leg.
Yura picked up the underwater gun Nikolai was making and examined it.
"The spring's a bit tight."
"No, it's just right," said Nikolai. "Can't have it any looser."
"If you finish it by Sunday we can do some shooting."
"We're racing on Sunday."
"Why, so we are. I forgot." Yura stretched out luxuriously on the sofa.
"I want you to look at this," said Nikolai, producing several sheets of
paper covered with sketches and figures from a drawer of the desk. "What do
you think of it?"
Yura glanced at the sketches. "They look like pears." He yawned. "Take
these drawings away. I'm too lazy to think."
"But first listen. Remember that conversation about surface tension and
the interesting idea Privalov suggested?" "He told us to forget it."
Nikolai lost his temper. "You're an idiot! I can't discuss anything
with you nowadays. All you can think of is Val."
"You're the idiot," Yura replied cheerfully. "All right, let's have
it."
Nikolai turned on the fan. "What shape does a liquid have?" he asked,
lighting a cigarette.
Yura lifted his eyebrows. "It takes the shape of the vessel into which
it's poured. Primitive man guessed that much."
"Very well. Now take a drop of liquid. What keeps the liquid in a
droplet? Surface tension. No vessel is needed. A sphere is the ideal shape
of a minimum surface. But a droplet is not spherical. The earth's gravity
gives it a bulge, making it pear-shaped."
"In short, a drop-like shape." "Exactly."
There was a knock on the door. A tall, husky man in a white singlet and
blue jeans entered. He had a broad, heavy-jawed face, and there was a tuft
of red hair on top of his head.
"Caught you in at last, Nikolai," he said in a deep, hoarse voice.
"Where've you been hiding?"
"What can I do for you, Uncle Vova?" Nikolai asked. "I want to borrow
your aqualung for a couple of days."
"My diving gear?"
"Don't worry, you'll get it back in perfect condition," he said
reassuringly, 'I'll refill the cylinders too."
"All right, take it,"
Uncle Vova picked up the aqualung and inspected it.
"Fine workmanship," he remarked. "Thanks."
"When did you return?" asked Nikolai.
"Sunday. By the way, I saw you pull that girl out of the sea. You made
a neat job of it."
"Why, it looks as though the whole town saw it."
"Really?" Uncle Vova pricked up his ears. "Who else?"
"The whole ship. You were on the Uzbekistan too, weren't you?"
"Oh, I don't give a damn about the Uzbekistan" Uncle Vova replied
vaguely. "Well, I'm off." He nodded and went out.
"Now Yura, listen to what-" At this point Nikolai noticed that Yura,
his long legs hanging over the edge of the sofa, was sound asleep. Nikolai
shook him by the shoulder. Yura jerked a leg and pushed his friend away
without opening his eyes.
"Wake up this instant or I'll shake the life out of you!" Nikolai
shouted.
Yura opened his eyes. "I must have dozed for a moment," he remarked
with a conciliatory smile.
"You certainly did. Get off the sofa."
"I'm more comfortable on it. You can continue talking. We stopped on
droplets being droplet-shaped. It sounds fascinating."
"Are you trying to be funny?"
"Not 'for the world."
"Then listen. The size of a droplet depends on the magnitude of the
surface tension. In the case of water"-Nikolai glanced at his notes- "the
surface tension is 72.8 ergs per square centimetre. The surface tension of
alcohol is a little more than 22 ergs."
"What is it for mercury?"
"Mercury? Just a minute." Nikolai took down a thick reference book from
a shelf and leafed through it. "Just listen to this! The surface tension of
mercury is 470 ergs. That's terrific!"
"You can increase the tension by passing an electric current through
the mercury. Don't you remember reading about that old 'mercury heart'
experiment?"
"Why, that's right. Thanks for recalling it, Yura."
Yura made a regal gesture. "Think nothing of it."
"We'll set mercury aside for the time being," said Nikolai. "Now
consider the following. Have you noticed the way water runs along telegraph
wires in the rain?"
"An intriguing sight, isn't it?"
"The flow has a droplet-like cross-section," Nikolai went on. "Suppose
we use an electric ray instead of a wire. The ray creates a field. The field
increases the surface tension, and the cross-section builds up."
"Better not tangle with fields, old man. You and I don't know much
about them."
"We won't really tangle with them. All we need is a high-frequency
generator."
"Let's have a look at those papers," said Yura after a pause. "What
does this diagram represent?"
Nikolai sat down on the sofa beside him.
"Look here," he said. "We'll string up an inclined wire and send water
down it to a vessel at the bottom. Since we know the time and the amount of
water we'll be able to calculate the speed at which it moves. We'll measure
the cross-section of the droplets and calculate their surface tension. Then
we'll put a spiral round the wire-"
"I get the point-a resonance circuit and superimposed frequencies."
Yura sprang to his feet. "Give me some wire!"
Nikolai's grey eyes wrinkled in a smile. Once Yura was hooked on an
idea his energy knew no bounds.
Yura pulled off his shirt, tossed his hair back off his forehead and
produced a screwdriver from his pocket. It was his favourite screwdriver,
for which he had made a hollow plastic handle, with a neon indicator lamp
inside it, in his student days. He carried the screwdriver everywhere he
went. Like Roland's sword, it had a name of its own. It was called Durandal.
"We'll disembowel your radio set for a start," Yura said. "But don't
worry, we'll only remove the input circuit. And the heterodyne." He turned
the set Over on its side and went at it with his screwdriver. "We'll take
out the giblets. Don't just stand there, Nick. Go out on the gallery and put
the wire up."
Working away busily, Yura went on. "A great man once said the true
experimenter can set up any kind of experiment with three sticks, a piece of
rubber, a glass tube, and some of his own saliva."
Anatole Benedictov switched on the motor. The belt drive made a
rustling sound and the glass disc of the electrostatic machine began to
revolve. Blue sparks crackled.
A round aquarium on the table had wire wound around it, with thick
copper tubing on top of the wire. A copper disc hung above the aquarium
parallel with the surface of the water. Small fish darted about in the
greenish water.
Benedictov turned the levers of the valve oscillator. Then, slowly
tightening a screw, he brought the copper disc close to the water.
The fish stopped darting about. They seemed to fall asleep instantly.
Benedictov looked at his watch, dropped heavily into an armchair and closed
his eyes.
The room was shrouded in semi-darkness. Rita sat on the sofa. A black
cat lay at her feet.
"You ought to give up these experiments, Anatole," she said
thoughtfully. "You're biting off more than you can chew."
"It's too late, Rita. I can't give up now."
There was a silence. The electricity crackled. The fish in the aquarium
slept.
"Why do you keep experimenting with living creatures, Anatole?" Rita
asked, leaning forward. "Your old-time predecessors used inorganic matter."
"You know why. Living matter gives me something a piece of wood or a
chunk of metal never could. It gives me action potentials."
"But the knife is lost. How can you continue experimenting without it?"
"I don't know. I need that knife all the time." Benedictov paused, then
added, "Did you actually see it fall overboard? Could someone in the crowd
have grabbed it?"
"No, it went overboard. I dived after it at once, but the knife sank to
the bottom."
"What a thing to have happened!" Benedictov rubbed his shaggy head
furiously.
The doorbell rang. When Rita opened the door she found a husky man in
blue overalls and a cap pulled down over his eyes standing there.
"I'm from the municipal electricity board," he said. "I've come to
inspect the wiring."
"Step in," said Rita. "The meter's over there."
The electrician removed the fuses and inspected them.
"These have to be replaced," he said. "They're defective."
"Rita!" Benedictov called from his room. "Why did you switch off the
electricity?"
"Hurry up and put those fuses back," Rita told the electrician.
"Are you in a hurry to be fined?" said the electrician, but he put back
the fuses. "Where's the Хkitchen?" He went through the rooms, his head
tipped back, looking at the wiring. Suddenly he stopped short. "Is that a
motor running?" he asked. "Got a license for it?"
"Rita!" Benedictov called impatiently.
"Excuse me a moment," Rita said to the electrician as she turned
towards Benedictov's study.
The electrician heard her explaining what the matter was. A man's voice
said, "To hell with him! Let him look. Here, hold this fish."
"Ouch!" Rita exclaimed.
The electrician glanced into the room in time to see the woman drop the
fish and a big black cat spring to seize it.
