examinations to take part in this strange proceeding. If the police-here
Vano Aleksandrovich fixed his hot blue black eyes on Onisimov-stop believing
the very passports that they themselves hand out, then, apparently he will
have to change his profession from biologist to verifier of identity for all
his graduate students, undergraduates, and relatives, as well as for all the
members and corresponding members of the Academy of Sciences whom he has the
honor of knowing personally! But in that case, the very natural question of
his identity might come up. Wouldn't it be a good idea to have the
university rector, or better yet, the president of the academy, come on the
videophone to identify this suspicious professor?
Having delivered this lecture in one long breath, Vano Aleksandrovich
shook his head in farewell and added, "That's not good! You have to trust
people!" and disappeared from the screen. The microphones carried the sound
of a slamming door all the way to Dneprovsk. The screen showed a fat man
with major's bars on his blue shirt; he made a face.
"What's the matter, comrades? Couldn't get to the bottom of this
yourselves? The end!"
The screen went black.
"Vano Aleksandrovich is still mad at me," thought Krivoshein as he went
down the stairs behind the angrily puffing Onisimov. "It's understandable:
he feels sorry for me, and I keep my back to him, hide things. If he hadn't
accepted me, none of this would have happened. I barely made it in the
exams, like a first-year student. I was okay in philosophy and foreign
languages, but in my specialty.... But how could a quick reading of
textbooks hide the absence of systematic knowledge?"
That had been a year ago. After the entrance exams in biology,
Androsiashvili invited him into his office, sat him down in a leather chair,
stood by the window and looked at him, his large, balding head tilted to the
right. "How old are you?" "Thirty-four."
"On the edge. Next year you'll celebrate your thirty-fifth birthday
among friends and kiss full-time schooling good-bye. Of course, there's
correspondence graduate school. And of course, that exists not for learning,
but to have a paid vacation. We won't even talk about it. I read your thesis
synopsis. It's a good one, mature, with interesting parallels between the
work of the nervous centers and electronic circuits. I gave it an
'excellent.' But..." the professor picked up a report and glanced at it,"...
you did not pass the exams, my boy! I mean, you got a 'satisfactory' but we
do not take students with a 'C in their major."
Krivoshein's expression must have changed drastically, because Vano
Aleksandrovich's voice became sympathetic:
"Listen, why do you need this? Moving into graduate study? I've
familiarized myself with your background-you work in an interesting
institute, with a good position. You're a cyberneticist?"
"A systemology technologist."
"It's all the same to me. Then why?"
Krivoshein was prepared for that question.
"Precisely because I am a systemologist and a systemology technologist.
Man is the most complex and most highly organized system known. I want to
figure it out completely-how things are constructed in the human organism,
what influences it. To understand the interrelationship of the parts, to put
it roughly."
"To use these principles to create new electronic circuits?"
Androsiashvili screwed up his mouth ironically.
"Not only that... and not even so much that. You see... it wasn't
always like this. Once man was up against heat and frost; exertion from a
hunt or from running away from danger, hunger or rough, unsanitary food like
raw meat; heavy mechanical overloads in work; fights which tested the
durability of the skull with an oak staff-in a word, once upon a time the
physical environment made the same demands on man that... well, that today's
military customers make on rockets. (Vano Aleksandrovich harrumphed, but
said nothing.) That environment over the millennia formed homo sapiens-the
reasoning vertebrate mammal. But in the last two hundred years, if you start
from the invention of the steam engine, everything changed. We created an
artificial environment out of electric motors, explosives, pharmaceuticals,
conveyors, communal service systems, computers, immunization, transport,
increased radiation in the atmosphere, paved roads, carbon monoxide, narrow
specialization in work-you know, contemporary life. As an engineer, I with
others am furthering this artificial environment that determines ninety
percent of the life of homo sapiens and soon will determine it one hundred
percent. Nature will exist only for Sunday outings. But as a human being, I
am somewhat uneasy." He took a breath and continued.
"This artificial environment frees man of many of the qualities and
functions he developed in ancient evolution. Strength, agility, and
endurance are now cultivated only in sports, while logical thought, the
pride of the Greeks, has been taken over by machines. But man is not
developing any new qualities-the environment is changing too fast and
biological organisms can't keep up. Technological progress is accompanied by
soothing, but poorly substantiated babble that man will always be on top.
Nevertheless-if you talk not about man, but about people, the many and the
varied-then that is not true even now, and it will only get worse. Many,
many do not have the inherent capabilities to be masters of contemporary
life: to know a lot, know how to do a lot, learn new things quickly, to work
creatively, and structure one's behavior optimally."
"And how do you want to help?"
"Help-I don't know if I can, but I would like to study the question of
the untapped resources of man's organism. For example, the obsolescent
functions, like our common ancestor's ability to leap from tree to tree or
to sleep in the branches. Now that is no longer necessary, but the cells are
still there. Or take the 'goose bump' phenomenon-it happens on skin that has
almost no hair now. It is created by a vast nervous network. Perhaps these
old reflexes can be restructured, reprogrammed to meet new needs?"
"So! You dream of modernizing and rationalizing man?" Androsiashvili
stretched out his neck. "Instead of homo sapiens we'll have homo modernus
rationalis, hm? Don't you think, my dear systemology technologist, that a
rational path might lead to a man who is no more than a suitcase with a
single appendage to push buttons? You could probably manage without that
appended arm, if you use brain waves.
"If you want to be truly rational, you can manage without the
suitcase," Krivoshein noted.
"That's true!" Vano Aleksandrovich tilted his head to the other
shoulder and looked at Krivoshein curiously.
They obviously liked each other.
"Not rationalizing, but enriching-that's what I'm thinking about."
"Finally!" The professor paced his office. "Finally that broad mass of
technological workers, conquerors of inorganic matter, creators of an
artificial environment are beginning to see that they too are people! Not
supermen who can overcome anything with their intellect, but simply people.
Just think of what we're trying to study and comprehend: elemental
particles, the vacuum, cosmic rays, antiworlds, the secrets of Atlantis....
The only things we don't study and wish to comprehend are ourselves! It's,
you see, too hard, uninteresting, not easy to handle. Hah, the world could
perish if people only worked on things that were easy to handle." His voice
was even more guttural than usual. "Man feels a biological interest in
himself only when he has to go to the hospital... and you're right, if
things go on this way, we'll be able to manage without the suitcase. As the
students say: 'Machines will lick us before we can say boo!'" He stopped in
front of Krivoshein, bent his head, and snorted. "But you're still a
dilettante, my systemology technologist. You make it sound so easy:
reprogram old reflexes. If it were as easy as reprogramming a computer! Hm,
but on the other hand, you are a research engineer, with ideas, with a fresh
viewpoint that differs from our purely biological one. What am I saying! Why
am I building up hope, as though something will come of you?" He walked over
to the window. "You're not going to write and defend a dissertation, are
you? You have different goals, right?"
"Right," Krivoshein admitted.
"There you see. You'll return to your systemology and I'll hear from
the rector about not training scientific personnel. Heh, I'll take you!"
Androsiashvili concluded without any change in tone. He approached
Krivoshein. "But you'll have to study, go through the whole course of
biological studies. Otherwise you'll not find any potentials in man,
understand?"
"Of course!" he nodded joyously. "That's why I'm here."
The professor sized him up and pulled him over by the shoulder:
"I'll tell you a secret. I'm studying myself. In the evening classes of
electronic technology at Moscow Engineering Institute, in my third year. I
go to lectures, and do lab work, and I even have two incompletes-in
industrial electronics and quantum physics. I, too, want to figure out what
goes where. You can help me... only shhhhh!"
They were back in Onisimov's office. Matvei Apollonovich paced from
wall to wall. Krivoshein looked at his watch: it was after five. He frowned,
regretting the wasted time.
"So, Matvei Apollonovich, I have my alibi. Please return my documents,
and let's say good-bye."
"No, wait!" Onisimov paced, beside himself with anger and confusion.
Matvei Apollonovich, as has been noted, was an experienced
investigator, and he clearly saw that all the facts in this damn case were
neatly turned against him. Krivoshein was very obviously alive, and
therefore the certified and reported death of Krivoshein was a mistake. He
did not ascertain the identity of the man who died or was killed in the
laboratory and he didn't even know how to begin to establish the cause of
death or means of murder. He did not know the motive for the crime-his
version was shot to hell-and there was no body! The facts made it appear
that the investigation conducted by Onisimov was just garbage.
Matvei Apollonovich tried to collect his thoughts. "Academician Azarov
identified Krivoshein's body. Professor Androsiashvili identified the live
Krivoshein and confirmed his alibi. That means that either one or the other
made a false statement. Which one is not clear. That means I'll have to see
both of them. No ... to check up on such people, to put them under
suspicion, and then to find out that I'm barking up the wrong tree again!
I'll be destroyed...."
In a word, Onisimov understood one thing: under no circumstances could
he let Krivoshein out of his hands.
"No, wait! You won't be able to return to your dirty work, citizen
Krivoshein! You think that by... putting makeup on the deceased and then
destroying the body, you can get off the hook? We'll still check up on who
this Androsiashvili really is and why he's covering up for you! The evidence
against you is still there: fingerprints, contact with the escaped suspect,
the attempt to give him money...."
Krivoshein, disguising his irritation, scratched his chin.
