Preface

“The Cheat Sheet” is a tiny fictional story written in 1980. The story wasn’t popular until ~2024, when I first saw references on the internet. Tatiana alluded to it so many times that it would be nice to have it in English too. Enjoy.

The Cheat Sheet

Alexander Les, 1980

“Teacher!” little Nick said respectfully. “I have completed everything you told me and came to study. What lesson will we have today?”

“The last one, my child.” Old Tan turned his chair toward Nick. “Today we have the final lesson in the history of the civilization of planet Kalrun. So sit closer and be attentive: I will tell you… about the cheat sheet. Do you remember what that is?”

“‘A cheat sheet,’” Nick readily quoted, “‘is a piece of paper on which a careless student writes what should have been memorized, and then peeks at it during an exam.’”

“Correct, my child. At first it truly was a harmless scrap of paper—folded like a spiral, a little tube, an accordion… Many generations of Kalrun’s schoolchildren and students refined their ingenuity, perfecting the cheat sheet. Back then it was more a game than an offense. A game of risk and resourcefulness… After all, to fit the maximum information into a tiny space and read it unnoticed by vigilant examiners required both the talent of a miniaturist and the skills of a magician.

“The game ended when photography was brought into cheat-sheet creation. It not only solved the problem of miniaturizing ‘secret notes,’ but also made them easy to reproduce. As a result, a new craft was born—the production of cheat sheets.”

“For some time, cheat sheets developed along the path of improved disguise: they were built into pens, buttons, watches… Such ‘spurs’ were very popular among students and did not disappear immediately even after the electronic cheat sheet appeared.”

“Electronic?” Nick was surprised.

“Yes, dear kid. Advances in microelectronics were bound to lead cheat-sheet makers to this idea sooner or later. At first, however, it was merely a tiny transmitter-receiver in the form of a special earplug. A second transmitter was held by the prompter. As you can see, the scheme was still quite bulky and assumed that among ten loafers there would be at least one diligent student willing to think for them. But already at the next stage of the ‘cheat-sheet-ization’ of education, the transmitter was connected to a stationary computer, and later separate microcomputers were created, which everyone could carry, disguised as familiar objects.

“The new cheat sheets whispered answers, taking into account the latest discoveries in the relevant fields of knowledge. Such a cheat sheet cost a great deal of money, but with its help one could pass even the strictest exam. An entire generation of students of Kalrun’s secondary and higher educational institutions graduated without knowing their profession.

“These people did not part with their cheat sheets after graduation either. At factories, institutes, and laboratories, former students faced new trials, and to withstand them at least somehow, ‘cybernetic whisperers’ were needed. Thus, from classrooms the electronic cheat sheet stepped into real life. The underground cheat-sheet trade expanded. Kalrunians needed universal cheat sheets capable of solving a wide range of tasks. Electronics engineers and cyberneticists devoted to this business created such devices.

“Easily obtaining diplomas and promotions, people knew almost nothing, so many found themselves in awkward situations even with a cheat sheet. Then the cheat-sheet makers invented a sound attachment that was fastened to a tooth like a crown and answered questions in the owner’s own voice—it was enough merely to move one’s lips in time with the words.

“The novelty spread instantly.

“Since Kalrunians wished to appear intelligent and competent not only at work, these attachments began to be used everywhere. With their help, people conducted intellectual conversations at parties, in theaters, on the street. From the outside it seemed that people were arguing, expressing opinions, doubting, while in reality they were simply opening their mouths, and electronic cheat sheets were conversing for them.

“Vain parents hastened to buy ‘talking cheat sheets’ for their unthinking children, and six-, five-, and even three-year-old prodigies began appearing everywhere. From an early age, unfortunate children were unlearning how to think—the electronic-cybernetic brain hidden in a trinket hanging around their neck did the thinking for them. The fashion for prodigies spread across all of Kalrun, and after a generation of ignoramuses there grew a generation of imbeciles.

“All these events began to affect electronics and cybernetics themselves in the most disastrous way. The robotic industry desperately needed specialists, but there were fewer and fewer of them, and the last ones switched to cheat-sheet production because it was profitable.

“The development of electronics, like that of other industries, came to a halt. Only the underground cheat-sheet production continued to function, but it too soon began to fade…”

“Why?” Nick asked.

“Because the cheat-sheet makers were aging and dying, and there was nowhere for new ones to come from. Yes, there were fewer and fewer of them, but they did not abandon their dreadful trade. Kalrunians continued high-level intellectual conversations, often no longer understanding what was coming out of their own mouths. Sometimes they forgot to move their lips in time with the words, but since by then everyone had cheat sheets and knew their secret, no one was surprised.”

“And then, teacher?.. What happened then?”

“Then?” Old Tan frowned his bushy eyebrows. “Then the last of the cheat-sheet makers died. There was no one left to make cheat sheets. But Kalrun was already so flooded with them that no one was upset. People continued, without opening their teeth, to converse, manage, and give advice.

“But then the cheat sheets began to break. They had broken before too, but then they were repaired. Now there was no one to repair them, because no one remembered what electronics was anymore.

“A broken cheat sheet turned into a real catastrophe for its owner—he could no longer take part in intelligent conversations and was forced to avoid society. Such people gathered in separate groups and communicated by mooing. The others still spoke, but cheat sheets failed one after another, and gradually there were more mooing people than speaking ones.

“Crafts had long been forgotten, writing lost. The robotic industry still somehow functioned, providing Kalrunians with food and clothing—it was controlled by complex electronic-cybernetic systems programmed for decades. But they too required maintenance and repair.

“Finally, everything froze. Our Coordination Center functioned the longest, but it could not revive the dying factories and only recorded their shutdown. How it itself was dying, you saw, my child. That was the end of the civilization of planet Kalrun.

“Until now there have been two of us in this dead temple of cybernetics, and I taught you everything I knew. But I can no longer rise from the operator’s chair—my energy reserve is exhausted. Soon you will be alone. Your uranium battery will last another ten years, so try not to perish before your time. Once again check whether the elevator doors are well sealed. Beware of dampness, and while it is summer, find and seal all the cracks in the floor. Change the lubricant in your joints more often—in the sixth laboratory there is a whole tank of it. There are flashlight batteries there as well, on the large rack in the lo—” The old robot fell silent mid-sentence, and his head slowly sank onto his steel chest.

“Teacher!.. Teacher!!!” Little Nick shook Old Tan with all six manipulators, only to realize there would be no answer. After standing by the motionless giant, the little robot went to carry out his final instructions.

In the corridor, a pane of glass had been broken. Before sealing the opening with plastic taken from the floor, the robot looked outside.

Below, in the green well of the courtyard, on asphalt torn apart by wild growth, three dirty, hairy humans were busy. Two were twirling a stick in a hollow of a wooden block, while the third was adding something into it. Soon bluish smoke curled above the block. They let out a triumphant cry.

New knowledge was being born.



👋



Remarks: Since the author wrote this in Russian in 1980, it is quite likely that they had not even heard of personal computers at the time. To make this even more ironic, over 90% of this text was translated by an LLM. My changes are limited to wording and phrasing.