"Shoo!" cried Benedictov.
The electrician jumped back from the doorway as the cat, covered with
blue sparks and screeching piteously, dashed into the passage. Its fur stood
on end, the sparks crackling. The cat ran frenziedly between the
electrician's legs, received a kick, and bounded down the passage.
"The cat thought I tossed the fish to her," Rita said with a laugh as
she came out of the study. "Have you finished looking things over?"
Benedictov followed his wife into the passage.
"Who are you?" he asked the electrician in alarm. "What do you want?"
"I ought to fine you for such goings-on," the electrician growled
hoarsely, tugging his cap down over his forehead. He strode to the door,
pulled it open and went out, slamming the door behind him.
After the war Bugrov returned home to his flat in Cooper Lane where a
circus poster, now yellowed, still hung on the wall beside his bed.
Soon afterwards he married a stately, imperious woman named Claudia.
She hid the poster in the lower drawer of the bureau, placed little rugs and
embroidered cushions here, there and everywhere.
Bugrov did not return to the circus. He obtained a medical certificate
stating that he was a disabled veteran and began to make spring dynamometers
at home for a small producers' co-operative of disabled war veterans.
When Bugrov saw Benedictov's strange knife on board the Uzbekistan on
his way home from a holiday on the Volga he immediately realized that such a
knife could be a gold mine in a circus act. He carefully noted the place
where the woman in red had dived overboard. When the passengers from the
Uzbekistan went ashore he took a taxi and followed Benedictov to his home.
Bugrov hesitated for several days before finally deciding on direct
action to learn whether the man still had the knife or whether it had sunk
to the bottom of the Caspian.
"It was a waste of time," Bugrov thought gloomily as he walked to the
trolleybus stop. "I didn't learn anything about the knife. All I did was
tangle with a cat." Recalling the black cat covered with sparks he spat on
the ground in fury.
Vova Bugrov did not know that cats possess excellent electrical
properties, although they could hardly be a source of electric power. It has
been estimated that if 1,500 million cats were stroked simultaneously they
would generate a mere 15 watts.
"But maybe it wasn't a complete loss, after all," Bugrov reflected in
the trolleybus. "The cat's owner was out of sorts. He swore and shouted at
his wife. He might have been upset because the knife sank into the sea. Why
didn't I grab it? I should have kept my eye on the handle. Well, I'll have
to search the sea bottom."
Bugrov fell into a daydream about a wonderful circus act. The day he
arrived in a small town posters would be pasted on all the fences showing
Bugrov in a red robe-no, a green robe would perhaps be better-and a turban,
with a knife piercing his throat. "Famous Fakir so-and-so" the poster would
read. He'd have to think up a good name for himself. The hall would be
jammed to the rafters as he, Vova, emerged on the stage in a green robe, or
maybe a black robe.
He'd have to borrow his neighbour's scuba gear and do some diving.
There was no silt in that place. Just sand. He was sure he would find the
knife.
Bugrov pushed his cap to the back of his head and winked at his
reflection in the trolleybus window.
Nikolai Opratin saw Benedictov as soon as he opened the door into the
laboratory. Corpulent and dishevelled, the biophysicist stood beside a table
around which ran a thick copper coil. He was unfastening the harness in
which a brown and white dog hung. When he set the dog on the floor it shook
itself and began to sniff angrily at the experimenter's feet.
"Good morning," Opratin said.
"What do you want?" Benedictov asked coldly.
"Your advice about fish."
Benedictov turned away. "Ask someone else."
"I'm sorry about that argument we had on board the ship," Opratin said
softly. "I'm ready to take back my words."
The biophysicist was silent. Then he nodded in the direction of the
glass partition at the end of the laboratory. "Come this way," he said
jerkily.
They sat down opposite each other at a table covered with papers and
blocks of paraffin cut into cubes.
"The problem we're working on is the level of the Caspian, that is, how
to raise it," Opratin explained. "We plan a series of experiments in the
course of which ionized water will appear in the sea. My question is: how
will this affect the fish?"
Benedictov gave a cough but said nothing.
"Our Institute will of course get in touch officially with yours,"
Opratin went on, his gaze fixed on Benedictov's face. "But I'd like to know,
ahead of time-"
"What are your ionization figures?" Benedictov asked, moving closer a
spirit lamp on which stood a nickel-plated tray.
The conversation faltered. Benedictov answered questions in unwilling
monosyllables. He coughed and squirmed in his chair. His bloodshot eyes were
evasive.
Suddenly he rose, murmured an excuse, and left the room. Opratin let
his eyes roam over the table. He noticed an empty glass ampoule. As he read
the Latin inscription on it his thin lips twisted in an ironic smile.
Benedictov returned looking a completely different man, fresh-faced,
cheerful, with sparkling eyes.
"Please continue," he said on his way to his desk.
"Look here," said Opratin softly. "Did you try to magnetize that
knife?"
Benedictov stopped short. Opratin's pale blue eyes stared steadily at
him without blinking. Benedictov felt acutely uncomfortable.
"What's it to you?" he muttered.
The ensuing silence lasted several seconds. Benedictov was the first to
lower his eyes.
"Sit down," Opratin said. "I'm not asking out of idle curiosity. I've
been thinking a lot about your knife and it seems to me I've guessed a few
things. Can it be magnetized?"
"Suppose it can? So what?"
"This is extremely important. Don't look at me as if you wanted to tear
me to pieces. I've come here to help you."
"I don't need any help."
Opratin let this remark pass. "Did you measure the knife's electric
resistance?" he asked. "Did you test it for use as the core of an
electromagnet?"
Benedictov had not done that either.
"Did you try it on a voltaic arc?"
Benedictov shook his head thoughtfully.
"How does the knife react to chemical substances?"
He flung question after question at Benedictov. Benedictov gave
reluctant replies. He had not performed half of the tests about which this
uninvited inspector was asking him.
"Well, well," said Opratin. He smoothed his thinning hair. "To all
appearances, my dear man, you have followed the wrong path."
"What path I follow is my own business," Benedictov growled.
"Yes, to be sure." Opratin drummed his fingers on the table. "You're a
biologist and I'm a physicist. Don't you think that if we combined forces
we'd reach the goal faster?"
Benedictov said nothing.
"I won't lay claim to any of your laurels. I just want to help you. All
I'm interested in are the scientific results." Opratin looked searchingly at
Benedictov. "What do you say?"
The biophysicist glanced out of the window. "Damn it!" he said flatly.
WHERE THE AUTHORS WANTED THEM TO BE
Early Sunday morning Nikolai Potapkin ran down the steps and out into
the courtyard, swinging his little suitcase. The sleeves of his white shirt
were rolled up above the elbows, his open collar exposed a tanned chest.
Glancing up at the cloudless sky, he shook his head. Not a breath of wind!
Yet this was the day of the big regatta. He arrived at the marina to find
preparations in progress only on the centreboard and Star class boats, for
which even a slight breeze would be enough. The crews of the L-4 boats,
discouraged by the absence of wind, were gathered in their cabins in front
of TV sets watching a children's programme.
Nikolai found Yura sitting on the edge of the pier in his bathing
trunks, his long arms wrapped round his knees, singing a song from an Indian
film in a mournful voice. He sat down beside Yura and took up the refrain.
They sang until dockmaster Mehti stuck his head out of the window of the
boathouse and begged them to stop. "This isn't an opera-house," he
complained.
"You shouldn't have lent uncle Vova your scuba gear," Yura remarked
after a while. "We could have done some diving."
"Why not come over to my place if the races are cancelled? We might try
to change the pitch of the spiral."
"I don't want to."
"Why not?" Nikolai looked at his friend. "Ah, yes, of course. A date
with Val."
"No, I-"
"Then what the devil-"
"Nothing will come of it, Nick. The surfaces of substances are a hazy
subject. If famous scientists don't know how to handle them, then what's the
use of us trying?"
"You needn't if you don't want to. I'll get along without you."
"You can't. At least I know my way about electronics, which is more
than you can say."
"Anyway, I won't give up. There must be a field in which surface
tension increases."
"A field!" Yura repeated derisively. "'Oh, field, broad field, who
strewed you with whitened bones?'"
