this: a man reads a book, begins to understand himself and his friends; a
louse sees a play, becomes horrified and turns into a decent man; a coward
goes down to the movies and comes out a hero. And it should last a lifetime,
not just five minutes. That's probably what writers and painters hope for
when they create. Why doesn't it happen? Let's think. Art information is
constructed along the lines of everyday information. It is concrete,
contains subtle and flexible generalizations, but it is not real. It's only
realistic, probable. That must be its weakness. It cannot be applied like
scientific information: a man cannot plan out his life based on it. It is
not universal and objective enough for that. And you can't use it for a
guideline the way daily information can be used because its concreteness
never coincides with the concrete life of the given reader. "And even if it
did coincide, who wants to lead a copycat life? You can copy a hairdo,
that's all right, but to copy a life recommended by a large printing.
Apparently, the idea of 'rearing along literary examples' springs from the
idea that man comes from the apes and that imitation comes naturally to him.
But man has been man for a long time, millions of years. Now he is
characterized by self-determination and original behavior which he knows to
be the better course." "Academic Town!" the driver announced.
The man got off the trolley and saw immediately that his trip had been
in vain. Two rows of standardized five-story houses, joining at the horizon,
gazed upon one another with lighted windows. But there were no lights in the
corner apartment on the fifth floor of house No. 33.
A feeling of relief that the unpleasant meeting with Krivoshein was put
off, once again mingled with regret: he had no place to sleep. He took a
trolley back downtown and started checking out the hotels. Naturally, they
were all full.
And he started thinking again, his thoughts coloring his glum attempts
to find a place for the night.
"The longer we live, the more we see that there are many life
situations in which the decisions described in books or shown in movies are
inapplicable. And we begin to see the information from art as a quasi-life,
in which things are not really like that. It's a good place to live through
a dangerous adventure (even with a fatal ending) or to test one's principles
without jeopardizing one's job-in a word, to feel, if only for a brief
moment, that you are someone else: smarter, handsomer, braver than you
really are. It's no secret that people who live humdrum lives adore
adventure and mystery novels...." He was on Marx Prospect, with its neon
signs and bright lights. "And we use this marvelous information for trifles,
for amusement to pass some time. Or to charm a girl with the right poem.
That information does not belong to us. We didn't reach the conclusions and
truths about ourselves. We can just sit back, watch or read, as an invented
life goes beyond a glass screen-we are merely 'information receptors!' Of
course, there have been instances when the 'receptors' couldn't stand it and
tried to influence it: Dad used to tell about the Red Army soldier in Samara
who once shot at an actor who played Admiral Kolchak in a play for the
troops, and earlier in Nizhny Novgorod, the audience beat up the actor who
was portraying lago-for his good acting. The idea of breaking down the glass
barrier and acting on art is a good one. There's something to it...."
A thought, still unverbalized, unclear, more a hunch, ripened in his
mind. But someone tapped him on the shoulder just then. He looked around:
there were three men in civilian clothes. One of them casually waved a red
book under his nose.
"Show your documents, citizen."
The man shrugged, put down his backpack, and took his passport from his
pocket. The operative read the first page, looked at the photograph and his
face and the photograph again, and returned the passport.
"Everything is in order. Excuse us, please."
"Ooofff!" The man picked up his pack, and trying not to walk any
faster, moved on toward the Theater Hotel. His mood was worse. "I don't
think I should have come."
The three men walked over to a tobacco kiosk. Officer Gayevoy, also
dressed as a plainclothesman, was waiting for them.
"I told you," he said triumphantly.
"Not the one,..." sighed the operative. "Some guy called Valentin
Vasilyevich Krivoshein. But if you go by the photo and the description, he's
definitely Kravets."
"Description, description ... what's a description?" Gayevoy was angry.
"I saw him, you know: he had no gray hair, was about ten years younger, and
a lot thinner."
"Let's go over to the railroad station, fellows," the second operative
suggested. "After all, he's no fool. He's not going to stroll down the
avenue!"
Victor Kravets was at that moment making his way down a dark, deserted
side street.
After he jumped out of the moving police car, he went through the park
to the banks of the Dnieper and lay in the bushes, waiting for dark. He
wanted to smoke and to eat. The low sun gilded the sand of Beach Island,
dotted with bright mushrooms; there were still bathers there. A small tug,
spreading watery whiskers from shore to shore, was hurrying upriver to the
freight yards to get a new barge. Cars and buses moved noisily below the
cliff.
"We finally got there. We thought everything through: the method of the
experiments, the variants in using the method, even its influence on the
world situation. This was the only variant we didn't foresee. What a fall
from great heights face down into the mud! From researcher to criminal. My
God, what kind of work is this-one failed experiment and everything flies
out the window. I'm not prepared for this game with investigators and
medical experts, so unprepared that I might as well go down to the library
and start reading up on the criminal code and the-what else is there?-the
judicial code. I don't know the rules of the game, and I might lose. I
guess, I already have lost. The library... how could I have time for the
library now?"
The cooling towers of the electrostation on the other side of the
Dnieper exhaled fat columns of steam as though they were trying to make
clouds. The low edge of the sun touched them.
"What should I do now? Go back to the police, tell them everything,
make a clean breast of it' and give away (despicably) the secret we tried to
keep from evil eyes? And give it away not to save the project, but to save
myself? This won't save the work: in two or three days everything will start
rotting in the laboratory, and I won't be able to prove a thing, and no one
will believe me, and no one will know what happened there. I won't save
myself that way either: Krivoshein died. The weight of his death is on me,
as they say. Should I go to Azarov and explain things to him? There's no way
I could explain anything to him now. I'm less than a student on probation to
him-I'm a shady character with forged papers. If he's been informed of my
escape, then as a loyal administrator, he must cooperate with the police.
There it is, man's problem, in full view. The source of all our troubles. We
simply can't solve it through the laboratory method. We! That's a laugh. We
who have achieved such greatness. We in whose hands lie the unheard-of
possibilities of synthesizing information. What the hell. We can't handle
this problem; time to fess up. And what sense is there in the rest without
it?"
The sun was setting. Kravets got up, brushed off his trousers, and went
up the path, not knowing where or why. Loose change jangled in his pockets.
He counted it: enough for a pack of cigarettes and a very light supper. "And
then?" Two young coeds, comfortably studying for exams on a bench in the
bushes, looked with interest at the handsome young man, shook their heads to
dispel evil thoughts, and went back to their notes. "Mmm... I guess I won't
be completely lost. Should I go see Lena? But she's probably under
surveillance, and they'll catch me...."
The path led out onto a quiet, uninhabited street. Branches heavy with
ripening cherries hung over the fences. At the street's end, a cloud blazed,
underlit with red.
It was getting dark fast. The evening coolness was creeping up under
his shirt, onto his bare chest. On the opposite side of the street, a half
block away from Victor, two men in caps walked out of the shadows. "Police!"
Kravets ducked into an alley. He ran a block and then stopped to calm his
heart.
"To think of it! I've never run from anyone in twenty years, and now
I'm like a boy chased out of somebody's yard." His helplessness and
degradation made the desire for a cigarette unbearable. "The game is lost. I
just have to admit that and leave. Follow my feet. After all, everyone of us
has experienced the desire to get away from some situation or other. Now
it's my turn, damn it! What else can I do?"
The alley led out into the glow of blue lights. The sight brought on a
wave of animal hunger: he hadn't eaten in twenty-four hours. "Hm ... so
there are restaurants still open. I'll go. Nobody's going to look for me on
Marx Prospect."
The concrete posts extended their snake-headed street lights over the
pavement. In the store windows elegant dummies stood in casual poses;
radios, televisions, and pots and pans shone brightly; bottles of Sovetskoe
Champagne beckoned, and cans of fish and preserves tumbled in artful
disarray. Under the blazing neon sign that read: "Here's what you can win
for thirty kopeks!" glistened a Dniepr refrigerator, and Dniepr-12 tape
recorder, a Dniepr sewing machine, and a Slavutich-409 automobile. Even the
trimmed lindens along the wide sidewalks looked like industrial products.
Victor stepped out onto the most crowded area, the three-block stretch
between the Dynamo Restaurant and the Dniepr movie theater. There were
plenty of pedestrians. Unkempt young men, trying to pass for bohemian
artists, walked stiffly down the street, their eyes glazed. Elderly couples
moved at a dignified pace. Dandies, arms around their girl friends, headed
for the park. Men with bangs over their shifty eyes darted in and out of the
crowd-the kind who don't work anywhere but have connections. Girls carefully
balanced their various hairdos, including such masterpieces of tonsorial art
as "cavewoman," "after a ladies' free-for-all," and "let them love me for my
mind." Young singles wandered around, torn between desire and shyness.
Kravets first walked around circumspectly, but then he became angry.
"Look at all of them walking around, to show themselves off and to see
others. It's as though time has stopped for them, and nothing is happening.
They used to stroll down this street when it was called Gubernatorskaya,
before the Revolution-wearing out the wooden sidewalks, checking out
fashions and each other. And they strolled after the war-from the ruins of
the Dynamo Restaurant to the ruins of the Dniepr Theater under the lights
hanging by a single wire, cracking their sunflower seeds. They've paved the
avenue, dressed it in high rises made of concrete, aluminum, and glass, lit
it up, planted trees and flowers-and they stroll around, sucking caramels,
listening to their transistors, proving the indomitability of the consumer
spirit! Show themselves off, look at others, look at others, and show
themselves off. Take a walk, drop in at the automat, consume a meat pie,
walk around, drop in at the well-tended toilet behind the post office, take
care of their needs, take a walk, have a drink, meet someone, take a walk
... an insect's life!"
