Free Memoirs Found In a Bathtub by Stanislaw Lem Page B

key.”
    “The smell of a rose—code or not?”
    “Not a code, because it is not a sign for anything; it is merely itself, a smell. Only if it were used to signify something else could we consider it a code.”
    I was glad of this opportunity to demonstrate my ability to think logically. The fat officer leaned over in my direction until his buttons began to pop. I ignored him. Prandtl took off his glasses and smiled.
    “The rose, does it smell just because, or for a reason?”
    “It attracts bees with its smell, the bees pollinate it…”
    He nodded.
    “Precisely. Now let’s generalize. The eye converts a light wave into a neural code, which the brain must decipher. And the light wave, from where does it come? A lamp? A star? That information lies in its structure; it can be read.”
    “But that’s not a code,” I interrupted. “A star or a lamp doesn’t attempt to conceal information, which is the whole purpose of a code.”
    “Oh?”
    “Obviously! It all depends on the intention of the sender.”
    I reached for my coffee. A fly was floating in it. Had the fat officer planted it there? I glanced at him: he was picking his nose. I fished the fly out with my spoon and let it drop on the saucer. It clinked—metal, sure enough.
    “The intention?” Prandtl put on his glasses. The fat officer (I was keeping an eye on him) began to rummage through his pockets, wheezing so violently that his face moved like a bunch of balloons. It was revolting.
    “Take a light wave,” Prandtl continued, “emitted by a star. What kind of star? Big or little? Hot or cold? What’s its history, its future, its chemical composition? Can we or can we not tell all this from its light?”
    “We can, with the proper know-how.”
    “And the proper know-how?”
    “Yes?”
    “That’s the key, isn’t it?”
    “Still,” I said carefully, “light is not code.”
    “It isn’t?”
    “The information it carries wasn’t hidden there. And besides, using your argument, we’d have to conclude that everything is code.”
    “And so it is, absolutely everything. Code or camouflage. Yourself included.”
    “You’re joking.”
    “Not at all.”
    “I’m a code?”
    “Or a camouflage. Every code is a camouflage, not every camouflage is a code.”
    “Perhaps,” I said, following it through, “if you are thinking about genetics, heredity, those programs of ourselves we carry around in every cell… In that way I am a code for my progeny, my descendants. But camouflage? What would I have to do with camouflage.”
    “You,” Prandtl replied drily, “are not in my jurisdiction.” He went over to the small black door. A hand appeared with a piece of paper, which he turned over to me.
    “THREAT OUTFLANKING MANEUVER STOP,” it read, “REINFORCEMENTS SECTOR SEVEN NINE FOUR HUNDRED THIRTY-ONE STOP QUARTERMASTER SEVENTH OPERATIONAL GROUP GANZ-MIRST COL DIPL STOP.”
    I looked up—another fly was floating in my coffee. The fat officer yawned.
    “Well?” asked Prandtl. His voice seemed far away. I pulled myself together.
    “A telegram, a deciphered telegram.”
    “No. It’s in code, we have yet to crack it.”
    “But it looks like—”
    “Camouflage,” he said. “They used to camouflage codes as innocent information, private letters, poems, etc. Now each side tries to make the other believe that the message isn’t coded at all. You follow?”
    “I guess.”
    “Now here’s the text run through our D.E.C. machine.” He went back to the small black door, pulled a piece of paper from the fingers there and gave it to me.
    “BABIRUSANTOSITORY IMPECLANCYBILLISTIC MATOTEOSIS AIN’T CATACYPTICALLY AMBREGATORY NOR PHAROGRANTOGRAPHICALLY OSCILLUMPTUOUS BY RETROVECTACALCIPHICATION NEITHER,” I read and stared at him.
    “That’s deciphered?”
    He smiled tolerantly.
    “The second stage,” he explained. “The code was designed to yield gibberish upon any attempt to crack it. This is to convince us that the telegram wasn’t coded