Boris Privalov came up to the young men. "Good morning, boys. Doesn't
look as though there'll be any racing today, does it?"
"The races haven't been officially called off yet," said Yura. "We're
waiting. Take a seat."
The three of them sat side by side on the pier, dangling their feet in
the water, the sun warming their backs, waiting for the wind to come up.
"Do you recall our talk about surface tension, Boris?" Nikolai asked in
a determined voice.
The sun flashed on Privalov's glasses as he turned to look at Nikolai.
"Yes, I do."
"Well, it's like this." Nikolai launched into a description of the
experiment with water and a wire, and mentioned the spiral and the desired
field.
Privalov listened closely, frowning and screwing up his eyes.
"It's amateurish," he said finally. "You can't go in for that sort of
thing without thorough preparation. There's a book by Adam on the physics
and chemistry of surfaces. I'll lend it to you." He was silent for a while.
"Besides, at the moment we have more than enough work on our hands, and
later there will be a pipeline across the whole of the Caspian."
"I've been hearing about a transcaspian pipeline for years," said Yura.
"We're beginning to wonder whether it will ever be built."
"It will. I forgot to ask you yesterday, Nikolai, if you went over to
Opratin's."
"Yes, I did."
"See anything interesting?"
"Not particularly. I think they're setting up a big electrostatic
installation."
"Electrostatic, you say?" Privalov looked thoughtful.
Yura sprang to his feet. "A wind! A wind's coming up!"
A light southerly sea breeze ruffled the surface of the bay and rustled
in the trees along Seaside Boulevard. The flag of the Chief Judge fluttered
tautly.
A ship's bell tinkled. The class M flag was run up.
"The centreboard boats are getting ready," Yura said excitedly. "If it
blows a little stronger the keel boats can follow suit. Let's go."
After the centreboards the Star class boats started off. There was
enough wind for these small, light boats which carried a great deal of sail.
The wind freshened, and half an hour later boats of the L-4 class were
announced. Soon the steady ringing of a ship's bell informed the competitors
that five minutes were left before the start.
Ah, those last five minutes! What a tricky business it was getting as
close to the starting line as possible within those five minutes, but not
crossing it ahead of time!
Four rings of the bell meant four minutes were left, then three, two,
and one. Finally, a quick ringing of the bell gave the signal for the start.
Beating against the wind, the boats entered the first lap of the
fifteen-mile course.
Wind filled the sails as the sheet, held in strong hands, quivered; the
sea whispered to the boats sliding through it; the sun bathed everything in
gold against the blue of the sea.
The Mekong was among the first to round the mark. Following an
advantageous course, it approached its closest rival on a parallel course
windward, but the other boat did not let the Mekong overtake it. In the
excitement both crews forgot about the other competitors. When the Mekong
finally forged ahead, the crews discovered that almost all the other boats
had overtaken both of them, were rounding the second buoy and were raising
their spinnakers, the big triangular sails used when running before the
wind.
Yura, who was sitting on the deck, raised himself on one knee.
"Obstacle ahead!" he shouted. "Two boats lying at anchor!"
When the Mekong came closer they saw a man in a straw hat sitting in
one of the boats. They could hear the motor running, but the boat was not
moving.
The second boat, some distance away, was empty.
"Ahoy there!" Yura shouted, leaning over the side. "Watch out!"
Just then the wind died down, prompting the thought that Nature is
sometimes actively hostile to man. Why else should the wind die down at noon
on a Sunday just when a regatta is at its height?
The sails flapped several times and then hung limp. The Mekong
continued to move forward a short distance by inertia before coming to a
full stop about half a cable length from the motor-boat.
"Well, all we can do now is sunbathe. What a race!" said Yura in
disgust. Whistling softly, he scratched the boom with his fingernails, then
threw a ten-kopek coin overboard. But these century-old remedies failed to
call up a wind.
"I've done everything I can," Yura announced. Then he stretched out on
the deck and began to sing in a doleful voice:
The river flows but it doesn't flow;
The day got off to a bad start.
How can I tell you what's in my heart?
But I think you probably know.
Nikolai glanced at the distant shore and the refrigeration plant
outlined against the blue sky.
"Why," he said wonderingly, "I believe this is the spot where we
rescued that young woman in the red dress."
All of a sudden silence descended as the motor of the boat ahead was
switched off. They heard an angry voice say:
"I came here first. Everything I find here is mine."
"Don't be silly," another voice said. "The sea doesn't belong to you.
It belongs to everyone."
"I'll show you who it belongs to!"
The motorboat rocked as the man in the straw hat waved his arms.
"I wonder who he's talking to?" Nikolai looked more closely at the
motorboat. Then he fetched his binoculars from the cabin and trained them on
the straw hat. "Just what I thought. The voice sounded familiar. That's
Opratin."
"Give him my regards," Privalov said.
"Damn it!" Nikolai exclaimed. "You spoke of wanting the scuba gear,
Yura. Well, there it is."
Taking the binoculars, Yura clearly saw Bugrov's big head in the water
beside the motorboat. The mask was pushed up on Vova's forehead and he was
clinging to the boat with one hand.
Yura lowered the binoculars. "You're right. The diving gear is in
danger. It looks as though they want to drown each other."
"I'd like to know what they're doing here," said Nikolai. "Do you mind,
Boris, if I take a short swim?"
"Don't be too long. The wind may come up any minute."
"I'll be back soon." With these words Nikolai plunged into the sea and
swam towards the motorboat.
"Come, Yura," said Privalov, lighting a cigarette and letting the smoke
out through his nostrils, "tell me about your experiments once again."
That morning Nikolai Opratin had spent more than an hour on the small
wharf belonging to the Institute of Marine Physics. He had attached a cable
drum to the side of an Institute motor-boat and had wound on it a thin cable
with a strong electromagnet at its end.
Anatole Benedictov had said the knife could be magnetized. If this was
so, then he, Opratin, would find it. How stupid that the knife should have
fallen overboard! And what a scene Benedictov had made on deck! Opratin
recalled the glass ampoule on the biophysicist's desk. A drug addict.
Yet without that scene on deck he, Opratin, would not have learned of
the existence of the mysterious knife. A drop of common sense in a barrel of
nonsense.
Opratin finished equipping the boat, started up the motor, and chugged
out of the bay.
The sea heaved lazily beneath the hot August sun. The red cone of the
fairway buoy with a big white "18" painted on it rocked on the surface. The
TV mast was at Opratin's stern and the refrigeration plant on the left. He
turned the boat a few degrees to starboard.
Now this must be the place. This was where Benedictov's wife had fallen
overboard after the knife had dropped into the sea. An interesting woman, no
doubt about that. Had she fallen or had she jumped?
An empty boat bobbed in the water about twenty metres away. Where was
the owner? Had he drowned? Or had the boat torn free of its moorings and
drifted out of the bay? Opratin was not in the least interested. He pushed a
lever which switched the motor's drive from the propeller to a generator to
which the cable with the electromagnet was attached. The cable wound off the
drum into the water. Opratin wondered how soon his particular fish would
bite.
At the end of the cable was an electromagnetic underwater probe
connected with an ultrasonic range-finder. The zigzagging green line on the
oscillograph screen would show the shape of metallic objects on the sea
floor. If Opratin wanted some object he could switch on the electromagnet
and pick it up.
Using the oars, Opratin slowly moved the boat back and forth, combing
the place. Suddenly the cable jerked. Bubbles rose to the surface, then a
huge hand was thrust out of the water, followed by a head, the face covered
by a mask. The mask was connected by a hose to a cylinder on the man's back.
The diver closed the valve of the aqualung and pushed the mask up onto
his forehead, revealing a broad face with a heavy jaw. Opratin recognized
him at once. He was the man who had tried to take the knife from Benedictov
aboard the Uzbekistan. It was obvious why he was at this particular spot in
the sea. An unpleasant situation.
While the diver coughed and spat out water Opratin decided to take the
offensive.
"Hey you, there!" he shouted. "Why the devil did you pull my cable?"
"You'll soon find out!" came the answer in a threatening tone. The man
swam over to Opratin's motorboat, reached up to grip its side, and let loose
a stream of obscenities that set Opratin's teeth on edge. The substance of
Bugrov's monologue was that law-abiding citizens could not go in for
skin-diving on their day off because "others"-a word which Bugrov proceeded
to define-played all kinds of dirty tricks on them.