"I just don't understand what you're trying to incriminate me with:
being killed or being a killer?"
"We'll clear it up, citizen!" Onisimov yelled, losing the last remnants
of his self-control. "We'll clear it up. But one thing is sure: no way could
you not be involved in this case. That's impossible!"
"Ah, impossible! ?" Krivoshein came up to the detective, his face
flushed. "You think that since you work for the police you know what's
possible and what isn't?"
And suddenly his face changed rapidly: his nose grew longer and fatter,
turning purple and drooping; his eyes grew wider and their green turned to
black; his hair fell back from his forehead, creating a bald spot; a
mustache sprouted on his upper lip, and his jaw grew shorter. In the space
of a minute, Onisimov was facing none other than the Georgian physiognomy of
Professor Androsiashvili-with bloodshot eyes, a mighty nose with flaring
nostrils and blue, shadowed cheeks.
"You think, katso, that because you work for the police you know what
is possible and what isn't?"
"Stop it!" Onisimov backed up to the wall.
"Impossible!" Krivoshein howled. "I'll show you impossible!"
He finished the sentence in a mellifluous, throaty woman's voice, and
his face began turning into Elena Ivanovna Kolomiets's face: the cute nose
turned up; the cheeks grew pink and round; the dark eyebrows arched
delicately, and the eyes glowed with gray light.
"If anyone should come in now,..." thought Onisimov feverishly and
rushed to lock the door.
"Uh-huh, drop it!" Krivoshein, himself again, stood in the middle of
the room in a boxer's stance.
"No, you misunderstood, . . ." muttered Matvei Apollonovich, coming
back to his desk. "Why get upset?"
"Phew! . . . and don't even think about calling." Krivoshein sat down,
puffing, his face glistening with sweat. "Or I can turn into you. Would you
like that?"
Onisimov's nerves gave out completely. He opened his drawer.
"Don't... please relax... stop ... don't! Here, take your papers."
"That's better." Krivoshein took his papers and picked up his travel
bag from the floor. "I explained to you nicely that you should drop your
interest in this case-but no, you didn't believe me. I hope that I've
convinced you now. Bye!"
He left. Matvei Apollonovich stood still listening to some sound
reverberating in the room's stillness. A minute later he realized that it
was his teeth chattering. His hands were also shaking. "What's the matter
with me?" He grabbed the phone... and dropped it, sank into his chair and
impotently laid his head on the cool surface of the desk. "The hell with
this job."
The door opened wide and the medical expert Zubato appeared on his
doorstep with a plywood crate in his hands.
"Listen, Matvei, this really is the crime of the century.
Congratulations," he shouted. "Lookee here!" He noisily set the box on the
table, opened it, and tossed out the straw packing. "I just got this from
the sculpture studio. Look!"
Matvei Apollonovich looked up. He was staring at the plaster cast of
Krivoshein's face-with a sloping forehead, a fat upturned nose, and wide
cheeks....
The best way to disguise that you limp with your left foot is 'to also
limp with your right. You will then walk with a sailor's swagger.
-K. Prutkov-enzhener. Hints for the Beginning Detective
"You sucker, show-off punk!" Krivoshein berated himself. "You found a
wonderful application for your discovery-terrifying the police. He would
have let me go anyway; there was no way out."
His face and body muscles were exhausted. The painful ache was easing
in his glands. "Three transformations in a few minutes is an overload. What
a hothead. Well, nothing will happen to me. That's the beauty of it, that
nothing can happen to me...."
The sky was quickly turning dark blue over the houses. The neon signs
announcing the names of stores, theaters, and cafes went on with a slight
hiss. The graduate student's thoughts returned to Moscow business.
"Vano Aleksandrovich passed with flying colors; he didn't even ask why
I was being held. He identified me and that's all. I understand it: 'If
Krivoshein is hiding his affairs from me then I don't want to know about
them.' The proud old man is hurt. And he's right. It was in conversation
with him that I zeroed in on my goals in the experiments. Actually, it had
been no conversation-it was an agreement. But it isn't everyone with whom
you can argue and come out with enriched ideas."
Vano Aleksandrovich kept circling him, watching with ironic
expectation: what earth-shattering ideas will the dilettante biologist come
up with? Once on a December evening, Krivoshein found him in his department
office and told him everything that he felt about life in general and about
man in particular. It was a good evening: they sat and smoked and talked,
while a pre-New Year's storm howled and whistled outside, pounding snow
against the window.
"Any machine is constructed somehow and does something," Krivoshein was
expounding. "The biological machine called Man also has these two parts to
it: the basic one and the operative. The operative part-organs of sensation,
the brain, motor nerves, and skeletal muscles-is for the most part
subservient to man. The eyes, ears, the binding parts of the skin, the nerve
endings in the nose and the tongue, and the pain and temperature receptors
react to external stimulation, turn it into electrical impulses (just like
the mechanism for information input in a computer), while the brain and the
spinal column analyze and combine the impulses according to the
'stimulation-braking' principle (similar to the impulse cells of a machine).
The synapses join and separate, sending commands to the skeletal muscles,
which perform various actions-just like the executive mechanisms of a
machine.
"Man controls the operative side of his organisms-he can even master
reflexes, like pain, by will power. But with the basic side, which takes
care of the fundamental process of life-metabolism-it isn't like that. That
lungs suck in air; the heart forces blood into the dark crannies of the
body; the gullet contracts and pushes pieces of food into the stomach; the
pancreas secretes hormones and enzymes to reduce food to elements that the
intestines can absorb; the liver excretes glucose into the blood. The
thyroid and parathyroid produce wild things, thyroxin and parathyreodine,
which determine whether a person will grow and mature or remain a cretinous
dwarf, whether he will develop a sturdy skeletal system or whether his bones
can be bent like pretzels. An inconsequential-looking growth by the base of
the brain-the pituitary body-with the help of its secretions commands the
entire mysterious kitchen of internal secretions as well as the functioning
of the kidneys, blood pressure, and safe delivery in childbirth. And this
part of the organism, which constructs man-his build, skull shape,
psychology, health, and power-this part is not subject to the conscious
mind!"
"Correct," smiled Vano Aleksandrovich. "In your operative side I easily
recognize the activity of the 'animal' or somatic nervous system and in the
basic one, the realm of the 'vegetative' or sympathetic nervous system.
These terms appeared in the eighteenth century; they used the Latin for
animal and for plant. Personally, I don't think they're very apt. Perhaps
your engineering terms will have greater success in the twentieth century.
Well, continue, please."
"Machines, even electronic ones, are constructed and made by man. Soon
the machines will do it themselves; the principle is clear. But why can't
man construct himself? Metabolism is subordinate to the central nervous
system. The glands, blood vessels, and intestines are connected to the brain
by the same kind of nerves as the muscles and sensory organs are. Why can't
man control these processes the way he can wiggle his fingers? Why is man's
conscious participation in this process limited to satisfying his appetite
and thirst and several opposite needs? It's ridiculous. Homo sapiens, the
king of nature, the crown of evolution, the creator of complex technology
and art, is distinguished in the basic life process from cows and earthworms
only in the use of knives and forks and alcohol!"
"Why is it so important to be able to bring sugar, enzymes, and
hormones into the blood through will power?" Androsiashvili's bushy eyebrows
arched. "Please be so kind as to tell me why, on top of all my worries in
the department, I have to also think every hour about how much adrenaline
and insulin I should produce in the pancreas and where I should direct it?
The sympathetic system takes care of it for me, without bothering man-and
that's fine!"
"Is it fine, Vano Aleksandrovich? What about disease?"
"Disease... so that's your angle: disease as an error in the workings
of the basic construction system." The professor's eyebrows turned into
sinusoids. "The mistakes that we try to rectify with pills, compresses,
vaccinations, and other operative interference, and usually without much
success. But... disease is the result of those effects of the environment
that the organism can't handle."
"And why can't it? After all, we know in most cases what is
harmful-that's the basis of disease prevention, epidemic control. We try,
simply, to keep away from danger. But the environment keeps spewing out new
mysteries: X-ray radiation, welding arcs, isotopes-"
"Enough!" The professor raised both hands in surrender. "I have the
feeling that you have a secret answer on the tip of your tongue and you just
can't wait for your interlocutor to bulge his eyes and ask with timid hope:
'But why?' All right! Look: my eyes are open wide." The whites of his eyes,
shot with red, sparkled. "And I am asking the long-awaited question. Why
can't people control their metabolism?"
"Because they've forgotten how it's done!" Krivoshein thundered.
"Bah!" the professor slapped his knee in glee. "They used to know and
forgot? Like a phone number? Interesting!"
"Let's remember that the human brain contains a huge number of
unactivated cells: ninety-nine percent, and in some, ninety-nine point
something. It's unlikely that they exist just like that, for a backup
reserve; nature doesn't allow excess. It's only natural to posit that those
cells contained information that is now lost. Not necessarily verbal
information-there is little of that in our organisms now because it's too
crude and approximate-but biological information, expressed in images,
feelings, sensations-"
"Stop! I know the rest!" Androsiashvili shouted exultantly. "Martians!
No, better than Martians. After all, they're going to get to Mars sooner or
later, and then it could be checked. Let's say inhabitants of a planet that
used to exist somewhere between Mars and Jupiter that has since
disintegrated into asteroids. Highly intelligent creatures lived there. They
had an artificial, varied environment, and they knew how to control their
organisms to adapt to the environment and also for fun. And these
inhabitants, sensing that their planet was about to die, moved to Earth."
