and then, on another trip, the bread. In token of protest, along with the bread he dragged out a heavy oxygen tank and said venomously, “I brought this at the same time. Just in case you needed it.”
“Many thanks,” said Kondratev. “I don’t. Take it back.”
Gorbovsky dragged the tank back with curses. When he returned, he did not even try to lie down. He stood next to Kondratev and watched him cook fish soup. Meanwhile, the gloomy correspondent for the European Information Center, with the help of two bits of driftwood, was burying the fish intestines under the “gravestone.”
The soup was boiling. From it wafted a stunning aroma, seasoned with the odor of smoke. Kondratev took a spoon, tasted, and considered.
“Well?” asked Gorbovsky.
“A pinch more salt,” Kondratev answered. “And perhaps some pepper, eh?”
“Perhaps,” said Gorbovsky, his mouth watering.
“Yes,” Kondratev said firmly. “Salt and pepper.”
Slavin finished interring the fish guts, put the stone on top, and went off to wash his hands. The water was warm and clear. He could see small yellow-gray fish scurrying among the seaweeds. Slavin sat down on a rock and looked around. A shining wall of ocean rose up beyond the cove. Blue peaks on the neighboring island hung motionless over the horizon. Everything was deep blue, shining, and motionless, except for large black and white birds which sailed over the rocks in the cove without crying out. A fresh salt odor came from the water. “A wonderful planet, Earth,” he said aloud.
“It’s ready!” Kondratev announced. “We will now have fish soup. Leonid, be a good lad and bring the bowls, please.”
“Okay,” said Gorbovsky. “And I’ll bring the spoons while I’m at it.”
They sat down around the steaming pail, and Kondratev dished out the fish soup. For some time they ate silently. Then Gorbovsky said, “I just love fish soup. And it’s so seldom that I get a chance to eat it.”
“There’s still half a bucket left,” Kondratev said.
“Ah, Sergei!” Gorbovsky said with a sigh. “I can’t eat enough to hold me for two years.”
“So there won’t be fish soup on Tagora,” said Kondratev.
Gorbovsky sighed again. “Quite possibly not. Although Tagora isn’t Pandora, of course, so there’s still hope. If only the Commission lets us go fishing.”
“Why wouldn’t they?”
“Those are stern and harsh men on the Commission. Like Gennady Komov. He’s sure to not even let me lie down. He will demand that all my actions coincide with the interests of the aboriginal population of the planet. And how should I know what their interests are?”
“You are an incredible whiner, Leonid,” Slavin said. “Taking you on the Contact Commission was a terrible mistake. Can you see it, Sergei—Leonid, our anthropocentrist par excellence, representing the human race to the civilization of another world!”
“And why not?” Kondratev said judiciously. “I greatly respect Comrade Gorbovsky.”
“I respect him too,” said Gorbovsky.
“Oh, I even respect him myself,” said Slavin. “But I don’t like the first question he’s planning to ask the Tagorans.”
“What question?” asked Kondratev, surprised.
“The very first: ‘Could I perhaps lie down?’”
Kondratev snorted into his soup spoon, and Gorbovsky looked reproachfully at Slavin.
“Ah, Evgeny!” he said. “How can you joke like that? Here you are laughing, while I’m shaking in my shoes, because the first contact with a newly discovered civilization is a historic occasion, and the slightest blunder could bring harm down on our descendants. And our descendants, I must say to you, trust us implicitly.”
Kondratev stopped eating and looked at him.
“No, no,” Gorbovsky said hurriedly. “I can’t vouch for our descendants as a whole, of course, but take Petr Petrovich—he expressed himself quite explicitly on the question of his trust in us.”
“And whose descendant is this Petr Petrovich?” asked Kondratev.
“I can’t tell you any more than that. It’s clear from his patronymic, however, that he is the direct descendant of someone named Petr. We didn’t discuss it with him, you see. Would you like me to tell you about what we did discuss with him?”
“Hmm,” said Kondratev. “What about washing the dishes?”
“No, I will not. It’s now or never. People should lie down for a while after a meal.”
“Right!” exclaimed Slavin, turning over on his side. “Go ahead and tell us, Leonid.”