Bugrov had been combing the area in circles. He would anchor his boat,
dive down and swim around in a circle, studying the firmly-packed sandy
bottom. His supply of air was almost half used up when he saw a black
cylinder suspended from a cable slowly moving over the bottom. He swam up to
the cylinder and tugged at it, gripping the place where it was attached to
the cable. An electric shock galvanized him, and he tore his hand away with
difficulty. Dazed and angered, he headed for the surface.
Bugrov had been having bad luck with electricity lately.
"Get going, quick-before I turn your tub upside down!" he roared.
Opratin did not want any trouble, the more so that a sailboat was
approaching. He moved over to the stern and said in a placative tone,
"Listen, how was I to know you were swimming here?"
"Couldn't you see my boat? Stop acting innocent, you scum!"
They wrangled for another few minutes, until Opratin realized he was
being foolish and would have to get rid of the man some other way. He
switched off the motor, gave the becalmed sailboat a fleeting glance, and
said, "I know what you're looking for, but you'll never find it with an
aqualung."
Bugrov blinked in disbelief.
"D'you take me for a fool?" he asked hoarsely. "Get out! I came here
first. Everything I find here is mine."
"Don't be silly! The sea doesn't belong to you. It belongs to
everyone."
"I'll show you who it belongs to!" Bugrov began to rock the motorboat.
Opratin had to throw out his arms to keep his balance.
"All right, I'm leaving," Opratin said, strongly tempted to hit the man
over the head with his anchor. "But you'll never see that knife. You can
take my word for it as a scientist."
This made an impression on Bugrov, who had a deep faith in the
omnipotence of science.
"Are you looking for the knife too?" he asked in what was almost a
civil tone.
"There, that's the way to talk," said Opratin. "Yes, I am. If I don't
find it I'll make one just like it."
Bugrov gave the face under the straw hat a thoughtful glance.
"I'm apt to be quick-tempered," he said. "Maybe I said some things I
shouldn't have."
Opratin gave a wry grin.
Nikolai quickly covered the hundred metres or so to the motorboat in a
noiseless breast stroke. As he approached it he heard Bugrov say, "All I
want is the knife. I'm willing to make sacrifices for science."
"I'm glad to hear it," said Opratin.
"I am what I am," Bugrov said modestly. "Will I be going to the island
often?"
"No, not very."
"There's a fishery nearby. I can get caviar cheap there." He fell
silent, his head filled with visions of future profits.
At that moment Opratin caught sight of Nikolai beside the boat. He
removed his dark glasses to take a better look.
"Is that you?" he asked with a pleasant smile. "What an unexpected
encounter!"
"Hi, there," called Bugrov, recognizing his neighbour. "Where" d you
drop from?"
"That sailboat," Nikolai caught hold of the motorboat's life line.
"We're becalmed, so I decided to take a swim."
An awkward silence followed.
"I'll be on my way," said Bugrov, pushing off from the motorboat. "Do
you want your scuba gear now?"
"No," said Nikolai. "Bring it to me at home."
Bugrov swam back to his rowboat.
"I see you know him," remarked Opratin.
"Yes, we live in the same house." Nikolai stared at the generator, the
face plate of the cathode-ray tube of the oscillograph and the drum with the
cable running into the sea.
Opratin smiled. "How I envy you. Sailing is a wonderful sport. But I,
as you can see, have to carry out investigations on Sundays too."
"Yes, I see," said Nikolai, trying feverishly to make out what sort of
cable it was. "Well, good luck."
He pushed off from the motorboat and swam back to the sailboat. If only
he had known the circumstances under which he would cling to the life line
of that motorboat a second time!
The wheel now worked well. Unwinding the "spool", a tug had laid the
first pipeline to Neftianiye Reefs. The pressure trials completed, they
returned home towards evening. At this time of day there was not much
traffic on the road, which ran between vineyards, with oil derricks beyond
them, and their sleek grey car made good time.
Privalov relaxed in the back seat, satisfied after two days of
intensive work. Pavel Koltukhov, who sat beside him, dozed and smoked
simultaneously; he woke every now and then to take a puff or two on his
cigarette and then closed his eyes again.
Nikolai was at the wheel. Beside him Yura was going through his notes
on the pressure trials.
"That's a load off my mind," Privalov said with a sigh. "I hope the
builders will be able to handle the parallel pipelines without us."
"You can gird your loins for another job," said Koltukhov.
"You mean the transcaspian pipeline? But the project hasn't been
approved yet."
"Approval was wired yesterday. Is your survey programme ready?"
"It's been ready a long time."
"That's fine. We'll discuss it tomorrow."
Nikolai slowed down as they passed through a small town and then put on
speed when they came out into open country again.
"How are things going, boys?" Privalov asked in a low voice. "Have you
read that book by Adam?"
"It isn't what you'd call light reading," Nikolai replied. "We're
stuck, Boris. We're thinking of experimenting with mercury."
The remainder of the drive into town passed in silence. After the young
men got out on the corner of Toilers of the Sea Street, Privalov took the
wheel and drove to the Institute.
"Look here, Boris," said Koltukhov. "Do you think it's fair to let your
imagination run wild and make those two young men pay for it by wasting
their time and energy?"
"I'm not making them do anything. They started experimenting without
sufficient theoretical grounding. I told them what to read and gave them
some advice. That's all."
"Then why does Nikolai spend every free minute of his time in the
automation department, showering everyone there with questions?"
Privalov shrugged his shoulders. "Aren't you letting your own
imagination run wild? Dabbling in resins like an alchemist, in between
conferences?"
"I'm doing something useful. I'm improving pipeline insulation
materials."
"But you've done that already. Now you're making some smelly new
compounds. People have to hold their noses when they go past your den under
the stairway."
Koltukhov merely grinned.
"All right," he said, lighting another cigarette. "I'll let you in on
my secret. My idea is a much better one than yours. How do we protect our
pipes and steel structures from corrosion by sea water? By covering them
with insulation. Besides being expensive, this method isn't always
dependable. When cracks form in the insulation, corrosion goes ahead faster
than ever, as you yourself know. Another way of controlling corrosion is by
using electricity, but this is expensive too, and it involves a lot of work.
You have to string transmission lines and bring a positive charge to the
pipeline. My idea is a plastic coating that would serve as insulation and
have an electrostatic charge at the same time."
"Not a bad idea," said Privalov. "But mine is better. It does away with
both pipes and insulation."
Koltukhov dismissed it with a wave of his hand. "You talk like a
college boy, Boris."
The car drove into the Institute yard.
"Is old man Bagbanly in town?" Privalov asked.
"I think so. Why?"
"I'd like to get in touch with him."
"Yes, do go and have a talk with him. He'll throw cold water on your
idea, if anyone does."
They sat on the balcony drinking tea. Professor Bakhtiar Bagbanly
thoughtfully stirred his glass as he gazed out on the broad crescent of city
lights skirting the bay. A Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences,
he was a clever, erudite man with the skilful hands of a gifted
experimenter. He had been Privalov's favourite lecturer when Privalov was an
undergraduate twenty years before. Many of Professor Bagbanly's former
students dropped in to discuss their work with him. He was generous with his
knowledge and advice, and he addressed all the young people by their first
names. They addressed him in the Eastern fashion as "Bakhtiar Muellim",
meaning "Teacher Bakhtiar".
The old man had a large grey head, black eyebrows and a drooping
silvery moustache beneath a hooked nose.
Professor Bakhtiar Bagbanly fixed his twinkling brown eyes on Privalov
and said, "I didn't understand a thing. Your words are as vague as the
dreams of a camel. Now tell me straight out. What is it that you want?"
Privalov knew that the old man's brusque manner was not to be taken
seriously, and so he let the "camel" bit pass unheeded.
"I'll begin from the beginning", he said, taking a sip of tea. "We're
starting to design a pipeline across the bed of the Caspian."
The old man nodded.
"A pipeline, as you know, is not an end in itself," Privalov continued.
"It is only a means towards an end, which is a regular supply of oil."
"What's wrong with using a pipeline to attain this end?"
"As far as that goes, nothing. But what is the purpose of the pipes? To
separate the oil from the environment."
"That's well put."