"Perhaps it was that way," Krivoshein agreed calmly. "In any case, we
must assume that man had highly organized ancestors wherever they came from.
And they went wild, finding themselves in a wild, primitive environment with
harsh living conditions-in the Cenozoic Era. Heat, jungles, swamps,
animals-and no conveniences. Life was reduced to the struggle for survival
and all their refinements were wasted. Then over many generations it was all
lost, from literacy to the ability to control metabolism. Really, Vano
Aleksandrovich, put a city dweller in the jungle now, and see what happens
to him!"
"Very effective!" Androsiashvili smacked his lips in pleasure. "And the
excess brain cells remained in the organism along with the appendix and
hairy underarms? Now I understand why my dear colleague Professor Valerno
calls science fiction 'intellectual decadence.'"
"Why? And what does that have to do with this?"
"Because it replaces sober discussion with effective games of the
imagination."
"Well, you know," Krivoshein countered, getting angry, "in systemology
we don't put down working hypotheses with references to the ban mots of
friends. Any idea is usable if it is profitable."
"And in biology, comrade graduate student," Androsiashvili shouted,
rolling his eyes, "we only use ideas that are based on a sober,
materialistic approach! And not on the ruins of a fantasy planet! We deal
with something more important than technology-we deal with life! And since
you are now working in our field, I suggest you remember that! Any
dilettante comes along . . . and, phahh!" He immediately cooled off and
changed to a peaceful tone. "All right. Let's make believe that each of us
has smashed a plate. Now back to the serious things: why is your hypothesis,
to put it mildly, dubious? First of all, the 'unactivated' brain
cell-technological terminology is not applicable to biological concepts. The
cells are alive-therefore they are already activated. Secondly, why not
assume that these billions of cells are there as a reserve?"
Vano Aleksandrovich got up and looked down at Krivoshein.
"My dear comrade graduate student, I do have a little knowledge of
technology-after all, I am an evening student at MEI!-and I know that you,
hmm, in systemology, you have the concept and problem of reliability. The
reliability of electronic systems is guaranteed by a reserve of parts,
cells, and even units. Then why not assume that nature has created in man
the same kind of reserve for reliability in the brain? After all, nerve
cells do not regenerate."
"It's an awfully big reserve!" The graduate student shook his head.
"The average man uses a million cells out of a possible billion."
"And talented people use tens of millions! And geniuses . . . actually,
no one's measured their cells yet-maybe they use hundreds of millions.
Perhaps the brain of each of us is reserved for genius potential? I tend to
feel that genius and not mediocrity is man's natural state."
"Very effectively put, Vano Aleksandrovich."
"I see you are a cruel man . . . but, think what you will, my
reservations have as much value as your hypothesis about Martians gone wild.
Hah, and if you take into account the fact that I am your advisor and you
are my student, then they are even more valuable!" He sat down. "But let's
get back to the major issue: why is present-day man incapable of controlling
the autonomous nervous system and metabolism? You know why? Because it
hasn't come to that yet."
"So that's it!"
"Yes. The environment teaches man in only one way: through conditioning
drills. You know that in order to form a conditioned reflex the situation
and stimulus must be repeated frequently. And that's just how life
experience develops. And in order to form an unconditioned reflex that is
inherited the drill must be repeated for many generations for thousands of
years. You were right about the biological information in the organism; it
is not expressed verbally, but by the reflexes, both conditioned and
unconditioned. And it is man's will that controls reflexes, of course, in a
limited way. You don't think through from beginning to end which muscle must
contract how much when you light a cigarette, and you don't think through
the chemical reactions of the muscle contraction. The consciousness gives
the order to light up and the reflexes take over. Both the specific one that
you acquired from practicing that filthy habit-crumple the cigarette, inhale
the smoke-as well as the general ones passed on to you from your distant
ancestors: grabbing, breathing, and so on..." Vano Aleksandrovich-it wasn't
clear whether it was intended to be an illustration or not-lit a cigarette
and exhaled a stream of smoke toward the ceiling.
"I'm leading up to the fact that the consciousness controls when there
is something to control. In the operative part of the organism, when the
final action, as Sechenov noted long ago, is a muscular one ... remember?"
Androsiashvili sat back in his chair and quoted:" 'A child laughing at a
toy, Garibaldi smiling at the accusation of excessive love for his country,
a young girl trembling at the first thoughts of love, Newton creating
universal laws and writing them down-the final fact in all these instances
is muscular action.' Ah, how brilliantly Ivan Mikhailovich wrote! So the
operative part gives the mind something to control and lets it choose among
its vast store of conditioned and unconditioned reflexes for each unique
situation. And in the constructive part, where the body's chemistry takes
place, there is nothing for the mind to do. Just think for a moment about
what conditioned reflexes are involved in metabolism?"
"Drink or not, give me a little more horseradish, can't abide pork,
smoking, and...." Krivoshein got confused. "And well, I guess washing,
brushing your teeth...."
"There's a dozen more like that," nodded the professor, "but they are
all minor, semichemical, semimuscular, superficial reflexes. And deeper in
the organism there are definite reflex processes that are connected so
unilaterally that there is nothing to control: oxygen leaves the
bloodstream, breathe; not enough protein for the muscles, eat; excreted
water, drink; poisoned yourself with things forbidden for the organism, be
sick or die. And there are no variations. You can't say that life did not
teach people about metabolic reactions-it taught them cruelly. Epidemics-how
nice it would be to figure out through the use of your mind and your
reflexes just which bacillus was destroying you and purge it from your body
like fleas! Famines-just hibernate like a bear instead of puffing up and
dying! Wounds and mutilations in fighting-regenerate your torn-off limb or
gouged eye! And that's not enough. It would all be done at high speed.
Muscular reaction happens in tenths and hundredths of a second, and the
fastest of the metabolic actions-secretion of adrenaline into the
bloodstream-takes seconds. The secretion of hormones by the glands and the
pituitary is discovered only after years, and maybe only once in a lifetime.
Thus," he smiled wanly, "this knowledge is not lost by the organism; it
simply has not yet been acquired. It's too difficult for man to learn such a
lesson."
"And therefore mastery of metabolism could drag on for millions of
years?"
"I'm afraid that it could take dozens of millions of years," sighed
Vano Aleksandrovich. "We mammals are very recent inhabitants of earth.
Thirty million years-is that an age? Everything is still ahead of us.
"There will be nothing ahead of us, Vano Aleksandrovich!" exclaimed
Krivoshein. "The present environment changes from year to year-what kind of
million-year learning process can there be, what kind of repetition of
lessons? Man has stepped off the path of natural evolution, and now he must
figure things out for himself."
"And we are."
"What? Pills, powders, hemorrhoidal suppositories, enemas, and bed
rest? Are you sure that we are improving man's breed this way? Maybe we're
ruining it?"
' I'm not trying to talk you into involving yourself with pills and
powders if those are the terms you choose to use for the antibiotics our
department is developing," Vano Aleksandrovich said, his face taking on a
cold and haughty look. "If you want to study your idea-go ahead, dare. But
explaining the unrealistic and unplanned aspects of this decision in
graduate work and for a future dissertation is my right and my duty."
He stood up and tossed the butts from the ashtray into the wastebasket.
"Forgive me, Vano Aleksandrovich. I certainly didn't want to hurt your
feelings." Krivoshein also stood, realizing that the conversation was over,
and ending on an unpleasant note. "But. . . Vano Aleksandrovich, there are
very interesting facts."
"What facts?"
"Well ... in the last century in India there was a man-god,
Ramakrishna. And, if someone was being beaten nearby, he had welts on his
body. Or take 'burns by suggestion': a sensitive subject is touched with a
pencil and told that it was a lit cigarette. In these cases metabolism is
controlled without a 'learning process,' is it not?"
"Listen, you nagging student," Androsiashvili wheeled on him, "how many
window bolts can you eat in a sitting?"
"Hmmmm," Krivoshein said in confusion. "I don't think any at all. How
about you?"
"Me neither. But a patient I had in the dim past when I worked in the
Pavlov Psychiatric Clinic swallowed, without any particular harm to himself,
. . ." the professor leaned back, remembering, "five window bolts, twelve
aluminum teaspoons, three tablespoons, two pairs of surgical scissors, 240
grams of broken glass, one fork, and 400 grams of various nails. Now these
are not the results of an autopsy, mind you, but the history of a disease-I
cut him open myself. The patient was cured of suicidal tendencies and is
probably still alive today." The professor glanced down at Krivoshein from
the heights of his erudition. "So in scientific matters it is better not to
orient yourself by religious fanatics or secular psychopaths. No, no!" He
raised his hand to stave off the obvious look of disagreement in
Krivoshein's eyes. "Enough arguing. Go ahead, I won't stop you. I'm sure
that you will try to regulate metabolism with some kind of machine or
electronic method."
Vano Aleksandrovich gave the student a thoughtful and tired look and
smiled.
"Catching the Firebird with your bare hands! What could be better? And
you have a holy goal: man without diseases, without old age-age is a result
of a breakdown in metabolism, too. Twenty years or so ago, I would have
allowed myself to be fired up by this idea. But now... now I must do what
can definitely be done. Even if it's only a pill."