He circumvented the crowd that had collected on the corner of Engels
Street near the lottery ticket vending machine. The machine, made to look
like a cyborg, played music, hawked customers with a recorded voice, and for
two five-kopek pieces, after wildly spinning a wheel made out of glass and
chrome, dispensed a "lucky" ticket. Kravets gritted his teeth.
"And we, we idiots, decided to transform people with mere laboratory
technology! What can we do with these consumers? What has changed for them
is the fact that there are taxis instead of hackney cabs, semitransistorized
tape recorders instead of accordions, telephones instead of "face-to-face"
gossip, and synthetic raincoats to wear in good weather instead of new
rubber galoshes? They used to sit around their samovars and now they spend
evenings around the TV."
He heard snatches of conversation from the crowd: "Just between us, I
can tell you frankly: a man is a man, and a woman is a woman." "So he says
'Valya?' and I say 'No.' He says 'Lusya?' and I say 'No.'
He says 'Sonya?' and I say 'No.' "Abram went oh a business trip, and
his wife...." "Learn to be satisfied with the present moment, girls!" "And
what will change as a result of progress in science and technology? So the
store windows will overflow with polyester clothes, atomic wristwatches that
never need winding, and with solid-state refrigerators and microwave ovens.
Luminescent plastic moving sidewalks will transport pedestrians from the 3-D
Dniepr Theater to the fully automated Dynamo Restaurant-they won't even have
to use their legs. They'll take strolls with microelectric walkie-talkies so
that they won't even have to turn to their friends or risk tiring their
voices to exchange such brilliant gems as:
'Just between us, I can tell you frankly: a robot is a robot, and a
mezzanine is a mezzanine!' 'Abram went off to an antiworld, and his
wife....'
Team to be satisfied with the present microsecond!' "And a vending
machine made to look like a space ship will sell 'Greetings from Venus!'
postcards: a view of the Venerian space port framed by kissing doves. And so
what?"
Harry Haritonovich Hilobok paraded past Kravets. A girl weak with
laughter was hanging from his arm. The assistant professor was busy amusing
her and didn't notice the fugitive student duck into the shadows of the
lindens. "Harry has a new one," thought Kravets, laughing. He bought some
cigarettes at a kiosk, lit one, and moved on. He was engulfed in such anger
that he lost his appetite, and if he had fallen into the arms of the
operatives, there would have been quite a brawl.
There was no room at the Theater Hotel either. The arrival walked along
the prospect in the direction of the House of the Collective Farmer,
grumpily observing the people around him.
Walk, walk, walk... every city in every country has a street where the
populace walks in the evenings, back and forth, the crowd becoming a single
entity. Show themselves, look at each other. Walk, walk, walk-and the planet
trembles under their feet! It must be some collective instinct that lures
them here, like the swallows to Capistrano. And others sit in front of the
TV. How many of them are there, people who have relegated themselves to rot
away? ('We know how to do something; we make good money; we have everything
we need; we live no worse than others-so leave us alone!') Solitary people,
afraid to be alone with themselves, confused by the complexity of life and
unwilling to think about it. They remember the one rule of safety: to be
happy in life you must be like everybody else. So they walk around and look
to see how everybody else is. They expect a revelation.
Overshadowed by the glowing glory of the avenue, the moon wandered
behind the translucent clouds. But nobody had time to look at it.
"And when they were young they dreamed about living exciting,
interesting, meaningful lives, about discovering new worlds. Who didn't have
that dream? And they probably still dream about it, passionately and
impotently. What's wrong? They didn't have the spirit to follow their
dreams? And what for? Why give free rein to your dreams and deepest
feelings-who knows where it might lead!-when you can buy ready-made dreams
and feelings, when you can safely party at a feast for invented heroes? And
so they partied themselves sick, wasted their spiritual strength on trifles,
and what they have left is enough power to muster a walk down the avenue."
Hilobok walked past him with a young girl. "So Harry has a new one!"
the arrival thought.
He watched him walk on. Should he catch up with him and inquire about
Krivoshein? "Nah, in any case it's best to stay away from Hilobok." The
arrival and Kravets stepped onto the same block.
"At one time the humanoid apes diverged: some picked up rocks and
sticks and began working, thinking; and others stayed to swing in the trees.
And now on earth another transition is beginning, more powerful and driving
than the ancient ice age: the world is about to leap into a new qualitative
state. But what do they care? They are willing to stay safe in front of the
TV-it's easy to satisfy their simple demands through technology!" the angry
Victor Kravets muttered to himself. "What do they care about all the new
vistas opened up by science, technology, industry? What's our work to them?
You can increase intelligence, cleverness, and work capabilities-so what?
They'll learn something not for the pleasure of mastery and satisfying
intellectual curiosity, but in order to earn more, to have easy work, and to
get ahead of others. They will buy and hoard so that people will notice
their success, to fill their empty lives with worries about their
possessions. And about a rainy day. It might never come but because of it,
all their other days are cloudy . . . boring! I'm going to go to
Vladivostok, on my own, before I'm sent there officially. The project will
die off naturally. It won't help them in any way: in order to take advantage
of an opportunity like that you have to have high goals, spiritual strength,
and a dissatisfaction with yourself. And they are only dissatisfied with
their surroundings: the situation, their friends, life, the government-you
name it, as long as it's not themselves. Well, let them walk around. As they
say, science is helpless here...." They were separated only by the post
office building. The angry thoughts ebbed away. There was only an
inexplicable uneasiness before the people who walked past Kravets.
"Someone said: no one despises the crowd more than the mediocrity who
manages to climb above it. Who?" he frowned as he thought. "Wait a minute, I
said that myself about someone else. Of course, about someone else, I
wouldn't have said it about me...." He was disgusted. "In trampling them, I
trample myself. I haven't come so far; I used to be just like them. Wait up!
Does this mean that I simply want to disappear? And to keep from being
terribly embarrassed and not to lose my self-respect, I'm trying to give
this flight a philosophical basis? I haven't sold out anyone: everything is
true; science is helpless, and that's how it should be. My God, an
intellectual's mind is wondrously base and self-serving! (By the way, I've
thought or said that about someone else, too; all of life's verities are
nicer when applied to others.) And that intelligent one is me. All my gears
are going full blast, contempt for the crowd, theoretical discursiveness....
Hmmmm!" He blushed and felt hot. "So this is where disaster can lead. Well,
all right, let's see what else there is for me to do."
Suddenly his legs were rooted to the pavement! Walking toward him with
an easy stride was a young man with a backpack and a raincoat over his arm.
"Adam!" Kravets felt a chill and his heart sank. It wasn't a man but a
living pang of his conscience coming toward him on that street. Adam's eyes
were thoughtful and angry, and the corners of his mouth drooped
forbiddingly. "He's going to see me, recognize me...." Victor looked away so
as not to give himself away, but curiosity won out: he stared at him. No,
Adam didn't look like a "slave" now-that was a confident, strong, and
decisive man. A memory floated up of a disheveled head against a background
of dusky wallpaper, eyes wide with hatred, and a ten-pound iron dumbbell
raised over his face.
The arrival walked on past him. "Of course, how could he recognize me?"
Kravets sighed in relief. "But why is he back? What does he want?"
He watched the man disappear into the crowd. "Maybe I should catch up
with him and tell him what happened? All the help that... No. Who knows why
he's here." He was overwhelmed with despair again. "This is where all
outwork and experiments have led. Damn it! We're afraid of each other.
Wait... that is the other variant! But will it help?" Victor bit his lip,
thinking hard.
Adam had disappeared.
"Well, enough self-torture!" Kravets said, shaking his head. "This
isn't my work alone. And I can't escape-the work must be saved."
He pulled out the change from his pocket, counted it, swallowed a
hungry gulp, and went into the post office.
He just had enough to pay for a short telegram: MOSCOW, MOSCOW STATE
U., BIOLOGY DEPT. TO KRIVOSHEIN. FLY OUT IMMEDIATELY. VALENTIN.
He sent the telegram and went out on the street. He turned down a
street that led to the Institute of Systemology. After a few steps he turned
to see if anyone was following him. The street was empty, and the only
person watching was the pretty woman with the bankbook in the brightly lit
ad on the department store that said, "Save your money at the bank" in
foot-high letters. Her eyes promised to love anyone who saved.
The sign over the administrator's window in the House of the Collective
Farmer read:
Room for a man-60 kopeks.
Room for a horse-1 ruble 20 kopeks.
The man who had arrived from Vladivostok sighed and handed his passport
through the window. "Give me a sixty-kopek room, please."
The impossible is impossible. For instance, it is impossible to move
faster than the speed of light. But even if it were possible, would it be
worth the trouble? After all, no one could see it to appreciate it.
-K. Prutkov-enzhener, Thought 17
The next morning the officer on duty in the city department handed
Investigator Onisimov the report of the policeman on guard at the sealed
laboratory. It stated that during the night, approximately between 1:00 and
2:00 A.M., an unknown man in a white shirt attempted to enter the lab
through a window. The policeman's shout scared him off into the park.
"I see!" Matvei Apollonovich rubbed his hands in satisfaction.
"Returning to the scene of the crime...."