"Please don't make fun of me, Bakhtiar Muellim. When it comes to the
technique of transporting oil across a sea, or transporting one liquid
through another in general, our thinking is conservative. How do our
pipelines differ from those used in ancient times? Well, the pipes are more
durable and the pumps more powerful. But the principle of the thing remains
the same. Pipeline delivery is better than using oil tankers, of course.
It's cheaper and it does not pollute the sea. But, you realize-"
"I realize that you don't like pipes. How do you propose to replace
them?"
"This is what came to my mind." Privalov finished his tea and moved his
glass aside. "I recalled Plato's experiment. If we take oil with the same
specific weight as that of water and pour it into the water, surface tension
will cause the oil to assume the minimum shape and form a sphere. Isn't that
so? But suppose we build up surface tension in such a way that it acts along
two axes instead of three? Then one cross-section of the oil will be a
circle and the other- In a word, the oil will take the shape of a cylinder.
The surface of the oil will become a pipe, as it were."
Professor Bagbanly grinned and shook his head. "Ingenious! A pipe
without a pipe. But please proceed."
"Further," Privalov continued enthusiastically, "we must have a field.
Imagine an underwater power beam pulsed along a route. A definite frequency
would generate a field in which the oil stretches along the beam. Do you
realize what that would mean? A stream of oil running through the water from
the west coast of the Caspian to the east coast."
"You've described the design of the steam locomotive to me," the
professor said. "Now tell me how it can travel without being pulled by
horses. What would make the stream of oil move?"
"Perhaps the energy of the beam itself. A conductor moves in a magnetic
field if it crosses lines of force, doesn't it? I don't know yet, Bakhtiar
Muellim. I'm just advancing a bare hypothesis."
"Bare and defenceless," the old man added.
There was a long silence. Then Professor Bagbanly rose and began to
pace the balcony.
"You speak of surface tension," he said finally, "and you hope old
Bakhtiar will gladden your ears with a harmonious concept. You nurse an idle
hope, my son. The surfaces of matter constitute one of the fundamental
riddles of modern physics. The surface tension of liquids is a zone where
the specific properties of surfaces manifest themselves. Surface tension
produces forces that are always directed inwards. The tea in that glass is
in a state of tension. Its surface presses inwards from the top and bottom
and sides with a force of more than ten tons per square centimetre. Hence,
liquids are well-nigh incompressible. Until recently it was thought that
liquids could not be compressed at all. Or take solids. When we cut a piece
of clay with a knife we disunite whole worlds and form new surfaces. In the
process, energy is released."
"Just what lies under a surface?" Privalov asked.
"I don't know, my son. Nobody knows yet. How can you get under it? If
you scrape off a surface, another surface of the substance immediately
forms. It is the interface on which the interatomic forces that hold the
elements of a substance together interact with the ambient medium and
achieve a balance in some specific fashion. How? That is something we don't
yet know. But if we get to know it, then sooner or later we'll penetrate to
the heart of the matter. And once we have fathomed the secrets of surfaces
we will proceed to utilize the colossal force latent in them."
"Do you mean to say that my idea is too far ahead of the times?"
Privalov asked sadly.
"It well may be. Take an example which Shuleikin cites in his Marine
Physics. When an express train brakes suddenly the enormous kinetic energy
it releases is absorbed by the extremely thin surface layer of contact
between the wheels and brake-shoes, yet this does not seem unbelievable.
"Suppose," Bagbanly continued as he walked back and forth, "we succeed
in increasing the surface tension and-"
"You agree, Bakhtiar Muellim!" Privalov almost shouted.
"Don't be in such a hurry. I assume that it is possible-theoretically,
but not in reality."
"Why?"
"Because your oil 'sausage'-if you succeed in making one-will encounter
tremendous resistance as it moves through the water. Friction, my friend.
Friction is also a property of surfaces. The surface layers will tear away
from the inner layers, and the jet will disintegrate."
"Excellent," said Privalov. "That means we have another job-that of
reducing the friction."
Bagbanly dropped into an armchair and burst out laughing.
"You're wonderful, Boris," he said, wiping his eyes with his
handkerchief. "Both friction and surface tension are child's play to you.
You're even prepared to turn matter inside out."
"Well, I'll be going, Bakhtiar Muellim, " Privalov said with a sigh.
"Thanks for your advice."
The old man stared at him intently. "You know what? Take me in as a
member of the team on this project. I'll work on it out of curiosity. Who
knows what may come of it? But only on condition we don't go to extremes.
We'll concentrate on the underlying principles and nothing more."
"Are you sure the knife fell overboard, Rita?" Anatole Benedictov said.
"Yes, I'm sure."
"Quite sure?"
"Well, really!" Rita laid aside her book and rose from the sofa.
"Don't be angry, darling. You see, a couple of men have hunted for the
knife on the sea bottom at that place and they failed to find it."
"It would be easier to find a needle in a haystack."
"You've changed lately. Your attitude to my work is different. That's
why I asked."
"You're the one who's changed, Anatole. You're simply stopped noticing
me. Do give up those experiments. Please give them up. They'll drive you
crazy. They've already come between us. Think of how wonderfully we were
getting along before that ill-fated discovery."
"That's true," said Benedictov.
"We were, weren't we?" Rita asked hopefully.
Benedictov glanced at his watch. "A person is coming to see me in a few
minutes. We'll be doing some work together."
Rita shook her head and silently left the study.
Yura picked up the underwater gun Nikolai was making and examined it.
"The spring's a bit tight."
"No, it's just right," said Nikolai. "Can't have it any looser."
"If you finish it by Sunday we can do some shooting."
"We're racing on Sunday."
"Why, so we are. I forgot." Yura stretched out luxuriously on the sofa.
"I want you to look at this," said Nikolai, producing several sheets of
paper covered with sketches and figures from a drawer of the desk. "What do
you think of it?"
Yura glanced at the sketches. "They look like pears." He yawned. "Take
these drawings away. I'm too lazy to think."
"But first listen. Remember that conversation about surface tension and
the interesting idea Privalov suggested?" "He told us to forget it."
Nikolai lost his temper. "You're an idiot! I can't discuss anything
with you nowadays. All you can think of is Val."
"You're the idiot," Yura replied cheerfully. "All right, let's have
it."
Nikolai turned on the fan. "What shape does a liquid have?" he asked,
lighting a cigarette.
Yura lifted his eyebrows. "It takes the shape of the vessel into which
it's poured. Primitive man guessed that much."
"Very well. Now take a drop of liquid. What keeps the liquid in a
droplet? Surface tension. No vessel is needed. A sphere is the ideal shape
of a minimum surface. But a droplet is not spherical. The earth's gravity
gives it a bulge, making it pear-shaped."
"In short, a drop-like shape." "Exactly."
There was a knock on the door. A tall, husky man in a white singlet and
blue jeans entered. He had a broad, heavy-jawed face, and there was a tuft
of red hair on top of his head.
"Caught you in at last, Nikolai," he said in a deep, hoarse voice.
"Where've you been hiding?"
"What can I do for you, Uncle Vova?" Nikolai asked. "I want to borrow
your aqualung for a couple of days."
"My diving gear?"
"Don't worry, you'll get it back in perfect condition," he said
reassuringly, 'I'll refill the cylinders too."
"All right, take it,"
Uncle Vova picked up the aqualung and inspected it.
"Fine workmanship," he remarked. "Thanks."
"When did you return?" asked Nikolai.
"Sunday. By the way, I saw you pull that girl out of the sea. You made
a neat job of it."
"Why, it looks as though the whole town saw it."
"Really?" Uncle Vova pricked up his ears. "Who else?"
"The whole ship. You were on the Uzbekistan too, weren't you?"
"Oh, I don't give a damn about the Uzbekistan" Uncle Vova replied
vaguely. "Well, I'm off." He nodded and went out.
"Now Yura, listen to what-" At this point Nikolai noticed that Yura,
his long legs hanging over the edge of the sofa, was sound asleep. Nikolai
shook him by the shoulder. Yura jerked a leg and pushed his friend away
without opening his eyes.
"Wake up this instant or I'll shake the life out of you!" Nikolai
shouted.
Yura opened his eyes. "I must have dozed for a moment," he remarked
with a conciliatory smile.
"You certainly did. Get off the sofa."