Krivoshein turned down a cross street toward the Institute of
Systemology and almost bumped into a man in a dark blue cloak, much too warm
for the season. The unexpectedness of the encounter produced further
problems: Krivoshein stepped to the left to let the man past, while the man
did the same to the right. Then both of them, letting the other go first,
finally set off in opposite directions. The man stared at Krivoshein in
amazement and stopped.
"I beg your pardon," he muttered and went on.
The street was dark and empty. Krivoshein soon heard footsteps behind
him and looked back: the man in the cloak was following at a short distance.
"That Onisimov!" thought the graduate student. "He's got a detective tailing
me!" He experimented by going faster and heard the man's pace increase. "Ah,
the hell with him! I'm certainly not going to cover my tracks." Krivoshein
went on slowly, rambling. However, his back felt uncomfortable and his
thoughts returned to reality.
"So, I guess Val tried another experiment. Maybe he wasn't alone? It
failed; that corpse turning into a skeleton. But why are the police
involved? And where is he? Our Val must have blown town on his bike until
things calmed down. Or maybe he's in the lab?"
Krivoshein approached the monumental, cast-iron gates of the institute.
The rectangular posts of the gates were so large that the left one easily
contained the pass office and the right one the entrance way. He opened the
door. Old man Vakhterych, the ancient guard of science, was nodding off
behind the barrier.
"Good evening!" Krivoshein nodded at him.
"Good evening, Valentin Vasilyevich!" replied Vakhterych, obviously not
about to ask him for his pass; they were used to visits by the head of the
New Systems Lab at all hours.
Krivoshein, inside the grounds, looked back; the creep in the cloak was
stuck outside. There you go, chum," Krivoshein thought. "The pass system
proves itself once again."
The windows of the lodge were dark. A red cigarette light glowed by the
door. Krivoshein crouched under the trees and made out a uniform cap on a
man's head against the stars. "No, I've had it with the cops for one day.
I'd better go home,..." he laughed. "I mean to his house."
He started for the gates, but remembered the fellow in the cloak and
stopped. "That's against all the rules, the suspect running into the
detective's arms. Let him do some work." Krivoshein headed for the other end
of the park-where the branches of the old oak hung over the iron pickets of
the fence. He jumped from the branch onto the sidewalk and started for
Academic Town.
"But what happened with his experiment? And who was that guy who met me
at the airport? The telegram really confused me: I thought he was Val! He
does look like him-very much so. Could it be? Val obviously didn't sit
around all year twiddling his thumbs! Too bad we didn't write. What petty
fools we are: each one wanting to prove that he could do without the other,
to astound the other a year later with his results. With his own results!
The highest form of possession. And so we've amazed each other. We're
destroying a major project with pettiness. With pettiness, lack of
forethought, and fear. We shouldn't have scattered every which way, but
tried to attract people who were worthy and real, like Vano Aleksandrovich,
from the very beginning. Yes, but back then I didn't know him, and it won't
help to try it now, when he storms past me and gives me dirty looks."
It had all happened in the spring, in late March when Krivoshein had
only begun mastering metabolism in his own body. Busy with himself, he
hadn't noticed spring until spring made him notice: a heavy icicle fell on
him from the roof of a five-story building. If it had fallen a half inch to
the left, it would have been the end of the experiments on metabolism as
well as the end of his organism. But the icicle merely ripped his ear, broke
his collar bone, and knocked him down.
"Disaster, disaster!" That's what he heard professor Androsiashvili
saying as he came to. He was leaning over him, feeling his head, unbuttoning
his coat. "I'll kill that janitor for not clearing the snow!" he said,
angrily shaking his fist. "Can you walk?" He helped Krivoshein up. "Don't
worry, your head is fairly whole. The clavicle will heal in a few weeks. It
could have been worse. Hold on, I'll walk you over to the infirmary."
"Thank you, Vano Aleksandrovich, I'll manage myself," Krivoshein
replied as heartily as he could, even squeezing out a smile. "I'll make it,
it's nearby."
And he moved on quickly, almost at a run. He stopped the bleeding from
his ear immediately. But his right hand was dangling loosely.
"I'll call them to get the electric stitcher ready!" the professor
called after him. "They'll be able to sew up the ear!"
Back in his room, Krivoshein taped up his ear, torn along the
cartilage, in front of the mirror and wiped away the caked blood with
cotton. That was easy. Ten minutes later there was only a pink scar where
the tear had been, and in a half hour, that was gone too. Mending the
clavicle was a lot harder; he had to lie on his bed all evening
concentrating on commanding the blood vessels, the glands, and the muscles.
The bones had much less chemical solution than soft tissue.
He decided to go to Androsiashvili's class in the morning. He got to
the hall early to take an inconspicuous seat in the back and ran into the
professor, who was instructing students about the hanging of posters.
Krivoshein backed off, but it was too late.
"Why are you here? Why aren't you in the clinic?" Vano Aleksandrovich
went pale, staring at the student's ear and the right hand in which he was
clutching his notebook. "What is this?"
"And you said it would take dozens of millions of years, Vano
Aleksandrovich." Krivoshein couldn't resist. "You see, it can be done
without 'drilling.'"
"You mean... it's working? How?"
Krivoshein bit his lip.
"Mmmm, a little later, Vano Aleksandrovich," he muttered awkwardly. "I
still have to figure it all out myself."
"Yourself?" The professor raised his eyebrows. "You don't want to
tell?" His face grew cold and haughty. "All right, as you wish. Pardon me!"
He went to his desk.
From that day on he nodded icily to his student when they met, and
never entered into a discussion. Krivoshein, to keep his conscience from
bothering him too much, lost himself in his experiments. He really did have
a lot more to learn.
"Don't you understand that I wanted to demonstrate my discovery-relive
my burning interest in it, your praise, fame, . . ." thought Krivoshein as
he tried to justify himself before the invisible Androsiashvili. "After all,
unlike the psychopaths I could have explained it all. Of course, this
doesn't work with other people yet; they don't have the constitution for it.
But the important thing is that I've proved the possibility of it, the
knowledge. If only the discovery had been limited to the fact that I can
heal my own wounds, breaks, and cure myself of diseases! The trouble with
nature is that it never gives just exactly as much as is needed for the
welfare of man-it's always either too much or too little. I got too much. I
could, probably, turn myself into an animal, even into a monster. That's
possible. Everything's possible. That's the scary part." Krivoshein sighed.
The window and glass door that opened onto the balcony of the fifth
floor glowed softly. It looked like the table lamp was on. "Is he home?"
Krivoshein ran up the stairs, rummaged through his pockets from force of
habit, remembered that he had thrown out the key a year ago, and swore at
himself, for it would have been very effective to suddenly walk in: "Your
documents, citizen!" There still was no doorbell, and he knocked.
He heard light, quick steps-they made his heart beat faster-and the
lock clicked. Lena was opening the door.
"Oh, Val, you're alive!" She grabbed his neck with her warm hands,
looked him over, smoothed his hair, hugged him, and began crying. "Val, my
darling... and I thought... they've been saying such horrible things! I
called your lab, and there was no answer. I called the institute, and when I
asked where you were, what had happened, they hung up. I came here, and you
were gone. And they told me that you were...." She sobbed angrily. "The
fools!"
"All right, Lena, don't. That's enough. What's the matter?" Krivoshein
wanted very much to hold her close and he barely controlled his arms.
It was as though nothing had happened: not discovery number one, not
the year of mad, concentrated work in Moscow, where he cast away the
past.... Krivoshein had tried more than once-for spiritual peace-to
eradicate Lena's face from his memory. He knew how it was done: a rush of
blood with an increased glucose level to the brain's cortex, small
oxidations directed at the nucleotides of a certain area-and the information
is removed from the cells forever. But he didn't want to... or couldn't.
'Wanting' and 'being able'-how do you distinguish them in yourself? And now
the woman he loved was weeping on his shoulder, weeping from anxiety about
him. He had to soothe her.
"Stop, Lena. Everything's all right, as you can see."
She looked up at him. Her eyes were wet, happy, and guilty.
"Val... you're not mad at me, are you? I said all those horrible things
to you then-I don't know why myself. I'm just stupid! You were hurt? I
thought that it was all over, too, but when I found out that something had
happened to you ... I couldn't. You see, I ran here. Forget it, please? It's
forgotten, all right?"
"Yes," Krivoshein said sincerely. "Let's go inside."
"Oh, Val, you can't imagine how terrified I was!" She was still holding
onto his shoulders, afraid to let go. "And that investigator... the
questions!"
"He called you in, too?"
"Yes."
"Aha, the old cherchez la femme!"
They went inside. It hadn't changed: a gray daybed, a cheap desk, two
chairs, a bookshelf piled with magazines up to the ceiling, and a wardrobe
with the usual mirrored door. In the corner by the door lay crisscrossed
dumbbells.
"I cleaned up a little, waiting for you. The dust... you have to keep
the balcony door shut tight, when you leave." Lena moved close to him. "Val,
what did happen?"
"If I only knew!" he thought with a sigh. "Nothing terrible... just a
lot of brouhaha."
"Why the police, then?"
"The police? They were called, and they came. If they had called the
fire department, they would have come too."
"Oh, Val,..." she placed her arms around his neck and wrinkled up her
nose. "Why are you like that?"