Yesterday he had sent notice to citizen Azarov and to citizen
Kolomiets. Matvei Apollonovich wasn't really counting on the academician's
showing up in his office-but the stub of the notice would be handy to have
around. Elena Ivanovna Kolomiets, an engineer at a construction design
bureau near the Systemology Institute, showed up promptly at ten.
When she entered his office, Hilobok's wavy hand gestures came to mind;
she was a beautiful woman. "Isn't she just fine?" thought Onisimov. Any
single feature of Elena Ivanovna's, taken out of context, was ordinary-her
dark hair was like any hair, and her nose was only a nose (perhaps even too
upturned), and the oval of her face was just an oval-but together they
created such a harmonious picture, a picture that needed no analysis but
simply called to be enjoyed and remarked upon as an example of nature's
great sense of proportion.
Matvei Apollonovich remembered what the late Krivoshein had looked like
and he experienced typical male envy. "Hilobok was right; he's no match for
her. What did she see in him? Was she looking for security? A husband with a
good income?" Like most men whose looks and age left little hope of romantic
conquest, Onisimov had a low opinion of beautiful women.
"Please be seated. You are familiar with the name Valentin Vasilyevich
Krivoshein?"
"Yes." She had a throaty, mellifluous voice.
"How about Victor Vitalyevich Kravets?"
"Vitya? Yes." Elena Ivanovna smiled, showing her even teeth. "I didn't
know his father's name was Vitaly, though. What's the matter?"
"What can you tell me about the relationship between Krivoshein and
Kravets?"
"Well... they worked together. Victor, I think, is a distant relative
of Valya... I mean, Krivoshein. I think they were good friends. What's
happened?"
"Elena Ivanovna, I'll ask the questions." Onisimov figured that she
would reveal more if she were emotionally off balance, and he was in no
hurry to clear up the situation. "Is it true that you and Krivoshein were
close?"
"Yes."
"Why did you stop seeing him?"
Elena Ivanovna's eyes became cold, and a blush came and went from her
cheeks.
"That has nothing to do with this!"
"And how would you know what does and what doesn't have to do with
this?" Matvei Apollonovich perked up.
"Because... because this can't have anything to do with anything. We
broke up and that's all."
"I see... all right. We'll come back to that later. Tell me, where did
Kravets live?"
"In a dormitory for young specialists in Academic Town, like all the
probation workers."
"Why didn't he live with Krivoshein?"
"I don't know. Apparently they both preferred it that way."
"Despite the fact that they were friends and relatives? I see. And how
did Kravets behave with you? Did he court you?" Matvei Apollonovich was
milking his version for all it was worth.
"He did,..." Elena Ivanovna bit her lip. But she couldn't control her
tongue. "I think you'd do the same if I let you."
"Aha, so you let him, eh? Tell me, was Krivoshein jealous of Kravets
and you?"
"Perhaps, he was... but I don't understand what all this is about." The
woman looked at the investigator with great hostility. "All these innuendos!
What happened, will you please tell me?"
"Calm yourself, citizen!"
Maybe I should tell her? Should I? Is she involved? She is beautiful,
and a man could really fall for her, but... it's the wrong milieu for
serious sexual crimes. The statistics are against it. A scientist wouldn't
lose his head over a woman ... but Kravets....
The telephone interrupted Onisimov's ruminations. He picked it up.
"Onisimov here."
"We've found him, comrade captain!" the operative announced. "Do you
want to participate?"
"Of course!"
"We'll wait for you at the airport, car license plate 57-28 DNA."
"I see!" The investigator stood and looked merrily at Kolomiets. "We'll
finish this little talk another time, Elena Ivanovna. Let me sign your pass.
Don't be upset, and don't be mad: it's nerves-we're all like that, you and
I, included...." "But what happened?"
"We're investigating. I can say no more for now. Good day!" Onisimov
walked her out, then got his gun from the desk drawer, locked the room, and
hurried, almost at a run, to the parking lot.
The snow white IL jet taxied up to the terminal exactly at 13:00. A
light blue, elevated companion stairway pulled up at its door. A heavyset,
short man in tight green pants and bright shirt was the first to run down
the stairs, and, swinging his colorful traveling bag, he marched down the
concrete hexagonal paving stones to the barrier. He kept looking around,
seeking someone in the crowd of people greeting the arrivals, found him, and
rushed toward him.
"You look great! What's all the rush, the 'fly out immediately' during
vacation? Let me get a look at you! You're better looking than ever, even
taller! That's what a year away does for your looks! Your face seems noble
and I can even look upon your jaw without irritation."
"And you, I see, have gotten fat off the graduate land." The greeter
looked him over with a critical eye. "Have you furnished yourself with
socialist accumulations?"
"Val, it's not simple accumulation-it's an informational material
reserve. I'll tell you all about it later, even give you a demonstration.
It's a complete turnaround, Val... but let's talk about you first. Why did
you summon me before it was time? No, wait!" The recent passenger pulled out
a notebook from his pocket and withdrew several ten-ruble notes, "Here's the
money I owe you." "What money?"
"Please, spare me the act!" The passenger raised his hand to forestall
further protests. "We know; we're touched: the absent-minded scientist who
can't be bothered with prosaic minutiae. Drop it. I know you better than
that: you remember debts of fifty kopecks. Take the money and cut the bull!"
"No," he replied, smiling gently, "you don't owe me a thing. You
see-"He stumbled under the direct piercing stare of his companion.
"Goddamn it! So you've started dyeing your hair? And the scar?
Where's the scar over the eyebrow?" His voice dropped to a whisper.
"Who are you?"
Meanwhile the crowd of arrivals and welcoming friends and relatives had
thinned out. Five men who had met no one and were in no hurry discarded
their cigarettes and quickly surrounded the two men.
"Keep quiet!" Onisimov hissed, squeezing in between the lab assistant
and the passenger who was staring at him in disbelief; the second man had
money in his fist. "We'll shoot if you resist."
"Oh, boy!" the astonished passenger said, stepping back a pace; he was
immediately grabbed by the elbows.
"Not 'oh, boy!' but the police, citizen... Krivoshein, I believe?" The
investigator smiled with maximum pleasantness. "We'll have to hold you for a
while, too. Take them to the cars."
Victor Kravets, seating himself in the back seat of a Volga between
Onisimov and Gayevoy, had a tired and calm smile on his face.
"By the way, if I were you, I'd drop the smile," Matvei Apollonovich
noted. "You serve time for jokes like this."
"Ah, what's time!" Kravets waved his arm. "The important thing is that
I think I've made the right move."
"I never thought that my return would begin with an episode from a
detective story!" said the passenger as he entered the investigator's
office. "Well, once in a lifetime this could prove to be interesting."
Without waiting for an invitation, he sat down and looked around. Onisimov
sat down opposite him in silence. Two feelings were battling within him:
self-congratulation (What an operation! What success!! Caught two at
once-red-handed, it looks like!) and worry. Up until now the case had been
built on the fact that Krivoshein died or was killed in the laboratory.
But.... Matvei Apollonovich took a hard look at the man sitting before him:
a slanted brow with a widow's peak, ridges over the eyebrows, a purplish
scar over the right brow, a freckled face with full cheeks, a fat nose with
a high bridge, and short red hair. There was no doubt about it; Krivoshein
was sitting in his chair! "Boy, was I off. So who was bumped off in there?
I'm getting to the bottom of this right now!"
"Is that a hint?" Krivoshein pointed at the barred windows. "To make
even the innocent confess?"
"No, this used to be a wholesale warehouse," the investigator
explained, and remembering that the lab assistant had begun yesterday's
interview the same way, chuckled at the coincidence. "It's a leftover...
Well, how do you feel, Valentin Vasilyevich?"
"Thank you-I'm sorry, I don't know your name and patronymic-I can't
complain. How about you?"
"Ditto. Though my condition has no direct bearing on the case."
They smiled at each other broadly and tensely, like boxers before
beating each other's faces in.
"And mine, it would appear, does? I just thought it was standard
procedure to enquire about the health of passengers that you grab for no
good reason at the airport. So what does my condition have to do with your
case?"
"We don't grab, citizen Krivoshein. We detain," Onisimov corrected him.
"And your health interests me in a completely legal way, since I have a
doctor's certificate and several witnesses who say that you are a corpse."
"A corpse?" Krivoshein examined himself with exaggerated playfulness.
"Well, if that's your information, you might as well haul me off to the
autopsy room." Suddenly he understood and his smile disappeared. He looked
at Onisimov angrily and anxiously. "Listen, comrade investigator, if this is
a joke, it's a lousy one! What corpse?"
"Please, who's joking?" Onisimov gestured broadly with his hands. "The
day before yesterday your body was found in a laboratory-I saw it with my
own eyes-I mean not your body, since you are in good health, but someone who
looked very much like you. It was identified as being you." "Damn it!"
Krivoshein hunched over and rubbed his cheeks. "Can you let me see the
body?"
"Well, you know that we can't, Valentin Vasilyevich. It turned into a
skeleton, you know. This mischief isn't a very good idea. It could be
misinterpreted."
"Into a skeleton?!" Krivoshein looked up and confusion showed in his
brown-flecked green eyes. "How? Where?"
"It happened there, at the scene, as if you needed any information on
the matter from me," Onisimov stressed. "Maybe you'd like to explain?"
"There was a body which became a skeleton," Krivoshein muttered,
frowning. "Then... oh, then it's not so bad. He wasn't wasting time; it
looks as if something went wrong. Damn it, look at me!" He cheered up and
carefully looked at the detective. "You're mixing me up, comrade, and I
don't know why. Bodies just don't turn into skeletons like that. I know a
little about it. And then, how can you prove that it's my... I mean, the
body of a man who looks like me, if you have no body? Something's wrong
here."