"I'm more comfortable on it. You can continue talking. We stopped on
droplets being droplet-shaped. It sounds fascinating."
"Are you trying to be funny?"
"Not 'for the world."
"Then listen. The size of a droplet depends on the magnitude of the
surface tension. In the case of water"-Nikolai glanced at his notes- "the
surface tension is 72.8 ergs per square centimetre. The surface tension of
alcohol is a little more than 22 ergs."
"What is it for mercury?"
"Mercury? Just a minute." Nikolai took down a thick reference book from
a shelf and leafed through it. "Just listen to this! The surface tension of
mercury is 470 ergs. That's terrific!"
"You can increase the tension by passing an electric current through
the mercury. Don't you remember reading about that old 'mercury heart'
experiment?"
"Why, that's right. Thanks for recalling it, Yura."
Yura made a regal gesture. "Think nothing of it."
"We'll set mercury aside for the time being," said Nikolai. "Now
consider the following. Have you noticed the way water runs along telegraph
wires in the rain?"
"An intriguing sight, isn't it?"
"The flow has a droplet-like cross-section," Nikolai went on. "Suppose
we use an electric ray instead of a wire. The ray creates a field. The field
increases the surface tension, and the cross-section builds up."
"Better not tangle with fields, old man. You and I don't know much
about them."
"We won't really tangle with them. All we need is a high-frequency
generator."
"Let's have a look at those papers," said Yura after a pause. "What
does this diagram represent?"
Nikolai sat down on the sofa beside him.
"Look here," he said. "We'll string up an inclined wire and send water
down it to a vessel at the bottom. Since we know the time and the amount of
water we'll be able to calculate the speed at which it moves. We'll measure
the cross-section of the droplets and calculate their surface tension. Then
we'll put a spiral round the wire-"
"I get the point-a resonance circuit and superimposed frequencies."
Yura sprang to his feet. "Give me some wire!"
Nikolai's grey eyes wrinkled in a smile. Once Yura was hooked on an
idea his energy knew no bounds.
Yura pulled off his shirt, tossed his hair back off his forehead and
produced a screwdriver from his pocket. It was his favourite screwdriver,
for which he had made a hollow plastic handle, with a neon indicator lamp
inside it, in his student days. He carried the screwdriver everywhere he
went. Like Roland's sword, it had a name of its own. It was called Durandal.
"We'll disembowel your radio set for a start," Yura said. "But don't
worry, we'll only remove the input circuit. And the heterodyne." He turned
the set Over on its side and went at it with his screwdriver. "We'll take
out the giblets. Don't just stand there, Nick. Go out on the gallery and put
the wire up."
Working away busily, Yura went on. "A great man once said the true
experimenter can set up any kind of experiment with three sticks, a piece of
rubber, a glass tube, and some of his own saliva."
Anatole Benedictov switched on the motor. The belt drive made a
rustling sound and the glass disc of the electrostatic machine began to
revolve. Blue sparks crackled.
A round aquarium on the table had wire wound around it, with thick
copper tubing on top of the wire. A copper disc hung above the aquarium
parallel with the surface of the water. Small fish darted about in the
greenish water.
Benedictov turned the levers of the valve oscillator. Then, slowly
tightening a screw, he brought the copper disc close to the water.
The fish stopped darting about. They seemed to fall asleep instantly.
Benedictov looked at his watch, dropped heavily into an armchair and closed
his eyes.
The room was shrouded in semi-darkness. Rita sat on the sofa. A black
cat lay at her feet.
"You ought to give up these experiments, Anatole," she said
thoughtfully. "You're biting off more than you can chew."
"It's too late, Rita. I can't give up now."
There was a silence. The electricity crackled. The fish in the aquarium
slept.
"Why do you keep experimenting with living creatures, Anatole?" Rita
asked, leaning forward. "Your old-time predecessors used inorganic matter."
"You know why. Living matter gives me something a piece of wood or a
chunk of metal never could. It gives me action potentials."
"But the knife is lost. How can you continue experimenting without it?"
"I don't know. I need that knife all the time." Benedictov paused, then
added, "Did you actually see it fall overboard? Could someone in the crowd
have grabbed it?"
"No, it went overboard. I dived after it at once, but the knife sank to
the bottom."
"What a thing to have happened!" Benedictov rubbed his shaggy head
furiously.
The doorbell rang. When Rita opened the door she found a husky man in
blue overalls and a cap pulled down over his eyes standing there.
"I'm from the municipal electricity board," he said. "I've come to
inspect the wiring."
"Step in," said Rita. "The meter's over there."
The electrician removed the fuses and inspected them.
"These have to be replaced," he said. "They're defective."
"Rita!" Benedictov called from his room. "Why did you switch off the
electricity?"
"Hurry up and put those fuses back," Rita told the electrician.
"Are you in a hurry to be fined?" said the electrician, but he put back
the fuses. "Where's the Хkitchen?" He went through the rooms, his head
tipped back, looking at the wiring. Suddenly he stopped short. "Is that a
motor running?" he asked. "Got a license for it?"
"Rita!" Benedictov called impatiently.
"Excuse me a moment," Rita said to the electrician as she turned
towards Benedictov's study.
The electrician heard her explaining what the matter was. A man's voice
said, "To hell with him! Let him look. Here, hold this fish."
"Ouch!" Rita exclaimed.
The electrician glanced into the room in time to see the woman drop the
fish and a big black cat spring to seize it.
"Shoo!" cried Benedictov.
The electrician jumped back from the doorway as the cat, covered with
blue sparks and screeching piteously, dashed into the passage. Its fur stood
on end, the sparks crackling. The cat ran frenziedly between the
electrician's legs, received a kick, and bounded down the passage.
"The cat thought I tossed the fish to her," Rita said with a laugh as
she came out of the study. "Have you finished looking things over?"
Benedictov followed his wife into the passage.
"Who are you?" he asked the electrician in alarm. "What do you want?"
"I ought to fine you for such goings-on," the electrician growled
hoarsely, tugging his cap down over his forehead. He strode to the door,
pulled it open and went out, slamming the door behind him.
After the war Bugrov returned home to his flat in Cooper Lane where a
circus poster, now yellowed, still hung on the wall beside his bed.
Soon afterwards he married a stately, imperious woman named Claudia.
She hid the poster in the lower drawer of the bureau, placed little rugs and
embroidered cushions here, there and everywhere.
Bugrov did not return to the circus. He obtained a medical certificate
stating that he was a disabled veteran and began to make spring dynamometers
at home for a small producers' co-operative of disabled war veterans.
When Bugrov saw Benedictov's strange knife on board the Uzbekistan on
his way home from a holiday on the Volga he immediately realized that such a
knife could be a gold mine in a circus act. He carefully noted the place
where the woman in red had dived overboard. When the passengers from the
Uzbekistan went ashore he took a taxi and followed Benedictov to his home.
Bugrov hesitated for several days before finally deciding on direct
action to learn whether the man still had the knife or whether it had sunk
to the bottom of the Caspian.
"It was a waste of time," Bugrov thought gloomily as he walked to the
trolleybus stop. "I didn't learn anything about the knife. All I did was
tangle with a cat." Recalling the black cat covered with sparks he spat on
the ground in fury.
Vova Bugrov did not know that cats possess excellent electrical
properties, although they could hardly be a source of electric power. It has
been estimated that if 1,500 million cats were stroked simultaneously they
would generate a mere 15 watts.
"But maybe it wasn't a complete loss, after all," Bugrov reflected in
the trolleybus. "The cat's owner was out of sorts. He swore and shouted at
his wife. He might have been upset because the knife sank into the sea. Why
didn't I grab it? I should have kept my eye on the handle. Well, I'll have
to search the sea bottom."
Bugrov fell into a daydream about a wonderful circus act. The day he
arrived in a small town posters would be pasted on all the fences showing
Bugrov in a red robe-no, a green robe would perhaps be better-and a turban,
with a knife piercing his throat. "Famous Fakir so-and-so" the poster would
read. He'd have to think up a good name for himself. The hall would be
jammed to the rafters as he, Vova, emerged on the stage in a green robe, or
maybe a black robe.
He'd have to borrow his neighbour's scuba gear and do some diving.
There was no silt in that place. Just sand. He was sure he would find the
knife.