"Like what?" he asked, feeling more stupid by the second. "Well,
Vano Aleksandrovich fixed his hot blue black eyes on Onisimov-stop believing
the very passports that they themselves hand out, then, apparently he will
have to change his profession from biologist to verifier of identity for all
his graduate students, undergraduates, and relatives, as well as for all the
members and corresponding members of the Academy of Sciences whom he has the
honor of knowing personally! But in that case, the very natural question of
his identity might come up. Wouldn't it be a good idea to have the
university rector, or better yet, the president of the academy, come on the
videophone to identify this suspicious professor?
Having delivered this lecture in one long breath, Vano Aleksandrovich
shook his head in farewell and added, "That's not good! You have to trust
people!" and disappeared from the screen. The microphones carried the sound
of a slamming door all the way to Dneprovsk. The screen showed a fat man
with major's bars on his blue shirt; he made a face.
"What's the matter, comrades? Couldn't get to the bottom of this
yourselves? The end!"
The screen went black.
"Vano Aleksandrovich is still mad at me," thought Krivoshein as he went
down the stairs behind the angrily puffing Onisimov. "It's understandable:
he feels sorry for me, and I keep my back to him, hide things. If he hadn't
accepted me, none of this would have happened. I barely made it in the
exams, like a first-year student. I was okay in philosophy and foreign
languages, but in my specialty.... But how could a quick reading of
textbooks hide the absence of systematic knowledge?"
That had been a year ago. After the entrance exams in biology,
Androsiashvili invited him into his office, sat him down in a leather chair,
stood by the window and looked at him, his large, balding head tilted to the
right. "How old are you?" "Thirty-four."
"On the edge. Next year you'll celebrate your thirty-fifth birthday
among friends and kiss full-time schooling good-bye. Of course, there's
correspondence graduate school. And of course, that exists not for learning,
but to have a paid vacation. We won't even talk about it. I read your thesis
synopsis. It's a good one, mature, with interesting parallels between the
work of the nervous centers and electronic circuits. I gave it an
'excellent.' But..." the professor picked up a report and glanced at it,"...
you did not pass the exams, my boy! I mean, you got a 'satisfactory' but we
do not take students with a 'C in their major."
Krivoshein's expression must have changed drastically, because Vano
Aleksandrovich's voice became sympathetic:
"Listen, why do you need this? Moving into graduate study? I've
familiarized myself with your background-you work in an interesting
institute, with a good position. You're a cyberneticist?"
"A systemology technologist."
"It's all the same to me. Then why?"
Krivoshein was prepared for that question.
"Precisely because I am a systemologist and a systemology technologist.
Man is the most complex and most highly organized system known. I want to
figure it out completely-how things are constructed in the human organism,
what influences it. To understand the interrelationship of the parts, to put
it roughly."
"To use these principles to create new electronic circuits?"
Androsiashvili screwed up his mouth ironically.
"Not only that... and not even so much that. You see... it wasn't
always like this. Once man was up against heat and frost; exertion from a
hunt or from running away from danger, hunger or rough, unsanitary food like
raw meat; heavy mechanical overloads in work; fights which tested the
durability of the skull with an oak staff-in a word, once upon a time the
physical environment made the same demands on man that... well, that today's
military customers make on rockets. (Vano Aleksandrovich harrumphed, but
said nothing.) That environment over the millennia formed homo sapiens-the
reasoning vertebrate mammal. But in the last two hundred years, if you start
from the invention of the steam engine, everything changed. We created an
artificial environment out of electric motors, explosives, pharmaceuticals,
conveyors, communal service systems, computers, immunization, transport,
increased radiation in the atmosphere, paved roads, carbon monoxide, narrow
specialization in work-you know, contemporary life. As an engineer, I with
others am furthering this artificial environment that determines ninety
percent of the life of homo sapiens and soon will determine it one hundred
percent. Nature will exist only for Sunday outings. But as a human being, I
am somewhat uneasy." He took a breath and continued.
"This artificial environment frees man of many of the qualities and
functions he developed in ancient evolution. Strength, agility, and
endurance are now cultivated only in sports, while logical thought, the
pride of the Greeks, has been taken over by machines. But man is not
developing any new qualities-the environment is changing too fast and
biological organisms can't keep up. Technological progress is accompanied by
soothing, but poorly substantiated babble that man will always be on top.
Nevertheless-if you talk not about man, but about people, the many and the
varied-then that is not true even now, and it will only get worse. Many,
many do not have the inherent capabilities to be masters of contemporary
life: to know a lot, know how to do a lot, learn new things quickly, to work
creatively, and structure one's behavior optimally."
"And how do you want to help?"
"Help-I don't know if I can, but I would like to study the question of
the untapped resources of man's organism. For example, the obsolescent
functions, like our common ancestor's ability to leap from tree to tree or
to sleep in the branches. Now that is no longer necessary, but the cells are
still there. Or take the 'goose bump' phenomenon-it happens on skin that has
almost no hair now. It is created by a vast nervous network. Perhaps these
old reflexes can be restructured, reprogrammed to meet new needs?"
"So! You dream of modernizing and rationalizing man?" Androsiashvili
stretched out his neck. "Instead of homo sapiens we'll have homo modernus
rationalis, hm? Don't you think, my dear systemology technologist, that a
rational path might lead to a man who is no more than a suitcase with a
single appendage to push buttons? You could probably manage without that
appended arm, if you use brain waves.
"If you want to be truly rational, you can manage without the
suitcase," Krivoshein noted.
"That's true!" Vano Aleksandrovich tilted his head to the other
shoulder and looked at Krivoshein curiously.
They obviously liked each other.
"Not rationalizing, but enriching-that's what I'm thinking about."
"Finally!" The professor paced his office. "Finally that broad mass of
technological workers, conquerors of inorganic matter, creators of an
artificial environment are beginning to see that they too are people! Not
supermen who can overcome anything with their intellect, but simply people.
Just think of what we're trying to study and comprehend: elemental
particles, the vacuum, cosmic rays, antiworlds, the secrets of Atlantis....
The only things we don't study and wish to comprehend are ourselves! It's,
you see, too hard, uninteresting, not easy to handle. Hah, the world could
perish if people only worked on things that were easy to handle." His voice
was even more guttural than usual. "Man feels a biological interest in
himself only when he has to go to the hospital... and you're right, if
things go on this way, we'll be able to manage without the suitcase. As the
students say: 'Machines will lick us before we can say boo!'" He stopped in
front of Krivoshein, bent his head, and snorted. "But you're still a
dilettante, my systemology technologist. You make it sound so easy:
reprogram old reflexes. If it were as easy as reprogramming a computer! Hm,
but on the other hand, you are a research engineer, with ideas, with a fresh
viewpoint that differs from our purely biological one. What am I saying! Why
am I building up hope, as though something will come of you?" He walked over
to the window. "You're not going to write and defend a dissertation, are
you? You have different goals, right?"
"Right," Krivoshein admitted.
"There you see. You'll return to your systemology and I'll hear from
the rector about not training scientific personnel. Heh, I'll take you!"
Androsiashvili concluded without any change in tone. He approached
Krivoshein. "But you'll have to study, go through the whole course of
biological studies. Otherwise you'll not find any potentials in man,
understand?"
"Of course!" he nodded joyously. "That's why I'm here."
The professor sized him up and pulled him over by the shoulder:
"I'll tell you a secret. I'm studying myself. In the evening classes of
electronic technology at Moscow Engineering Institute, in my third year. I
go to lectures, and do lab work, and I even have two incompletes-in
industrial electronics and quantum physics. I, too, want to figure out what
goes where. You can help me... only shhhhh!"
They were back in Onisimov's office. Matvei Apollonovich paced from
wall to wall. Krivoshein looked at his watch: it was after five. He frowned,
regretting the wasted time.
"So, Matvei Apollonovich, I have my alibi. Please return my documents,
and let's say good-bye."
"No, wait!" Onisimov paced, beside himself with anger and confusion.
Matvei Apollonovich, as has been noted, was an experienced
investigator, and he clearly saw that all the facts in this damn case were
neatly turned against him. Krivoshein was very obviously alive, and
therefore the certified and reported death of Krivoshein was a mistake. He
did not ascertain the identity of the man who died or was killed in the
laboratory and he didn't even know how to begin to establish the cause of
death or means of murder. He did not know the motive for the crime-his
version was shot to hell-and there was no body! The facts made it appear
that the investigation conducted by Onisimov was just garbage.
Matvei Apollonovich tried to collect his thoughts. "Academician Azarov
identified Krivoshein's body. Professor Androsiashvili identified the live
Krivoshein and confirmed his alibi. That means that either one or the other
made a false statement. Which one is not clear. That means I'll have to see
both of them. No ... to check up on such people, to put them under
suspicion, and then to find out that I'm barking up the wrong tree again!
I'll be destroyed...."
In a word, Onisimov understood one thing: under no circumstances could
he let Krivoshein out of his hands.
"No, wait! You won't be able to return to your dirty work, citizen
Krivoshein! You think that by... putting makeup on the deceased and then
destroying the body, you can get off the hook? We'll still check up on who
this Androsiashvili really is and why he's covering up for you! The evidence
against you is still there: fingerprints, contact with the escaped suspect,
the attempt to give him money...."
Krivoshein, disguising his irritation, scratched his chin.
"I just don't understand what you're trying to incriminate me with:
being killed or being a killer?"