"Perhaps. That's why I want you to shed light on this yourself. Since
all this happened in the laboratory you run."
"That I run? Hm...." Krivoshein laughed, and shook his head. "I'm
afraid nothing will come of this light shedding. I need someone to explain
it all to me."
"And this one is going to go mum, too!" Matvei Apollonovich sighed
glumly, took a sheet of paper, and unscrewed his pen.
"Let's do this in order. Your name is Valentin Vasilyevich Krivoshein?"
"Yes."
"Age thirty-five? Russian? Bachelor?"
"Exactly."
"You live in Dneprovsk and head the New Systems Laboratory at the
Systemology Institute?"
"No, that's the part that's wrong. I live in Moscow, and study in the
graduate biology department at Moscow State University. Here!" Krivoshein
handed him his passport and documents across the desk.
The papers had a realistically weather-beaten look. Everything in
them-including the three-year residence permit for Moscow-corresponded with
his story.
"I see." Onisimov put them in his desk. "These things are done quickly
in Moscow, in one day!"
"What are you trying to say?!" Krivoshein stared at him, one eyebrow
arched aggressively.
"Your documents are phony, that's what. Just as phony as your
confederate's, to whom you were trying to pass money at the airport. Were
you trying to guarantee an alibi? You needn't have bothered. We'll check it,
and then what?"
"Go ahead and check!"
"We will. Whom do you work under at MSU? Who's your advisor?"
"Professor Vano Aleksandrovich Androsiashvili, department chairman in
general physiology, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences."
"I see." The investigator dialed the phone. "Operator? This is
Onisimov. Quickly connect me with Moscow. I want this man on the videophone
as soon as possible. Write it down, Vano Aleksandrovich Androsiashvili,
professor, head of the physiology department at the university. Hurry!" He
stared at Krivoshein triumphantly.
"The videophone! Marvelous!" he chuckled. "I see that detective work is
approaching science fiction. Will this be soon?"
"It'll happen when it happens. We have things to discuss, you and I."
Krivoshein's confidence, however, made an impression on Onisimov. He
thought: "And what if this is some kind of crazy coincidence? Let me check."
"Tell me, do you know Elena Ivanovna Kolomiets?"
Krivoshein's face lost its calm expression. He sat up and looked at
Onisimov angrily and questioningly.
"Yes. So what?"
"Very well?"
"So?"
"Why did you break up?"
"This, my dear investigator, if you will excuse me, is absolutely none
of your business!" Krivoshein was getting very angry. "I do not permit
anyone to meddle in my private life-not God, not the devil, not the police!"
"I see," Onisimov said calmly. And the thought: "It's him! No way out
of it-it's him. Why is he covering up? What could he possibly be hoping
for?" He continued the questioning. "All right, here's an easier question:
who's Adam?"
"Adam? The first man on earth. Why?"
"He called the institute ... the first man. He wanted to know how you
were, wanted to see you."
Krivoshein shrugged.
"And who is that man who met you at the airport?"
"Whom you so cleverly branded as my confederate? That man...."
Krivoshein raised and dropped his eyebrows meditatively.
"I'm afraid he's not the person I took him for."
"I don't think he is, either. Not at all." Onisimov perked up. "But
then who is he?"
"I don't know."
"The same nonsense all over again!" Onisimov wailed, throwing down his
pen. "Enough of this baloney, citizen Krivoshein. It's unbecoming! You were
giving him money, forty rubles in tens. You mean you didn't know to whom you
were giving money?"
At that moment a young man in a white lab coat came in to the office,
put a form on the table, and left, after giving Krivoshein a sharp, curious
look. Onisimov looked at the form-it was a report on the analysis of the
suspect's fingerprints. When he looked up at Krivoshein, his eyes had a
sympathetically triumphant smile.
"Well, that's it. We don't have to wait for the Moscow professor to
give a visual ID-and he probably wouldn't anyway. Your fingerprints, citizen
Krivoshein, correspond completely to the prints that I took at the scene of
the crime. Here, see for yourself!" He handed the form and a magnifying
glass to Krivoshein. "So let's drop the game. And remember that your flight
to Moscow and the fake papers only make things worse. The court adds three
to eight years to a sentence for premeditation and the attempt to confound
the police."
Krivoshein, his lip extended, was studying the form.
"Tell me," he said, raising his eyes to the detective, "why can't you
allow for the fact that there are two men with the same fingerprints?"
"Why?! Because in a hundred years of using this method in criminology,
such a thing has never happened once."
"Lots of things have never happened before, like Sputnik, hydrogen
bombs, and computers, but they exist now."
"What do sputniks have to do with this?" Matvei Apollonovich shrugged.
"Sputniks are sputniks, and fingerprints are fingerprints, incontestable
evidence. So are you going to talk?"
Krivoshein gazed deeply and thoughtfully at the detective and smiled
gently.
"What's your name, comrade investigator?"
"Matvei Apollonovich Onisimov, why?"
"You know what, Matvei Apollonovich? Drop this case."
"What do you mean, drop it?"
"Just like that, the usual way, cover it up. How do you phrase it: 'for
insufficient evidence' or 'lack of proof of a crime.' You know, 'turned over
to the archives on such and such a date....'"
Matvei Apollonovich was speechless. He had never encountered such brass
in all his years on the force.
"You see, Matvei Apollonovich, you'll continue with the varied and, in
usual cases, certainly useful activity of questioning, detaining,
interrogating, comparing fingerprints, bothering busy people with your
videophone." Krivoshein developed his thought gesturing with his right hand.
"And all the time you'll keep thinking that any second now you'll have the
truth by the tail. Contradictions will smooth out into facts, the facts into
evidence; good will triumph, and evil will get a sentence plus time for
premeditation." He sighed sympathetically. "The hell these contradictions
will smooth out! Not in this case. And you will never hit on the truth for
the simple reason that you are not ready to accept it at your level of
reasoning."
Onisimov frowned and his lips compressed into a huffy pout.
"No, no!" Krivoshein waved his hands. "Please don't think that I'm
trying to put you down, that I want to demean you, or cast aspersions on
your qualities as a detective. I can see that you are a tenacious and
hard-working man. But-how can I explain this to you?" He squinted at the
sunny yellow window. "Oh, here's a good example. About sixty years ago, as
you undoubtedly know, the machinery in factories and plants was powered by
steam or diesels. A transmission shaft went through the workshops with
driving belts running from it to the machine pulleys. All this spun, buzzed,
and hummed, its wild noise bringing joy to the director or owner. Then
electricity came on the scene-and now all that has been replaced by electric
motors, built into the machines."
Once again, like last night, when he had interrogated the lab
assistant, Matvei Apollonovich was seized by doubts: something was wrong
here! Quite a few people had been in his office, polishing the chair with
their squirming: taciturn teenagers who had gotten into trouble through
stupidity; weepy speculators; overly-casual accountants caught through a
routine check of the books; and repeat offenders who knew all the laws. But
all of them realized sooner or later that the game was over, that the moment
had come for them to confess and hope that the record reflected their
clean-breasted repentance. But this one . . . just sat there as though
nothing had happened, waving his arms and explaining at a simple level why
the case should be closed. "This lack of game playing is throwing me off
again! But no, I'm not going to slip twice in the same place!" he thought.
Matvei Apollonovich was an experienced investigator and knew well that
doubts and impressions did not build a case-facts did. And the facts were
against Krivoshein and Kravets.
"Now imagine that in some ancient factory the changeover from
mechanical power to electricity took place overnight instead of taking
years," Krivoshein went on. "What would the owner of the factory think when
he got there in the morning? Naturally, that someone had swiped the steam
engine, the transmission shaft, the belts and pulleys. For him to understand
that it was a technological revolution and not a theft he would have to know
physics, electronics, and electrodynamics. And you, Matvei Apollonovich,
figuratively speaking, are in the position of such an owner."
"Physics, electronics, electrodynamics." Onisimov repeated
distractedly, looking at his watch. Where was that call to Moscow? "And
information theory, and the theory of modeling random processes, too?"
"Aha!" Krivoshein leaned back in his chair and looked at the detective
with undisguised pleasure. "You know about those sciences as well?"
"We know everything, Valentin Vasilyevich."
"I see there's no tricking you."
"And I don't suggest you try. So, are we going to count on an illegal
closing of the case or are we going to tell the truth?"
"Hah." Krivoshein wiped his forehead and cheeks with a handkerchief.
"It's hot in here. All right. Let's agree on this, Matvei Apollonovich. I'll
find out what's going on, and then I'll tell you."
"No," Onisimov shook his head. "We won't agree on that. It won't do,
you know, to have the suspect conduct the investigation of the case. No
crime would ever be solved that way."
"Goddamn it!" Krivoshein began, but the door opened and a young
lieutenant announced:
"Moscow, Matvei Apollonovich!"
Onisimov and Krivoshein went up to the second floor to the
communications room.