Bugrov pushed his cap to the back of his head and winked at his
reflection in the trolleybus window.
Nikolai Opratin saw Benedictov as soon as he opened the door into the
laboratory. Corpulent and dishevelled, the biophysicist stood beside a table
around which ran a thick copper coil. He was unfastening the harness in
which a brown and white dog hung. When he set the dog on the floor it shook
itself and began to sniff angrily at the experimenter's feet.
"Good morning," Opratin said.
"What do you want?" Benedictov asked coldly.
"Your advice about fish."
Benedictov turned away. "Ask someone else."
"I'm sorry about that argument we had on board the ship," Opratin said
softly. "I'm ready to take back my words."
The biophysicist was silent. Then he nodded in the direction of the
glass partition at the end of the laboratory. "Come this way," he said
jerkily.
They sat down opposite each other at a table covered with papers and
blocks of paraffin cut into cubes.
"The problem we're working on is the level of the Caspian, that is, how
to raise it," Opratin explained. "We plan a series of experiments in the
course of which ionized water will appear in the sea. My question is: how
will this affect the fish?"
Benedictov gave a cough but said nothing.
"Our Institute will of course get in touch officially with yours,"
Opratin went on, his gaze fixed on Benedictov's face. "But I'd like to know,
ahead of time-"
"What are your ionization figures?" Benedictov asked, moving closer a
spirit lamp on which stood a nickel-plated tray.
The conversation faltered. Benedictov answered questions in unwilling
monosyllables. He coughed and squirmed in his chair. His bloodshot eyes were
evasive.
Suddenly he rose, murmured an excuse, and left the room. Opratin let
his eyes roam over the table. He noticed an empty glass ampoule. As he read
the Latin inscription on it his thin lips twisted in an ironic smile.
Benedictov returned looking a completely different man, fresh-faced,
cheerful, with sparkling eyes.
"Please continue," he said on his way to his desk.
"Look here," said Opratin softly. "Did you try to magnetize that
knife?"
Benedictov stopped short. Opratin's pale blue eyes stared steadily at
him without blinking. Benedictov felt acutely uncomfortable.
"What's it to you?" he muttered.
The ensuing silence lasted several seconds. Benedictov was the first to
lower his eyes.
"Sit down," Opratin said. "I'm not asking out of idle curiosity. I've
been thinking a lot about your knife and it seems to me I've guessed a few
things. Can it be magnetized?"
"Suppose it can? So what?"
"This is extremely important. Don't look at me as if you wanted to tear
me to pieces. I've come here to help you."
"I don't need any help."
Opratin let this remark pass. "Did you measure the knife's electric
resistance?" he asked. "Did you test it for use as the core of an
electromagnet?"
Benedictov had not done that either.
"Did you try it on a voltaic arc?"
Benedictov shook his head thoughtfully.
"How does the knife react to chemical substances?"
He flung question after question at Benedictov. Benedictov gave
reluctant replies. He had not performed half of the tests about which this
uninvited inspector was asking him.
"Well, well," said Opratin. He smoothed his thinning hair. "To all
appearances, my dear man, you have followed the wrong path."
"What path I follow is my own business," Benedictov growled.
"Yes, to be sure." Opratin drummed his fingers on the table. "You're a
biologist and I'm a physicist. Don't you think that if we combined forces
we'd reach the goal faster?"
Benedictov said nothing.
"I won't lay claim to any of your laurels. I just want to help you. All
I'm interested in are the scientific results." Opratin looked searchingly at
Benedictov. "What do you say?"
The biophysicist glanced out of the window. "Damn it!" he said flatly.
WHERE THE AUTHORS WANTED THEM TO BE
Early Sunday morning Nikolai Potapkin ran down the steps and out into
the courtyard, swinging his little suitcase. The sleeves of his white shirt
were rolled up above the elbows, his open collar exposed a tanned chest.
Glancing up at the cloudless sky, he shook his head. Not a breath of wind!
Yet this was the day of the big regatta. He arrived at the marina to find
preparations in progress only on the centreboard and Star class boats, for
which even a slight breeze would be enough. The crews of the L-4 boats,
discouraged by the absence of wind, were gathered in their cabins in front
of TV sets watching a children's programme.
Nikolai found Yura sitting on the edge of the pier in his bathing
trunks, his long arms wrapped round his knees, singing a song from an Indian
film in a mournful voice. He sat down beside Yura and took up the refrain.
They sang until dockmaster Mehti stuck his head out of the window of the
boathouse and begged them to stop. "This isn't an opera-house," he
complained.
"You shouldn't have lent uncle Vova your scuba gear," Yura remarked
after a while. "We could have done some diving."
"Why not come over to my place if the races are cancelled? We might try
to change the pitch of the spiral."
"I don't want to."
"Why not?" Nikolai looked at his friend. "Ah, yes, of course. A date
with Val."
"No, I-"
"Then what the devil-"
"Nothing will come of it, Nick. The surfaces of substances are a hazy
subject. If famous scientists don't know how to handle them, then what's the
use of us trying?"
"You needn't if you don't want to. I'll get along without you."
"You can't. At least I know my way about electronics, which is more
than you can say."
"Anyway, I won't give up. There must be a field in which surface
tension increases."
"A field!" Yura repeated derisively. "'Oh, field, broad field, who
strewed you with whitened bones?'"
Boris Privalov came up to the young men. "Good morning, boys. Doesn't
look as though there'll be any racing today, does it?"
"The races haven't been officially called off yet," said Yura. "We're
waiting. Take a seat."
The three of them sat side by side on the pier, dangling their feet in
the water, the sun warming their backs, waiting for the wind to come up.
"Do you recall our talk about surface tension, Boris?" Nikolai asked in
a determined voice.
The sun flashed on Privalov's glasses as he turned to look at Nikolai.
"Yes, I do."
"Well, it's like this." Nikolai launched into a description of the
experiment with water and a wire, and mentioned the spiral and the desired
field.
Privalov listened closely, frowning and screwing up his eyes.
"It's amateurish," he said finally. "You can't go in for that sort of
thing without thorough preparation. There's a book by Adam on the physics
and chemistry of surfaces. I'll lend it to you." He was silent for a while.
"Besides, at the moment we have more than enough work on our hands, and
later there will be a pipeline across the whole of the Caspian."
"I've been hearing about a transcaspian pipeline for years," said Yura.
"We're beginning to wonder whether it will ever be built."
"It will. I forgot to ask you yesterday, Nikolai, if you went over to
Opratin's."
"Yes, I did."
"See anything interesting?"
"Not particularly. I think they're setting up a big electrostatic
installation."
"Electrostatic, you say?" Privalov looked thoughtful.
Yura sprang to his feet. "A wind! A wind's coming up!"
A light southerly sea breeze ruffled the surface of the bay and rustled
in the trees along Seaside Boulevard. The flag of the Chief Judge fluttered
tautly.
A ship's bell tinkled. The class M flag was run up.
"The centreboard boats are getting ready," Yura said excitedly. "If it
blows a little stronger the keel boats can follow suit. Let's go."
After the centreboards the Star class boats started off. There was
enough wind for these small, light boats which carried a great deal of sail.
The wind freshened, and half an hour later boats of the L-4 class were
announced. Soon the steady ringing of a ship's bell informed the competitors
that five minutes were left before the start.
Ah, those last five minutes! What a tricky business it was getting as
close to the starting line as possible within those five minutes, but not
crossing it ahead of time!
Four rings of the bell meant four minutes were left, then three, two,
and one. Finally, a quick ringing of the bell gave the signal for the start.
Beating against the wind, the boats entered the first lap of the
fifteen-mile course.
Wind filled the sails as the sheet, held in strong hands, quivered; the
sea whispered to the boats sliding through it; the sun bathed everything in
gold against the blue of the sea.
The Mekong was among the first to round the mark. Following an
advantageous course, it approached its closest rival on a parallel course
windward, but the other boat did not let the Mekong overtake it. In the
excitement both crews forgot about the other competitors. When the Mekong
finally forged ahead, the crews discovered that almost all the other boats
had overtaken both of them, were rounding the second buoy and were raising
their spinnakers, the big triangular sails used when running before the
wind.
Yura, who was sitting on the deck, raised himself on one knee.
"Obstacle ahead!" he shouted. "Two boats lying at anchor!"