"We'll clear it up, citizen!" Onisimov yelled, losing the last remnants
of his self-control. "We'll clear it up. But one thing is sure: no way could
you not be involved in this case. That's impossible!"
"Ah, impossible! ?" Krivoshein came up to the detective, his face
flushed. "You think that since you work for the police you know what's
possible and what isn't?"
And suddenly his face changed rapidly: his nose grew longer and fatter,
turning purple and drooping; his eyes grew wider and their green turned to
black; his hair fell back from his forehead, creating a bald spot; a
mustache sprouted on his upper lip, and his jaw grew shorter. In the space
of a minute, Onisimov was facing none other than the Georgian physiognomy of
Professor Androsiashvili-with bloodshot eyes, a mighty nose with flaring
nostrils and blue, shadowed cheeks.
"You think, katso, that because you work for the police you know what
is possible and what isn't?"
"Stop it!" Onisimov backed up to the wall.
"Impossible!" Krivoshein howled. "I'll show you impossible!"
He finished the sentence in a mellifluous, throaty woman's voice, and
his face began turning into Elena Ivanovna Kolomiets's face: the cute nose
turned up; the cheeks grew pink and round; the dark eyebrows arched
delicately, and the eyes glowed with gray light.
"If anyone should come in now,..." thought Onisimov feverishly and
rushed to lock the door.
"Uh-huh, drop it!" Krivoshein, himself again, stood in the middle of
the room in a boxer's stance.
"No, you misunderstood, . . ." muttered Matvei Apollonovich, coming
back to his desk. "Why get upset?"
"Phew! . . . and don't even think about calling." Krivoshein sat down,
puffing, his face glistening with sweat. "Or I can turn into you. Would you
like that?"
Onisimov's nerves gave out completely. He opened his drawer.
"Don't... please relax... stop ... don't! Here, take your papers."
"That's better." Krivoshein took his papers and picked up his travel
bag from the floor. "I explained to you nicely that you should drop your
interest in this case-but no, you didn't believe me. I hope that I've
convinced you now. Bye!"
He left. Matvei Apollonovich stood still listening to some sound
reverberating in the room's stillness. A minute later he realized that it
was his teeth chattering. His hands were also shaking. "What's the matter
with me?" He grabbed the phone... and dropped it, sank into his chair and
impotently laid his head on the cool surface of the desk. "The hell with
this job."
The door opened wide and the medical expert Zubato appeared on his
doorstep with a plywood crate in his hands.
"Listen, Matvei, this really is the crime of the century.
Congratulations," he shouted. "Lookee here!" He noisily set the box on the
table, opened it, and tossed out the straw packing. "I just got this from
the sculpture studio. Look!"
Matvei Apollonovich looked up. He was staring at the plaster cast of
Krivoshein's face-with a sloping forehead, a fat upturned nose, and wide
cheeks....
The best way to disguise that you limp with your left foot is 'to also
limp with your right. You will then walk with a sailor's swagger.
-K. Prutkov-enzhener. Hints for the Beginning Detective
"You sucker, show-off punk!" Krivoshein berated himself. "You found a
wonderful application for your discovery-terrifying the police. He would
have let me go anyway; there was no way out."
His face and body muscles were exhausted. The painful ache was easing
in his glands. "Three transformations in a few minutes is an overload. What
a hothead. Well, nothing will happen to me. That's the beauty of it, that
nothing can happen to me...."
The sky was quickly turning dark blue over the houses. The neon signs
announcing the names of stores, theaters, and cafes went on with a slight
hiss. The graduate student's thoughts returned to Moscow business.
"Vano Aleksandrovich passed with flying colors; he didn't even ask why
I was being held. He identified me and that's all. I understand it: 'If
Krivoshein is hiding his affairs from me then I don't want to know about
them.' The proud old man is hurt. And he's right. It was in conversation
with him that I zeroed in on my goals in the experiments. Actually, it had
been no conversation-it was an agreement. But it isn't everyone with whom
you can argue and come out with enriched ideas."
Vano Aleksandrovich kept circling him, watching with ironic
expectation: what earth-shattering ideas will the dilettante biologist come
up with? Once on a December evening, Krivoshein found him in his department
office and told him everything that he felt about life in general and about
man in particular. It was a good evening: they sat and smoked and talked,
while a pre-New Year's storm howled and whistled outside, pounding snow
against the window.
"Any machine is constructed somehow and does something," Krivoshein was
expounding. "The biological machine called Man also has these two parts to
it: the basic one and the operative. The operative part-organs of sensation,
the brain, motor nerves, and skeletal muscles-is for the most part
subservient to man. The eyes, ears, the binding parts of the skin, the nerve
endings in the nose and the tongue, and the pain and temperature receptors
react to external stimulation, turn it into electrical impulses (just like
the mechanism for information input in a computer), while the brain and the
spinal column analyze and combine the impulses according to the
'stimulation-braking' principle (similar to the impulse cells of a machine).
The synapses join and separate, sending commands to the skeletal muscles,
which perform various actions-just like the executive mechanisms of a
machine.
"Man controls the operative side of his organisms-he can even master
reflexes, like pain, by will power. But with the basic side, which takes
care of the fundamental process of life-metabolism-it isn't like that. That
lungs suck in air; the heart forces blood into the dark crannies of the
body; the gullet contracts and pushes pieces of food into the stomach; the
pancreas secretes hormones and enzymes to reduce food to elements that the
intestines can absorb; the liver excretes glucose into the blood. The
thyroid and parathyroid produce wild things, thyroxin and parathyreodine,
which determine whether a person will grow and mature or remain a cretinous
dwarf, whether he will develop a sturdy skeletal system or whether his bones
can be bent like pretzels. An inconsequential-looking growth by the base of
the brain-the pituitary body-with the help of its secretions commands the
entire mysterious kitchen of internal secretions as well as the functioning
of the kidneys, blood pressure, and safe delivery in childbirth. And this
part of the organism, which constructs man-his build, skull shape,
psychology, health, and power-this part is not subject to the conscious
mind!"
"Correct," smiled Vano Aleksandrovich. "In your operative side I easily
recognize the activity of the 'animal' or somatic nervous system and in the
basic one, the realm of the 'vegetative' or sympathetic nervous system.
These terms appeared in the eighteenth century; they used the Latin for
animal and for plant. Personally, I don't think they're very apt. Perhaps
your engineering terms will have greater success in the twentieth century.
Well, continue, please."
"Machines, even electronic ones, are constructed and made by man. Soon
the machines will do it themselves; the principle is clear. But why can't
man construct himself? Metabolism is subordinate to the central nervous
system. The glands, blood vessels, and intestines are connected to the brain
by the same kind of nerves as the muscles and sensory organs are. Why can't
man control these processes the way he can wiggle his fingers? Why is man's
conscious participation in this process limited to satisfying his appetite
and thirst and several opposite needs? It's ridiculous. Homo sapiens, the
king of nature, the crown of evolution, the creator of complex technology
and art, is distinguished in the basic life process from cows and earthworms
only in the use of knives and forks and alcohol!"
"Why is it so important to be able to bring sugar, enzymes, and
hormones into the blood through will power?" Androsiashvili's bushy eyebrows
arched. "Please be so kind as to tell me why, on top of all my worries in
the department, I have to also think every hour about how much adrenaline
and insulin I should produce in the pancreas and where I should direct it?
The sympathetic system takes care of it for me, without bothering man-and
that's fine!"
"Is it fine, Vano Aleksandrovich? What about disease?"
"Disease... so that's your angle: disease as an error in the workings
of the basic construction system." The professor's eyebrows turned into
sinusoids. "The mistakes that we try to rectify with pills, compresses,
vaccinations, and other operative interference, and usually without much
success. But... disease is the result of those effects of the environment
that the organism can't handle."
"And why can't it? After all, we know in most cases what is
harmful-that's the basis of disease prevention, epidemic control. We try,
simply, to keep away from danger. But the environment keeps spewing out new
mysteries: X-ray radiation, welding arcs, isotopes-"
"Enough!" The professor raised both hands in surrender. "I have the
feeling that you have a secret answer on the tip of your tongue and you just
can't wait for your interlocutor to bulge his eyes and ask with timid hope:
'But why?' All right! Look: my eyes are open wide." The whites of his eyes,
shot with red, sparkled. "And I am asking the long-awaited question. Why
can't people control their metabolism?"
"Because they've forgotten how it's done!" Krivoshein thundered.
"Bah!" the professor slapped his knee in glee. "They used to know and
forgot? Like a phone number? Interesting!"
"Let's remember that the human brain contains a huge number of
unactivated cells: ninety-nine percent, and in some, ninety-nine point
something. It's unlikely that they exist just like that, for a backup
reserve; nature doesn't allow excess. It's only natural to posit that those
cells contained information that is now lost. Not necessarily verbal
information-there is little of that in our organisms now because it's too
crude and approximate-but biological information, expressed in images,
feelings, sensations-"
"Stop! I know the rest!" Androsiashvili shouted exultantly. "Martians!
No, better than Martians. After all, they're going to get to Mars sooner or
later, and then it could be checked. Let's say inhabitants of a planet that
used to exist somewhere between Mars and Jupiter that has since
disintegrated into asteroids. Highly intelligent creatures lived there. They
had an artificial, varied environment, and they knew how to control their
organisms to adapt to the environment and also for fun. And these
inhabitants, sensing that their planet was about to die, moved to Earth."