Vano Aleksandrovich Androsiashvili brought his face so close to the
videophone screen that it seemed he wanted to peck through the tube with his
hawklike, predatory nose. Yes, he recognized his graduate student Valentin
Vasilyevich Krivoshein. Yes, he had seen the student daily for the last few
weeks, but he couldn't give them dates of their meetings further back than
that by heart. Yes, student Krivoshein had left the university for five days
with his personal permission. His growling Georgian r's reverberated in the
phone's speaker. He was very upset that he had been dragged away from
louse sees a play, becomes horrified and turns into a decent man; a coward
goes down to the movies and comes out a hero. And it should last a lifetime,
not just five minutes. That's probably what writers and painters hope for
when they create. Why doesn't it happen? Let's think. Art information is
constructed along the lines of everyday information. It is concrete,
contains subtle and flexible generalizations, but it is not real. It's only
realistic, probable. That must be its weakness. It cannot be applied like
scientific information: a man cannot plan out his life based on it. It is
not universal and objective enough for that. And you can't use it for a
guideline the way daily information can be used because its concreteness
never coincides with the concrete life of the given reader. "And even if it
did coincide, who wants to lead a copycat life? You can copy a hairdo,
that's all right, but to copy a life recommended by a large printing.
Apparently, the idea of 'rearing along literary examples' springs from the
idea that man comes from the apes and that imitation comes naturally to him.
But man has been man for a long time, millions of years. Now he is
characterized by self-determination and original behavior which he knows to
be the better course." "Academic Town!" the driver announced.
The man got off the trolley and saw immediately that his trip had been
in vain. Two rows of standardized five-story houses, joining at the horizon,
gazed upon one another with lighted windows. But there were no lights in the
corner apartment on the fifth floor of house No. 33.
A feeling of relief that the unpleasant meeting with Krivoshein was put
off, once again mingled with regret: he had no place to sleep. He took a
trolley back downtown and started checking out the hotels. Naturally, they
were all full.
And he started thinking again, his thoughts coloring his glum attempts
to find a place for the night.
"The longer we live, the more we see that there are many life
situations in which the decisions described in books or shown in movies are
inapplicable. And we begin to see the information from art as a quasi-life,
in which things are not really like that. It's a good place to live through
a dangerous adventure (even with a fatal ending) or to test one's principles
without jeopardizing one's job-in a word, to feel, if only for a brief
moment, that you are someone else: smarter, handsomer, braver than you
really are. It's no secret that people who live humdrum lives adore
adventure and mystery novels...." He was on Marx Prospect, with its neon
signs and bright lights. "And we use this marvelous information for trifles,
for amusement to pass some time. Or to charm a girl with the right poem.
That information does not belong to us. We didn't reach the conclusions and
truths about ourselves. We can just sit back, watch or read, as an invented
life goes beyond a glass screen-we are merely 'information receptors!' Of
course, there have been instances when the 'receptors' couldn't stand it and
tried to influence it: Dad used to tell about the Red Army soldier in Samara
who once shot at an actor who played Admiral Kolchak in a play for the
troops, and earlier in Nizhny Novgorod, the audience beat up the actor who
was portraying lago-for his good acting. The idea of breaking down the glass
barrier and acting on art is a good one. There's something to it...."
A thought, still unverbalized, unclear, more a hunch, ripened in his
mind. But someone tapped him on the shoulder just then. He looked around:
there were three men in civilian clothes. One of them casually waved a red
book under his nose.
"Show your documents, citizen."
The man shrugged, put down his backpack, and took his passport from his
pocket. The operative read the first page, looked at the photograph and his
face and the photograph again, and returned the passport.
"Everything is in order. Excuse us, please."
"Ooofff!" The man picked up his pack, and trying not to walk any
faster, moved on toward the Theater Hotel. His mood was worse. "I don't
think I should have come."
The three men walked over to a tobacco kiosk. Officer Gayevoy, also
dressed as a plainclothesman, was waiting for them.
"I told you," he said triumphantly.
"Not the one,..." sighed the operative. "Some guy called Valentin
Vasilyevich Krivoshein. But if you go by the photo and the description, he's
definitely Kravets."
"Description, description ... what's a description?" Gayevoy was angry.
"I saw him, you know: he had no gray hair, was about ten years younger, and
a lot thinner."
"Let's go over to the railroad station, fellows," the second operative
suggested. "After all, he's no fool. He's not going to stroll down the
avenue!"
Victor Kravets was at that moment making his way down a dark, deserted
side street.
After he jumped out of the moving police car, he went through the park
to the banks of the Dnieper and lay in the bushes, waiting for dark. He
wanted to smoke and to eat. The low sun gilded the sand of Beach Island,
dotted with bright mushrooms; there were still bathers there. A small tug,
spreading watery whiskers from shore to shore, was hurrying upriver to the
freight yards to get a new barge. Cars and buses moved noisily below the
cliff.
"We finally got there. We thought everything through: the method of the
experiments, the variants in using the method, even its influence on the
world situation. This was the only variant we didn't foresee. What a fall
from great heights face down into the mud! From researcher to criminal. My
God, what kind of work is this-one failed experiment and everything flies
out the window. I'm not prepared for this game with investigators and
medical experts, so unprepared that I might as well go down to the library
and start reading up on the criminal code and the-what else is there?-the
judicial code. I don't know the rules of the game, and I might lose. I
guess, I already have lost. The library... how could I have time for the
library now?"
The cooling towers of the electrostation on the other side of the
Dnieper exhaled fat columns of steam as though they were trying to make
clouds. The low edge of the sun touched them.
"What should I do now? Go back to the police, tell them everything,
make a clean breast of it' and give away (despicably) the secret we tried to
keep from evil eyes? And give it away not to save the project, but to save
myself? This won't save the work: in two or three days everything will start
rotting in the laboratory, and I won't be able to prove a thing, and no one
will believe me, and no one will know what happened there. I won't save
myself that way either: Krivoshein died. The weight of his death is on me,
as they say. Should I go to Azarov and explain things to him? There's no way
I could explain anything to him now. I'm less than a student on probation to
him-I'm a shady character with forged papers. If he's been informed of my
escape, then as a loyal administrator, he must cooperate with the police.
There it is, man's problem, in full view. The source of all our troubles. We
simply can't solve it through the laboratory method. We! That's a laugh. We
who have achieved such greatness. We in whose hands lie the unheard-of
possibilities of synthesizing information. What the hell. We can't handle
this problem; time to fess up. And what sense is there in the rest without
it?"
The sun was setting. Kravets got up, brushed off his trousers, and went
up the path, not knowing where or why. Loose change jangled in his pockets.
He counted it: enough for a pack of cigarettes and a very light supper. "And
then?" Two young coeds, comfortably studying for exams on a bench in the
bushes, looked with interest at the handsome young man, shook their heads to
dispel evil thoughts, and went back to their notes. "Mmm... I guess I won't
be completely lost. Should I go see Lena? But she's probably under
surveillance, and they'll catch me...."
The path led out onto a quiet, uninhabited street. Branches heavy with
ripening cherries hung over the fences. At the street's end, a cloud blazed,
underlit with red.
It was getting dark fast. The evening coolness was creeping up under
his shirt, onto his bare chest. On the opposite side of the street, a half
block away from Victor, two men in caps walked out of the shadows. "Police!"
Kravets ducked into an alley. He ran a block and then stopped to calm his
heart.
"To think of it! I've never run from anyone in twenty years, and now
I'm like a boy chased out of somebody's yard." His helplessness and
degradation made the desire for a cigarette unbearable. "The game is lost. I
just have to admit that and leave. Follow my feet. After all, everyone of us
has experienced the desire to get away from some situation or other. Now
it's my turn, damn it! What else can I do?"
The alley led out into the glow of blue lights. The sight brought on a
wave of animal hunger: he hadn't eaten in twenty-four hours. "Hm ... so
there are restaurants still open. I'll go. Nobody's going to look for me on
Marx Prospect."
The concrete posts extended their snake-headed street lights over the
pavement. In the store windows elegant dummies stood in casual poses;
radios, televisions, and pots and pans shone brightly; bottles of Sovetskoe
Champagne beckoned, and cans of fish and preserves tumbled in artful
disarray. Under the blazing neon sign that read: "Here's what you can win
for thirty kopeks!" glistened a Dniepr refrigerator, and Dniepr-12 tape
recorder, a Dniepr sewing machine, and a Slavutich-409 automobile. Even the
trimmed lindens along the wide sidewalks looked like industrial products.
Victor stepped out onto the most crowded area, the three-block stretch
between the Dynamo Restaurant and the Dniepr movie theater. There were
plenty of pedestrians. Unkempt young men, trying to pass for bohemian
artists, walked stiffly down the street, their eyes glazed. Elderly couples
moved at a dignified pace. Dandies, arms around their girl friends, headed
for the park. Men with bangs over their shifty eyes darted in and out of the
crowd-the kind who don't work anywhere but have connections. Girls carefully
balanced their various hairdos, including such masterpieces of tonsorial art
as "cavewoman," "after a ladies' free-for-all," and "let them love me for my
mind." Young singles wandered around, torn between desire and shyness.
Kravets first walked around circumspectly, but then he became angry.
"Look at all of them walking around, to show themselves off and to see
others. It's as though time has stopped for them, and nothing is happening.
They used to stroll down this street when it was called Gubernatorskaya,
before the Revolution-wearing out the wooden sidewalks, checking out
fashions and each other. And they strolled after the war-from the ruins of
the Dynamo Restaurant to the ruins of the Dniepr Theater under the lights
hanging by a single wire, cracking their sunflower seeds. They've paved the
avenue, dressed it in high rises made of concrete, aluminum, and glass, lit
it up, planted trees and flowers-and they stroll around, sucking caramels,
listening to their transistors, proving the indomitability of the consumer
spirit! Show themselves off, look at others, look at others, and show
themselves off. Take a walk, drop in at the automat, consume a meat pie,
walk around, drop in at the well-tended toilet behind the post office, take
care of their needs, take a walk, have a drink, meet someone, take a walk
... an insect's life!"
He circumvented the crowd that had collected on the corner of Engels
Street near the lottery ticket vending machine. The machine, made to look
like a cyborg, played music, hawked customers with a recorded voice, and for
two five-kopek pieces, after wildly spinning a wheel made out of glass and
chrome, dispensed a "lucky" ticket. Kravets gritted his teeth.
"And we, we idiots, decided to transform people with mere laboratory
technology! What can we do with these consumers? What has changed for them
is the fact that there are taxis instead of hackney cabs, semitransistorized
tape recorders instead of accordions, telephones instead of "face-to-face"
gossip, and synthetic raincoats to wear in good weather instead of new
rubber galoshes? They used to sit around their samovars and now they spend
evenings around the TV."
He heard snatches of conversation from the crowd: "Just between us, I
can tell you frankly: a man is a man, and a woman is a woman." "So he says
'Valya?' and I say 'No.' He says 'Lusya?' and I say 'No.'
He says 'Sonya?' and I say 'No.' "Abram went oh a business trip, and
his wife...." "Learn to be satisfied with the present moment, girls!" "And
what will change as a result of progress in science and technology? So the
store windows will overflow with polyester clothes, atomic wristwatches that
never need winding, and with solid-state refrigerators and microwave ovens.
Luminescent plastic moving sidewalks will transport pedestrians from the 3-D
Dniepr Theater to the fully automated Dynamo Restaurant-they won't even have
to use their legs. They'll take strolls with microelectric walkie-talkies so
that they won't even have to turn to their friends or risk tiring their
voices to exchange such brilliant gems as:
'Just between us, I can tell you frankly: a robot is a robot, and a
mezzanine is a mezzanine!' 'Abram went off to an antiworld, and his
wife....'
Team to be satisfied with the present microsecond!' "And a vending
machine made to look like a space ship will sell 'Greetings from Venus!'
postcards: a view of the Venerian space port framed by kissing doves. And so
what?"
Harry Haritonovich Hilobok paraded past Kravets. A girl weak with
laughter was hanging from his arm. The assistant professor was busy amusing
her and didn't notice the fugitive student duck into the shadows of the
lindens. "Harry has a new one," thought Kravets, laughing. He bought some
cigarettes at a kiosk, lit one, and moved on. He was engulfed in such anger
that he lost his appetite, and if he had fallen into the arms of the
operatives, there would have been quite a brawl.
There was no room at the Theater Hotel either. The arrival walked along
the prospect in the direction of the House of the Collective Farmer,
grumpily observing the people around him.
Walk, walk, walk... every city in every country has a street where the
populace walks in the evenings, back and forth, the crowd becoming a single
entity. Show themselves, look at each other. Walk, walk, walk-and the planet
trembles under their feet! It must be some collective instinct that lures
them here, like the swallows to Capistrano. And others sit in front of the
TV. How many of them are there, people who have relegated themselves to rot
away? ('We know how to do something; we make good money; we have everything
we need; we live no worse than others-so leave us alone!') Solitary people,
afraid to be alone with themselves, confused by the complexity of life and
unwilling to think about it. They remember the one rule of safety: to be
happy in life you must be like everybody else. So they walk around and look
to see how everybody else is. They expect a revelation.
Overshadowed by the glowing glory of the avenue, the moon wandered
behind the translucent clouds. But nobody had time to look at it.
"And when they were young they dreamed about living exciting,
interesting, meaningful lives, about discovering new worlds. Who didn't have
that dream? And they probably still dream about it, passionately and
impotently. What's wrong? They didn't have the spirit to follow their
dreams? And what for? Why give free rein to your dreams and deepest
feelings-who knows where it might lead!-when you can buy ready-made dreams
and feelings, when you can safely party at a feast for invented heroes? And
so they partied themselves sick, wasted their spiritual strength on trifles,
and what they have left is enough power to muster a walk down the avenue."
Hilobok walked past him with a young girl. "So Harry has a new one!"
the arrival thought.
He watched him walk on. Should he catch up with him and inquire about
Krivoshein? "Nah, in any case it's best to stay away from Hilobok." The
arrival and Kravets stepped onto the same block.
"At one time the humanoid apes diverged: some picked up rocks and
sticks and began working, thinking; and others stayed to swing in the trees.
And now on earth another transition is beginning, more powerful and driving
than the ancient ice age: the world is about to leap into a new qualitative
state. But what do they care? They are willing to stay safe in front of the
TV-it's easy to satisfy their simple demands through technology!" the angry
Victor Kravets muttered to himself. "What do they care about all the new
vistas opened up by science, technology, industry? What's our work to them?
You can increase intelligence, cleverness, and work capabilities-so what?
They'll learn something not for the pleasure of mastery and satisfying
intellectual curiosity, but in order to earn more, to have easy work, and to
get ahead of others. They will buy and hoard so that people will notice
their success, to fill their empty lives with worries about their
possessions. And about a rainy day. It might never come but because of it,
all their other days are cloudy . . . boring! I'm going to go to
Vladivostok, on my own, before I'm sent there officially. The project will
die off naturally. It won't help them in any way: in order to take advantage
of an opportunity like that you have to have high goals, spiritual strength,
and a dissatisfaction with yourself. And they are only dissatisfied with
their surroundings: the situation, their friends, life, the government-you
name it, as long as it's not themselves. Well, let them walk around. As they
say, science is helpless here...." They were separated only by the post
office building. The angry thoughts ebbed away. There was only an
inexplicable uneasiness before the people who walked past Kravets.
"Someone said: no one despises the crowd more than the mediocrity who
manages to climb above it. Who?" he frowned as he thought. "Wait a minute, I
said that myself about someone else. Of course, about someone else, I
wouldn't have said it about me...." He was disgusted. "In trampling them, I
trample myself. I haven't come so far; I used to be just like them. Wait up!
Does this mean that I simply want to disappear? And to keep from being
terribly embarrassed and not to lose my self-respect, I'm trying to give
this flight a philosophical basis? I haven't sold out anyone: everything is
true; science is helpless, and that's how it should be. My God, an
intellectual's mind is wondrously base and self-serving! (By the way, I've
thought or said that about someone else, too; all of life's verities are
nicer when applied to others.) And that intelligent one is me. All my gears
are going full blast, contempt for the crowd, theoretical discursiveness....
Hmmmm!" He blushed and felt hot. "So this is where disaster can lead. Well,
all right, let's see what else there is for me to do."
Suddenly his legs were rooted to the pavement! Walking toward him with
an easy stride was a young man with a backpack and a raincoat over his arm.
"Adam!" Kravets felt a chill and his heart sank. It wasn't a man but a
living pang of his conscience coming toward him on that street. Adam's eyes
were thoughtful and angry, and the corners of his mouth drooped
forbiddingly. "He's going to see me, recognize me...." Victor looked away so
as not to give himself away, but curiosity won out: he stared at him. No,
Adam didn't look like a "slave" now-that was a confident, strong, and
decisive man. A memory floated up of a disheveled head against a background
of dusky wallpaper, eyes wide with hatred, and a ten-pound iron dumbbell
raised over his face.
The arrival walked on past him. "Of course, how could he recognize me?"
Kravets sighed in relief. "But why is he back? What does he want?"
He watched the man disappear into the crowd. "Maybe I should catch up
with him and tell him what happened? All the help that... No. Who knows why
he's here." He was overwhelmed with despair again. "This is where all
outwork and experiments have led. Damn it! We're afraid of each other.
Wait... that is the other variant! But will it help?" Victor bit his lip,
thinking hard.
Adam had disappeared.
"Well, enough self-torture!" Kravets said, shaking his head. "This
isn't my work alone. And I can't escape-the work must be saved."
He pulled out the change from his pocket, counted it, swallowed a
hungry gulp, and went into the post office.
He just had enough to pay for a short telegram: MOSCOW, MOSCOW STATE
U., BIOLOGY DEPT. TO KRIVOSHEIN. FLY OUT IMMEDIATELY. VALENTIN.
He sent the telegram and went out on the street. He turned down a
street that led to the Institute of Systemology. After a few steps he turned
to see if anyone was following him. The street was empty, and the only
person watching was the pretty woman with the bankbook in the brightly lit
ad on the department store that said, "Save your money at the bank" in
foot-high letters. Her eyes promised to love anyone who saved.
The sign over the administrator's window in the House of the Collective
Farmer read:
Room for a man-60 kopeks.
Room for a horse-1 ruble 20 kopeks.
The man who had arrived from Vladivostok sighed and handed his passport
through the window. "Give me a sixty-kopek room, please."
The impossible is impossible. For instance, it is impossible to move
faster than the speed of light. But even if it were possible, would it be
worth the trouble? After all, no one could see it to appreciate it.
-K. Prutkov-enzhener, Thought 17
The next morning the officer on duty in the city department handed
Investigator Onisimov the report of the policeman on guard at the sealed
laboratory. It stated that during the night, approximately between 1:00 and
2:00 A.M., an unknown man in a white shirt attempted to enter the lab
through a window. The policeman's shout scared him off into the park.
"I see!" Matvei Apollonovich rubbed his hands in satisfaction.
"Returning to the scene of the crime...."
Yesterday he had sent notice to citizen Azarov and to citizen
Kolomiets. Matvei Apollonovich wasn't really counting on the academician's
showing up in his office-but the stub of the notice would be handy to have
around. Elena Ivanovna Kolomiets, an engineer at a construction design
bureau near the Systemology Institute, showed up promptly at ten.