"Perhaps it was that way," Krivoshein agreed calmly. "In any case, we
must assume that man had highly organized ancestors wherever they came from.
And they went wild, finding themselves in a wild, primitive environment with
harsh living conditions-in the Cenozoic Era. Heat, jungles, swamps,
animals-and no conveniences. Life was reduced to the struggle for survival
and all their refinements were wasted. Then over many generations it was all
lost, from literacy to the ability to control metabolism. Really, Vano
Aleksandrovich, put a city dweller in the jungle now, and see what happens
to him!"
"Very effective!" Androsiashvili smacked his lips in pleasure. "And the
excess brain cells remained in the organism along with the appendix and
hairy underarms? Now I understand why my dear colleague Professor Valerno
calls science fiction 'intellectual decadence.'"
"Why? And what does that have to do with this?"
"Because it replaces sober discussion with effective games of the
imagination."
"Well, you know," Krivoshein countered, getting angry, "in systemology
we don't put down working hypotheses with references to the ban mots of
friends. Any idea is usable if it is profitable."
"And in biology, comrade graduate student," Androsiashvili shouted,
rolling his eyes, "we only use ideas that are based on a sober,
materialistic approach! And not on the ruins of a fantasy planet! We deal
with something more important than technology-we deal with life! And since
you are now working in our field, I suggest you remember that! Any
dilettante comes along . . . and, phahh!" He immediately cooled off and
changed to a peaceful tone. "All right. Let's make believe that each of us
has smashed a plate. Now back to the serious things: why is your hypothesis,
to put it mildly, dubious? First of all, the 'unactivated' brain
cell-technological terminology is not applicable to biological concepts. The
cells are alive-therefore they are already activated. Secondly, why not
assume that these billions of cells are there as a reserve?"
Vano Aleksandrovich got up and looked down at Krivoshein.
"My dear comrade graduate student, I do have a little knowledge of
technology-after all, I am an evening student at MEI!-and I know that you,
hmm, in systemology, you have the concept and problem of reliability. The
reliability of electronic systems is guaranteed by a reserve of parts,
cells, and even units. Then why not assume that nature has created in man
the same kind of reserve for reliability in the brain? After all, nerve
cells do not regenerate."
"It's an awfully big reserve!" The graduate student shook his head.
"The average man uses a million cells out of a possible billion."
"And talented people use tens of millions! And geniuses . . . actually,
no one's measured their cells yet-maybe they use hundreds of millions.
Perhaps the brain of each of us is reserved for genius potential? I tend to
feel that genius and not mediocrity is man's natural state."
"Very effectively put, Vano Aleksandrovich."
"I see you are a cruel man . . . but, think what you will, my
reservations have as much value as your hypothesis about Martians gone wild.
Hah, and if you take into account the fact that I am your advisor and you
are my student, then they are even more valuable!" He sat down. "But let's
get back to the major issue: why is present-day man incapable of controlling
the autonomous nervous system and metabolism? You know why? Because it
hasn't come to that yet."
"So that's it!"
"Yes. The environment teaches man in only one way: through conditioning
drills. You know that in order to form a conditioned reflex the situation
and stimulus must be repeated frequently. And that's just how life
experience develops. And in order to form an unconditioned reflex that is
inherited the drill must be repeated for many generations for thousands of
years. You were right about the biological information in the organism; it
is not expressed verbally, but by the reflexes, both conditioned and
unconditioned. And it is man's will that controls reflexes, of course, in a
limited way. You don't think through from beginning to end which muscle must
contract how much when you light a cigarette, and you don't think through
the chemical reactions of the muscle contraction. The consciousness gives
the order to light up and the reflexes take over. Both the specific one that
you acquired from practicing that filthy habit-crumple the cigarette, inhale
the smoke-as well as the general ones passed on to you from your distant
ancestors: grabbing, breathing, and so on..." Vano Aleksandrovich-it wasn't
clear whether it was intended to be an illustration or not-lit a cigarette
and exhaled a stream of smoke toward the ceiling.
"I'm leading up to the fact that the consciousness controls when there
is something to control. In the operative part of the organism, when the
final action, as Sechenov noted long ago, is a muscular one ... remember?"
Androsiashvili sat back in his chair and quoted:" 'A child laughing at a
toy, Garibaldi smiling at the accusation of excessive love for his country,
a young girl trembling at the first thoughts of love, Newton creating
universal laws and writing them down-the final fact in all these instances
is muscular action.' Ah, how brilliantly Ivan Mikhailovich wrote! So the
operative part gives the mind something to control and lets it choose among
its vast store of conditioned and unconditioned reflexes for each unique
situation. And in the constructive part, where the body's chemistry takes
place, there is nothing for the mind to do. Just think for a moment about
what conditioned reflexes are involved in metabolism?"
"Drink or not, give me a little more horseradish, can't abide pork,
smoking, and...." Krivoshein got confused. "And well, I guess washing,
brushing your teeth...."
"There's a dozen more like that," nodded the professor, "but they are
all minor, semichemical, semimuscular, superficial reflexes. And deeper in
the organism there are definite reflex processes that are connected so
unilaterally that there is nothing to control: oxygen leaves the
bloodstream, breathe; not enough protein for the muscles, eat; excreted
water, drink; poisoned yourself with things forbidden for the organism, be
sick or die. And there are no variations. You can't say that life did not
teach people about metabolic reactions-it taught them cruelly. Epidemics-how
nice it would be to figure out through the use of your mind and your
reflexes just which bacillus was destroying you and purge it from your body
like fleas! Famines-just hibernate like a bear instead of puffing up and
dying! Wounds and mutilations in fighting-regenerate your torn-off limb or
gouged eye! And that's not enough. It would all be done at high speed.
Muscular reaction happens in tenths and hundredths of a second, and the
fastest of the metabolic actions-secretion of adrenaline into the
bloodstream-takes seconds. The secretion of hormones by the glands and the
pituitary is discovered only after years, and maybe only once in a lifetime.
Thus," he smiled wanly, "this knowledge is not lost by the organism; it
simply has not yet been acquired. It's too difficult for man to learn such a
lesson."
"And therefore mastery of metabolism could drag on for millions of
years?"
"I'm afraid that it could take dozens of millions of years," sighed
Vano Aleksandrovich. "We mammals are very recent inhabitants of earth.
Thirty million years-is that an age? Everything is still ahead of us.
"There will be nothing ahead of us, Vano Aleksandrovich!" exclaimed
Krivoshein. "The present environment changes from year to year-what kind of
million-year learning process can there be, what kind of repetition of
lessons? Man has stepped off the path of natural evolution, and now he must
figure things out for himself."
"And we are."
"What? Pills, powders, hemorrhoidal suppositories, enemas, and bed
rest? Are you sure that we are improving man's breed this way? Maybe we're
ruining it?"
' I'm not trying to talk you into involving yourself with pills and
powders if those are the terms you choose to use for the antibiotics our
department is developing," Vano Aleksandrovich said, his face taking on a
cold and haughty look. "If you want to study your idea-go ahead, dare. But
explaining the unrealistic and unplanned aspects of this decision in
graduate work and for a future dissertation is my right and my duty."
He stood up and tossed the butts from the ashtray into the wastebasket.
"Forgive me, Vano Aleksandrovich. I certainly didn't want to hurt your
feelings." Krivoshein also stood, realizing that the conversation was over,
and ending on an unpleasant note. "But. . . Vano Aleksandrovich, there are
very interesting facts."
"What facts?"
"Well ... in the last century in India there was a man-god,
Ramakrishna. And, if someone was being beaten nearby, he had welts on his
body. Or take 'burns by suggestion': a sensitive subject is touched with a
pencil and told that it was a lit cigarette. In these cases metabolism is
controlled without a 'learning process,' is it not?"
"Listen, you nagging student," Androsiashvili wheeled on him, "how many
window bolts can you eat in a sitting?"
"Hmmmm," Krivoshein said in confusion. "I don't think any at all. How
about you?"
"Me neither. But a patient I had in the dim past when I worked in the
Pavlov Psychiatric Clinic swallowed, without any particular harm to himself,
. . ." the professor leaned back, remembering, "five window bolts, twelve
aluminum teaspoons, three tablespoons, two pairs of surgical scissors, 240
grams of broken glass, one fork, and 400 grams of various nails. Now these
are not the results of an autopsy, mind you, but the history of a disease-I
cut him open myself. The patient was cured of suicidal tendencies and is
probably still alive today." The professor glanced down at Krivoshein from
the heights of his erudition. "So in scientific matters it is better not to
orient yourself by religious fanatics or secular psychopaths. No, no!" He
raised his hand to stave off the obvious look of disagreement in
Krivoshein's eyes. "Enough arguing. Go ahead, I won't stop you. I'm sure
that you will try to regulate metabolism with some kind of machine or
electronic method."
Vano Aleksandrovich gave the student a thoughtful and tired look and
smiled.
"Catching the Firebird with your bare hands! What could be better? And
you have a holy goal: man without diseases, without old age-age is a result
of a breakdown in metabolism, too. Twenty years or so ago, I would have
allowed myself to be fired up by this idea. But now... now I must do what
can definitely be done. Even if it's only a pill."