When she entered his office, Hilobok's wavy hand gestures came to mind;
she was a beautiful woman. "Isn't she just fine?" thought Onisimov. Any
single feature of Elena Ivanovna's, taken out of context, was ordinary-her
dark hair was like any hair, and her nose was only a nose (perhaps even too
upturned), and the oval of her face was just an oval-but together they
created such a harmonious picture, a picture that needed no analysis but
simply called to be enjoyed and remarked upon as an example of nature's
great sense of proportion.
Matvei Apollonovich remembered what the late Krivoshein had looked like
and he experienced typical male envy. "Hilobok was right; he's no match for
her. What did she see in him? Was she looking for security? A husband with a
good income?" Like most men whose looks and age left little hope of romantic
conquest, Onisimov had a low opinion of beautiful women.
"Please be seated. You are familiar with the name Valentin Vasilyevich
Krivoshein?"
"Yes." She had a throaty, mellifluous voice.
"How about Victor Vitalyevich Kravets?"
"Vitya? Yes." Elena Ivanovna smiled, showing her even teeth. "I didn't
know his father's name was Vitaly, though. What's the matter?"
"What can you tell me about the relationship between Krivoshein and
Kravets?"
"Well... they worked together. Victor, I think, is a distant relative
of Valya... I mean, Krivoshein. I think they were good friends. What's
happened?"
"Elena Ivanovna, I'll ask the questions." Onisimov figured that she
would reveal more if she were emotionally off balance, and he was in no
hurry to clear up the situation. "Is it true that you and Krivoshein were
close?"
"Yes."
"Why did you stop seeing him?"
Elena Ivanovna's eyes became cold, and a blush came and went from her
cheeks.
"That has nothing to do with this!"
"And how would you know what does and what doesn't have to do with
this?" Matvei Apollonovich perked up.
"Because... because this can't have anything to do with anything. We
broke up and that's all."
"I see... all right. We'll come back to that later. Tell me, where did
Kravets live?"
"In a dormitory for young specialists in Academic Town, like all the
probation workers."
"Why didn't he live with Krivoshein?"
"I don't know. Apparently they both preferred it that way."
"Despite the fact that they were friends and relatives? I see. And how
did Kravets behave with you? Did he court you?" Matvei Apollonovich was
milking his version for all it was worth.
"He did,..." Elena Ivanovna bit her lip. But she couldn't control her
tongue. "I think you'd do the same if I let you."
"Aha, so you let him, eh? Tell me, was Krivoshein jealous of Kravets
and you?"
"Perhaps, he was... but I don't understand what all this is about." The
woman looked at the investigator with great hostility. "All these innuendos!
What happened, will you please tell me?"
"Calm yourself, citizen!"
Maybe I should tell her? Should I? Is she involved? She is beautiful,
and a man could really fall for her, but... it's the wrong milieu for
serious sexual crimes. The statistics are against it. A scientist wouldn't
lose his head over a woman ... but Kravets....
The telephone interrupted Onisimov's ruminations. He picked it up.
"Onisimov here."
"We've found him, comrade captain!" the operative announced. "Do you
want to participate?"
"Of course!"
"We'll wait for you at the airport, car license plate 57-28 DNA."
"I see!" The investigator stood and looked merrily at Kolomiets. "We'll
finish this little talk another time, Elena Ivanovna. Let me sign your pass.
Don't be upset, and don't be mad: it's nerves-we're all like that, you and
I, included...." "But what happened?"
"We're investigating. I can say no more for now. Good day!" Onisimov
walked her out, then got his gun from the desk drawer, locked the room, and
hurried, almost at a run, to the parking lot.
The snow white IL jet taxied up to the terminal exactly at 13:00. A
light blue, elevated companion stairway pulled up at its door. A heavyset,
short man in tight green pants and bright shirt was the first to run down
the stairs, and, swinging his colorful traveling bag, he marched down the
concrete hexagonal paving stones to the barrier. He kept looking around,
seeking someone in the crowd of people greeting the arrivals, found him, and
rushed toward him.
"You look great! What's all the rush, the 'fly out immediately' during
vacation? Let me get a look at you! You're better looking than ever, even
taller! That's what a year away does for your looks! Your face seems noble
and I can even look upon your jaw without irritation."
"And you, I see, have gotten fat off the graduate land." The greeter
looked him over with a critical eye. "Have you furnished yourself with
socialist accumulations?"
"Val, it's not simple accumulation-it's an informational material
reserve. I'll tell you all about it later, even give you a demonstration.
It's a complete turnaround, Val... but let's talk about you first. Why did
you summon me before it was time? No, wait!" The recent passenger pulled out
a notebook from his pocket and withdrew several ten-ruble notes, "Here's the
money I owe you." "What money?"
"Please, spare me the act!" The passenger raised his hand to forestall
further protests. "We know; we're touched: the absent-minded scientist who
can't be bothered with prosaic minutiae. Drop it. I know you better than
that: you remember debts of fifty kopecks. Take the money and cut the bull!"
"No," he replied, smiling gently, "you don't owe me a thing. You
see-"He stumbled under the direct piercing stare of his companion.
"Goddamn it! So you've started dyeing your hair? And the scar?
Where's the scar over the eyebrow?" His voice dropped to a whisper.
"Who are you?"
Meanwhile the crowd of arrivals and welcoming friends and relatives had
thinned out. Five men who had met no one and were in no hurry discarded
their cigarettes and quickly surrounded the two men.
"Keep quiet!" Onisimov hissed, squeezing in between the lab assistant
and the passenger who was staring at him in disbelief; the second man had
money in his fist. "We'll shoot if you resist."
"Oh, boy!" the astonished passenger said, stepping back a pace; he was
immediately grabbed by the elbows.
"Not 'oh, boy!' but the police, citizen... Krivoshein, I believe?" The
investigator smiled with maximum pleasantness. "We'll have to hold you for a
while, too. Take them to the cars."
Victor Kravets, seating himself in the back seat of a Volga between
Onisimov and Gayevoy, had a tired and calm smile on his face.
"By the way, if I were you, I'd drop the smile," Matvei Apollonovich
noted. "You serve time for jokes like this."
"Ah, what's time!" Kravets waved his arm. "The important thing is that
I think I've made the right move."
"I never thought that my return would begin with an episode from a
detective story!" said the passenger as he entered the investigator's
office. "Well, once in a lifetime this could prove to be interesting."
Without waiting for an invitation, he sat down and looked around. Onisimov
sat down opposite him in silence. Two feelings were battling within him:
self-congratulation (What an operation! What success!! Caught two at
once-red-handed, it looks like!) and worry. Up until now the case had been
built on the fact that Krivoshein died or was killed in the laboratory.
But.... Matvei Apollonovich took a hard look at the man sitting before him:
a slanted brow with a widow's peak, ridges over the eyebrows, a purplish
scar over the right brow, a freckled face with full cheeks, a fat nose with
a high bridge, and short red hair. There was no doubt about it; Krivoshein
was sitting in his chair! "Boy, was I off. So who was bumped off in there?
I'm getting to the bottom of this right now!"
"Is that a hint?" Krivoshein pointed at the barred windows. "To make
even the innocent confess?"
"No, this used to be a wholesale warehouse," the investigator
explained, and remembering that the lab assistant had begun yesterday's
interview the same way, chuckled at the coincidence. "It's a leftover...
Well, how do you feel, Valentin Vasilyevich?"
"Thank you-I'm sorry, I don't know your name and patronymic-I can't
complain. How about you?"
"Ditto. Though my condition has no direct bearing on the case."
They smiled at each other broadly and tensely, like boxers before
beating each other's faces in.
"And mine, it would appear, does? I just thought it was standard
procedure to enquire about the health of passengers that you grab for no
good reason at the airport. So what does my condition have to do with your
case?"
"We don't grab, citizen Krivoshein. We detain," Onisimov corrected him.
"And your health interests me in a completely legal way, since I have a
doctor's certificate and several witnesses who say that you are a corpse."
"A corpse?" Krivoshein examined himself with exaggerated playfulness.
"Well, if that's your information, you might as well haul me off to the
autopsy room." Suddenly he understood and his smile disappeared. He looked
at Onisimov angrily and anxiously. "Listen, comrade investigator, if this is
a joke, it's a lousy one! What corpse?"
"Please, who's joking?" Onisimov gestured broadly with his hands. "The
day before yesterday your body was found in a laboratory-I saw it with my
own eyes-I mean not your body, since you are in good health, but someone who
looked very much like you. It was identified as being you." "Damn it!"
Krivoshein hunched over and rubbed his cheeks. "Can you let me see the
body?"
"Well, you know that we can't, Valentin Vasilyevich. It turned into a
skeleton, you know. This mischief isn't a very good idea. It could be
misinterpreted."
"Into a skeleton?!" Krivoshein looked up and confusion showed in his
brown-flecked green eyes. "How? Where?"
"It happened there, at the scene, as if you needed any information on
the matter from me," Onisimov stressed. "Maybe you'd like to explain?"
"There was a body which became a skeleton," Krivoshein muttered,
frowning. "Then... oh, then it's not so bad. He wasn't wasting time; it
looks as if something went wrong. Damn it, look at me!" He cheered up and
carefully looked at the detective. "You're mixing me up, comrade, and I
don't know why. Bodies just don't turn into skeletons like that. I know a
little about it. And then, how can you prove that it's my... I mean, the
body of a man who looks like me, if you have no body? Something's wrong
here."