Krivoshein turned down a cross street toward the Institute of
Systemology and almost bumped into a man in a dark blue cloak, much too warm
for the season. The unexpectedness of the encounter produced further
problems: Krivoshein stepped to the left to let the man past, while the man
did the same to the right. Then both of them, letting the other go first,
finally set off in opposite directions. The man stared at Krivoshein in
amazement and stopped.
"I beg your pardon," he muttered and went on.
The street was dark and empty. Krivoshein soon heard footsteps behind
him and looked back: the man in the cloak was following at a short distance.
"That Onisimov!" thought the graduate student. "He's got a detective tailing
me!" He experimented by going faster and heard the man's pace increase. "Ah,
the hell with him! I'm certainly not going to cover my tracks." Krivoshein
went on slowly, rambling. However, his back felt uncomfortable and his
thoughts returned to reality.
"So, I guess Val tried another experiment. Maybe he wasn't alone? It
failed; that corpse turning into a skeleton. But why are the police
involved? And where is he? Our Val must have blown town on his bike until
things calmed down. Or maybe he's in the lab?"
Krivoshein approached the monumental, cast-iron gates of the institute.
The rectangular posts of the gates were so large that the left one easily
contained the pass office and the right one the entrance way. He opened the
door. Old man Vakhterych, the ancient guard of science, was nodding off
behind the barrier.
"Good evening!" Krivoshein nodded at him.
"Good evening, Valentin Vasilyevich!" replied Vakhterych, obviously not
about to ask him for his pass; they were used to visits by the head of the
New Systems Lab at all hours.
Krivoshein, inside the grounds, looked back; the creep in the cloak was
stuck outside. There you go, chum," Krivoshein thought. "The pass system
proves itself once again."
The windows of the lodge were dark. A red cigarette light glowed by the
door. Krivoshein crouched under the trees and made out a uniform cap on a
man's head against the stars. "No, I've had it with the cops for one day.
I'd better go home,..." he laughed. "I mean to his house."
He started for the gates, but remembered the fellow in the cloak and
stopped. "That's against all the rules, the suspect running into the
detective's arms. Let him do some work." Krivoshein headed for the other end
of the park-where the branches of the old oak hung over the iron pickets of
the fence. He jumped from the branch onto the sidewalk and started for
Academic Town.
"But what happened with his experiment? And who was that guy who met me
at the airport? The telegram really confused me: I thought he was Val! He
does look like him-very much so. Could it be? Val obviously didn't sit
around all year twiddling his thumbs! Too bad we didn't write. What petty
fools we are: each one wanting to prove that he could do without the other,
to astound the other a year later with his results. With his own results!
The highest form of possession. And so we've amazed each other. We're
destroying a major project with pettiness. With pettiness, lack of
forethought, and fear. We shouldn't have scattered every which way, but
tried to attract people who were worthy and real, like Vano Aleksandrovich,
from the very beginning. Yes, but back then I didn't know him, and it won't
help to try it now, when he storms past me and gives me dirty looks."
It had all happened in the spring, in late March when Krivoshein had
only begun mastering metabolism in his own body. Busy with himself, he
hadn't noticed spring until spring made him notice: a heavy icicle fell on
him from the roof of a five-story building. If it had fallen a half inch to
the left, it would have been the end of the experiments on metabolism as
well as the end of his organism. But the icicle merely ripped his ear, broke
his collar bone, and knocked him down.
"Disaster, disaster!" That's what he heard professor Androsiashvili
saying as he came to. He was leaning over him, feeling his head, unbuttoning
his coat. "I'll kill that janitor for not clearing the snow!" he said,
angrily shaking his fist. "Can you walk?" He helped Krivoshein up. "Don't
worry, your head is fairly whole. The clavicle will heal in a few weeks. It
could have been worse. Hold on, I'll walk you over to the infirmary."
"Thank you, Vano Aleksandrovich, I'll manage myself," Krivoshein
replied as heartily as he could, even squeezing out a smile. "I'll make it,
it's nearby."
And he moved on quickly, almost at a run. He stopped the bleeding from
his ear immediately. But his right hand was dangling loosely.
"I'll call them to get the electric stitcher ready!" the professor
called after him. "They'll be able to sew up the ear!"
Back in his room, Krivoshein taped up his ear, torn along the
cartilage, in front of the mirror and wiped away the caked blood with
cotton. That was easy. Ten minutes later there was only a pink scar where
the tear had been, and in a half hour, that was gone too. Mending the
clavicle was a lot harder; he had to lie on his bed all evening
concentrating on commanding the blood vessels, the glands, and the muscles.
The bones had much less chemical solution than soft tissue.
He decided to go to Androsiashvili's class in the morning. He got to
the hall early to take an inconspicuous seat in the back and ran into the
professor, who was instructing students about the hanging of posters.
Krivoshein backed off, but it was too late.
"Why are you here? Why aren't you in the clinic?" Vano Aleksandrovich
went pale, staring at the student's ear and the right hand in which he was
clutching his notebook. "What is this?"
"And you said it would take dozens of millions of years, Vano
Aleksandrovich." Krivoshein couldn't resist. "You see, it can be done
without 'drilling.'"
"You mean... it's working? How?"
Krivoshein bit his lip.
"Mmmm, a little later, Vano Aleksandrovich," he muttered awkwardly. "I
still have to figure it all out myself."
"Yourself?" The professor raised his eyebrows. "You don't want to
tell?" His face grew cold and haughty. "All right, as you wish. Pardon me!"
He went to his desk.
From that day on he nodded icily to his student when they met, and
never entered into a discussion. Krivoshein, to keep his conscience from
bothering him too much, lost himself in his experiments. He really did have
a lot more to learn.
"Don't you understand that I wanted to demonstrate my discovery-relive
my burning interest in it, your praise, fame, . . ." thought Krivoshein as
he tried to justify himself before the invisible Androsiashvili. "After all,
unlike the psychopaths I could have explained it all. Of course, this
doesn't work with other people yet; they don't have the constitution for it.
But the important thing is that I've proved the possibility of it, the
knowledge. If only the discovery had been limited to the fact that I can
heal my own wounds, breaks, and cure myself of diseases! The trouble with
nature is that it never gives just exactly as much as is needed for the
welfare of man-it's always either too much or too little. I got too much. I
could, probably, turn myself into an animal, even into a monster. That's
possible. Everything's possible. That's the scary part." Krivoshein sighed.
The window and glass door that opened onto the balcony of the fifth
floor glowed softly. It looked like the table lamp was on. "Is he home?"
Krivoshein ran up the stairs, rummaged through his pockets from force of
habit, remembered that he had thrown out the key a year ago, and swore at
himself, for it would have been very effective to suddenly walk in: "Your
documents, citizen!" There still was no doorbell, and he knocked.
He heard light, quick steps-they made his heart beat faster-and the
lock clicked. Lena was opening the door.
"Oh, Val, you're alive!" She grabbed his neck with her warm hands,
looked him over, smoothed his hair, hugged him, and began crying. "Val, my
darling... and I thought... they've been saying such horrible things! I
called your lab, and there was no answer. I called the institute, and when I
asked where you were, what had happened, they hung up. I came here, and you
were gone. And they told me that you were...." She sobbed angrily. "The
fools!"
"All right, Lena, don't. That's enough. What's the matter?" Krivoshein
wanted very much to hold her close and he barely controlled his arms.
It was as though nothing had happened: not discovery number one, not
the year of mad, concentrated work in Moscow, where he cast away the
past.... Krivoshein had tried more than once-for spiritual peace-to
eradicate Lena's face from his memory. He knew how it was done: a rush of
blood with an increased glucose level to the brain's cortex, small
oxidations directed at the nucleotides of a certain area-and the information
is removed from the cells forever. But he didn't want to... or couldn't.
'Wanting' and 'being able'-how do you distinguish them in yourself? And now
the woman he loved was weeping on his shoulder, weeping from anxiety about
him. He had to soothe her.
"Stop, Lena. Everything's all right, as you can see."
She looked up at him. Her eyes were wet, happy, and guilty.
"Val... you're not mad at me, are you? I said all those horrible things
to you then-I don't know why myself. I'm just stupid! You were hurt? I
thought that it was all over, too, but when I found out that something had
happened to you ... I couldn't. You see, I ran here. Forget it, please? It's
forgotten, all right?"
"Yes," Krivoshein said sincerely. "Let's go inside."
"Oh, Val, you can't imagine how terrified I was!" She was still holding
onto his shoulders, afraid to let go. "And that investigator... the
questions!"
"He called you in, too?"
"Yes."
"Aha, the old cherchez la femme!"
They went inside. It hadn't changed: a gray daybed, a cheap desk, two
chairs, a bookshelf piled with magazines up to the ceiling, and a wardrobe
with the usual mirrored door. In the corner by the door lay crisscrossed
dumbbells.
"I cleaned up a little, waiting for you. The dust... you have to keep
the balcony door shut tight, when you leave." Lena moved close to him. "Val,
what did happen?"
"If I only knew!" he thought with a sigh. "Nothing terrible... just a
lot of brouhaha."
"Why the police, then?"
"The police? They were called, and they came. If they had called the
fire department, they would have come too."
"Oh, Val,..." she placed her arms around his neck and wrinkled up her
nose. "Why are you like that?"
"Like what?" he asked, feeling more stupid by the second. "Well,