"Perhaps. That's why I want you to shed light on this yourself. Since
all this happened in the laboratory you run."
"That I run? Hm...." Krivoshein laughed, and shook his head. "I'm
afraid nothing will come of this light shedding. I need someone to explain
it all to me."
"And this one is going to go mum, too!" Matvei Apollonovich sighed
glumly, took a sheet of paper, and unscrewed his pen.
"Let's do this in order. Your name is Valentin Vasilyevich Krivoshein?"
"Yes."
"Age thirty-five? Russian? Bachelor?"
"Exactly."
"You live in Dneprovsk and head the New Systems Laboratory at the
Systemology Institute?"
"No, that's the part that's wrong. I live in Moscow, and study in the
graduate biology department at Moscow State University. Here!" Krivoshein
handed him his passport and documents across the desk.
The papers had a realistically weather-beaten look. Everything in
them-including the three-year residence permit for Moscow-corresponded with
his story.
"I see." Onisimov put them in his desk. "These things are done quickly
in Moscow, in one day!"
"What are you trying to say?!" Krivoshein stared at him, one eyebrow
arched aggressively.
"Your documents are phony, that's what. Just as phony as your
confederate's, to whom you were trying to pass money at the airport. Were
you trying to guarantee an alibi? You needn't have bothered. We'll check it,
and then what?"
"Go ahead and check!"
"We will. Whom do you work under at MSU? Who's your advisor?"
"Professor Vano Aleksandrovich Androsiashvili, department chairman in
general physiology, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences."
"I see." The investigator dialed the phone. "Operator? This is
Onisimov. Quickly connect me with Moscow. I want this man on the videophone
as soon as possible. Write it down, Vano Aleksandrovich Androsiashvili,
professor, head of the physiology department at the university. Hurry!" He
stared at Krivoshein triumphantly.
"The videophone! Marvelous!" he chuckled. "I see that detective work is
approaching science fiction. Will this be soon?"
"It'll happen when it happens. We have things to discuss, you and I."
Krivoshein's confidence, however, made an impression on Onisimov. He
thought: "And what if this is some kind of crazy coincidence? Let me check."
"Tell me, do you know Elena Ivanovna Kolomiets?"
Krivoshein's face lost its calm expression. He sat up and looked at
Onisimov angrily and questioningly.
"Yes. So what?"
"Very well?"
"So?"
"Why did you break up?"
"This, my dear investigator, if you will excuse me, is absolutely none
of your business!" Krivoshein was getting very angry. "I do not permit
anyone to meddle in my private life-not God, not the devil, not the police!"
"I see," Onisimov said calmly. And the thought: "It's him! No way out
of it-it's him. Why is he covering up? What could he possibly be hoping
for?" He continued the questioning. "All right, here's an easier question:
who's Adam?"
"Adam? The first man on earth. Why?"
"He called the institute ... the first man. He wanted to know how you
were, wanted to see you."
Krivoshein shrugged.
"And who is that man who met you at the airport?"
"Whom you so cleverly branded as my confederate? That man...."
Krivoshein raised and dropped his eyebrows meditatively.
"I'm afraid he's not the person I took him for."
"I don't think he is, either. Not at all." Onisimov perked up. "But
then who is he?"
"I don't know."
"The same nonsense all over again!" Onisimov wailed, throwing down his
pen. "Enough of this baloney, citizen Krivoshein. It's unbecoming! You were
giving him money, forty rubles in tens. You mean you didn't know to whom you
were giving money?"
At that moment a young man in a white lab coat came in to the office,
put a form on the table, and left, after giving Krivoshein a sharp, curious
look. Onisimov looked at the form-it was a report on the analysis of the
suspect's fingerprints. When he looked up at Krivoshein, his eyes had a
sympathetically triumphant smile.
"Well, that's it. We don't have to wait for the Moscow professor to
give a visual ID-and he probably wouldn't anyway. Your fingerprints, citizen
Krivoshein, correspond completely to the prints that I took at the scene of
the crime. Here, see for yourself!" He handed the form and a magnifying
glass to Krivoshein. "So let's drop the game. And remember that your flight
to Moscow and the fake papers only make things worse. The court adds three
to eight years to a sentence for premeditation and the attempt to confound
the police."
Krivoshein, his lip extended, was studying the form.
"Tell me," he said, raising his eyes to the detective, "why can't you
allow for the fact that there are two men with the same fingerprints?"
"Why?! Because in a hundred years of using this method in criminology,
such a thing has never happened once."
"Lots of things have never happened before, like Sputnik, hydrogen
bombs, and computers, but they exist now."
"What do sputniks have to do with this?" Matvei Apollonovich shrugged.
"Sputniks are sputniks, and fingerprints are fingerprints, incontestable
evidence. So are you going to talk?"
Krivoshein gazed deeply and thoughtfully at the detective and smiled
gently.
"What's your name, comrade investigator?"
"Matvei Apollonovich Onisimov, why?"
"You know what, Matvei Apollonovich? Drop this case."
"What do you mean, drop it?"
"Just like that, the usual way, cover it up. How do you phrase it: 'for
insufficient evidence' or 'lack of proof of a crime.' You know, 'turned over
to the archives on such and such a date....'"
Matvei Apollonovich was speechless. He had never encountered such brass
in all his years on the force.
"You see, Matvei Apollonovich, you'll continue with the varied and, in
usual cases, certainly useful activity of questioning, detaining,
interrogating, comparing fingerprints, bothering busy people with your
videophone." Krivoshein developed his thought gesturing with his right hand.
"And all the time you'll keep thinking that any second now you'll have the
truth by the tail. Contradictions will smooth out into facts, the facts into
evidence; good will triumph, and evil will get a sentence plus time for
premeditation." He sighed sympathetically. "The hell these contradictions
will smooth out! Not in this case. And you will never hit on the truth for
the simple reason that you are not ready to accept it at your level of
reasoning."
Onisimov frowned and his lips compressed into a huffy pout.
"No, no!" Krivoshein waved his hands. "Please don't think that I'm
trying to put you down, that I want to demean you, or cast aspersions on
your qualities as a detective. I can see that you are a tenacious and
hard-working man. But-how can I explain this to you?" He squinted at the
sunny yellow window. "Oh, here's a good example. About sixty years ago, as
you undoubtedly know, the machinery in factories and plants was powered by
steam or diesels. A transmission shaft went through the workshops with
driving belts running from it to the machine pulleys. All this spun, buzzed,
and hummed, its wild noise bringing joy to the director or owner. Then
electricity came on the scene-and now all that has been replaced by electric
motors, built into the machines."
Once again, like last night, when he had interrogated the lab
assistant, Matvei Apollonovich was seized by doubts: something was wrong
here! Quite a few people had been in his office, polishing the chair with
their squirming: taciturn teenagers who had gotten into trouble through
stupidity; weepy speculators; overly-casual accountants caught through a
routine check of the books; and repeat offenders who knew all the laws. But
all of them realized sooner or later that the game was over, that the moment
had come for them to confess and hope that the record reflected their
clean-breasted repentance. But this one . . . just sat there as though
nothing had happened, waving his arms and explaining at a simple level why
the case should be closed. "This lack of game playing is throwing me off
again! But no, I'm not going to slip twice in the same place!" he thought.
Matvei Apollonovich was an experienced investigator and knew well that
doubts and impressions did not build a case-facts did. And the facts were
against Krivoshein and Kravets.
"Now imagine that in some ancient factory the changeover from
mechanical power to electricity took place overnight instead of taking
years," Krivoshein went on. "What would the owner of the factory think when
he got there in the morning? Naturally, that someone had swiped the steam
engine, the transmission shaft, the belts and pulleys. For him to understand
that it was a technological revolution and not a theft he would have to know
physics, electronics, and electrodynamics. And you, Matvei Apollonovich,
figuratively speaking, are in the position of such an owner."
"Physics, electronics, electrodynamics." Onisimov repeated
distractedly, looking at his watch. Where was that call to Moscow? "And
information theory, and the theory of modeling random processes, too?"
"Aha!" Krivoshein leaned back in his chair and looked at the detective
with undisguised pleasure. "You know about those sciences as well?"
"We know everything, Valentin Vasilyevich."
"I see there's no tricking you."
"And I don't suggest you try. So, are we going to count on an illegal
closing of the case or are we going to tell the truth?"
"Hah." Krivoshein wiped his forehead and cheeks with a handkerchief.
"It's hot in here. All right. Let's agree on this, Matvei Apollonovich. I'll
find out what's going on, and then I'll tell you."
"No," Onisimov shook his head. "We won't agree on that. It won't do,
you know, to have the suspect conduct the investigation of the case. No
crime would ever be solved that way."
"Goddamn it!" Krivoshein began, but the door opened and a young
lieutenant announced:
"Moscow, Matvei Apollonovich!"
Onisimov and Krivoshein went up to the second floor to the
communications room.
Vano Aleksandrovich Androsiashvili brought his face so close to the
videophone screen that it seemed he wanted to peck through the tube with his
hawklike, predatory nose. Yes, he recognized his graduate student Valentin
Vasilyevich Krivoshein. Yes, he had seen the student daily for the last few
weeks, but he couldn't give them dates of their meetings further back than
that by heart. Yes, student Krivoshein had left the university for five days
with his personal permission. His growling Georgian r's reverberated in the
phone's speaker. He was very upset that he had been dragged away from