When the Mekong came closer they saw a man in a straw hat sitting in
one of the boats. They could hear the motor running, but the boat was not
moving.
The second boat, some distance away, was empty.
"Ahoy there!" Yura shouted, leaning over the side. "Watch out!"
Just then the wind died down, prompting the thought that Nature is
sometimes actively hostile to man. Why else should the wind die down at noon
on a Sunday just when a regatta is at its height?
The sails flapped several times and then hung limp. The Mekong
continued to move forward a short distance by inertia before coming to a
full stop about half a cable length from the motor-boat.
"Well, all we can do now is sunbathe. What a race!" said Yura in
disgust. Whistling softly, he scratched the boom with his fingernails, then
threw a ten-kopek coin overboard. But these century-old remedies failed to
call up a wind.
"I've done everything I can," Yura announced. Then he stretched out on
the deck and began to sing in a doleful voice:
The river flows but it doesn't flow;
The day got off to a bad start.
How can I tell you what's in my heart?
But I think you probably know.
Nikolai glanced at the distant shore and the refrigeration plant
outlined against the blue sky.
"Why," he said wonderingly, "I believe this is the spot where we
rescued that young woman in the red dress."
All of a sudden silence descended as the motor of the boat ahead was
switched off. They heard an angry voice say:
"I came here first. Everything I find here is mine."
"Don't be silly," another voice said. "The sea doesn't belong to you.
It belongs to everyone."
"I'll show you who it belongs to!"
The motorboat rocked as the man in the straw hat waved his arms.
"I wonder who he's talking to?" Nikolai looked more closely at the
motorboat. Then he fetched his binoculars from the cabin and trained them on
the straw hat. "Just what I thought. The voice sounded familiar. That's
Opratin."
"Give him my regards," Privalov said.
"Damn it!" Nikolai exclaimed. "You spoke of wanting the scuba gear,
Yura. Well, there it is."
Taking the binoculars, Yura clearly saw Bugrov's big head in the water
beside the motorboat. The mask was pushed up on Vova's forehead and he was
clinging to the boat with one hand.
Yura lowered the binoculars. "You're right. The diving gear is in
danger. It looks as though they want to drown each other."
"I'd like to know what they're doing here," said Nikolai. "Do you mind,
Boris, if I take a short swim?"
"Don't be too long. The wind may come up any minute."
"I'll be back soon." With these words Nikolai plunged into the sea and
swam towards the motorboat.
"Come, Yura," said Privalov, lighting a cigarette and letting the smoke
out through his nostrils, "tell me about your experiments once again."
That morning Nikolai Opratin had spent more than an hour on the small
wharf belonging to the Institute of Marine Physics. He had attached a cable
drum to the side of an Institute motor-boat and had wound on it a thin cable
with a strong electromagnet at its end.
Anatole Benedictov had said the knife could be magnetized. If this was
so, then he, Opratin, would find it. How stupid that the knife should have
fallen overboard! And what a scene Benedictov had made on deck! Opratin
recalled the glass ampoule on the biophysicist's desk. A drug addict.
Yet without that scene on deck he, Opratin, would not have learned of
the existence of the mysterious knife. A drop of common sense in a barrel of
nonsense.
Opratin finished equipping the boat, started up the motor, and chugged
out of the bay.
The sea heaved lazily beneath the hot August sun. The red cone of the
fairway buoy with a big white "18" painted on it rocked on the surface. The
TV mast was at Opratin's stern and the refrigeration plant on the left. He
turned the boat a few degrees to starboard.
Now this must be the place. This was where Benedictov's wife had fallen
overboard after the knife had dropped into the sea. An interesting woman, no
doubt about that. Had she fallen or had she jumped?
An empty boat bobbed in the water about twenty metres away. Where was
the owner? Had he drowned? Or had the boat torn free of its moorings and
drifted out of the bay? Opratin was not in the least interested. He pushed a
lever which switched the motor's drive from the propeller to a generator to
which the cable with the electromagnet was attached. The cable wound off the
drum into the water. Opratin wondered how soon his particular fish would
bite.
At the end of the cable was an electromagnetic underwater probe
connected with an ultrasonic range-finder. The zigzagging green line on the
oscillograph screen would show the shape of metallic objects on the sea
floor. If Opratin wanted some object he could switch on the electromagnet
and pick it up.
Using the oars, Opratin slowly moved the boat back and forth, combing
the place. Suddenly the cable jerked. Bubbles rose to the surface, then a
huge hand was thrust out of the water, followed by a head, the face covered
by a mask. The mask was connected by a hose to a cylinder on the man's back.
The diver closed the valve of the aqualung and pushed the mask up onto
his forehead, revealing a broad face with a heavy jaw. Opratin recognized
him at once. He was the man who had tried to take the knife from Benedictov
aboard the Uzbekistan. It was obvious why he was at this particular spot in
the sea. An unpleasant situation.
While the diver coughed and spat out water Opratin decided to take the
offensive.
"Hey you, there!" he shouted. "Why the devil did you pull my cable?"
"You'll soon find out!" came the answer in a threatening tone. The man
swam over to Opratin's motorboat, reached up to grip its side, and let loose
a stream of obscenities that set Opratin's teeth on edge. The substance of
Bugrov's monologue was that law-abiding citizens could not go in for
skin-diving on their day off because "others"-a word which Bugrov proceeded
to define-played all kinds of dirty tricks on them.
Bugrov had been combing the area in circles. He would anchor his boat,
dive down and swim around in a circle, studying the firmly-packed sandy
bottom. His supply of air was almost half used up when he saw a black
cylinder suspended from a cable slowly moving over the bottom. He swam up to
the cylinder and tugged at it, gripping the place where it was attached to
the cable. An electric shock galvanized him, and he tore his hand away with
difficulty. Dazed and angered, he headed for the surface.
Bugrov had been having bad luck with electricity lately.
"Get going, quick-before I turn your tub upside down!" he roared.
Opratin did not want any trouble, the more so that a sailboat was
approaching. He moved over to the stern and said in a placative tone,
"Listen, how was I to know you were swimming here?"
"Couldn't you see my boat? Stop acting innocent, you scum!"
They wrangled for another few minutes, until Opratin realized he was
being foolish and would have to get rid of the man some other way. He
switched off the motor, gave the becalmed sailboat a fleeting glance, and
said, "I know what you're looking for, but you'll never find it with an
aqualung."
Bugrov blinked in disbelief.
"D'you take me for a fool?" he asked hoarsely. "Get out! I came here
first. Everything I find here is mine."
"Don't be silly! The sea doesn't belong to you. It belongs to
everyone."
"I'll show you who it belongs to!" Bugrov began to rock the motorboat.
Opratin had to throw out his arms to keep his balance.
"All right, I'm leaving," Opratin said, strongly tempted to hit the man
over the head with his anchor. "But you'll never see that knife. You can
take my word for it as a scientist."
This made an impression on Bugrov, who had a deep faith in the
omnipotence of science.
"Are you looking for the knife too?" he asked in what was almost a
civil tone.
"There, that's the way to talk," said Opratin. "Yes, I am. If I don't
find it I'll make one just like it."
Bugrov gave the face under the straw hat a thoughtful glance.
"I'm apt to be quick-tempered," he said. "Maybe I said some things I
shouldn't have."
Opratin gave a wry grin.
Nikolai quickly covered the hundred metres or so to the motorboat in a
noiseless breast stroke. As he approached it he heard Bugrov say, "All I
want is the knife. I'm willing to make sacrifices for science."
"I'm glad to hear it," said Opratin.
"I am what I am," Bugrov said modestly. "Will I be going to the island
often?"
"No, not very."
"There's a fishery nearby. I can get caviar cheap there." He fell
silent, his head filled with visions of future profits.
At that moment Opratin caught sight of Nikolai beside the boat. He
removed his dark glasses to take a better look.
"Is that you?" he asked with a pleasant smile. "What an unexpected
encounter!"
"Hi, there," called Bugrov, recognizing his neighbour. "Where" d you
drop from?"
"That sailboat," Nikolai caught hold of the motorboat's life line.
"We're becalmed, so I decided to take a swim."
An awkward silence followed.
"I'll be on my way," said Bugrov, pushing off from the motorboat. "Do
you want your scuba gear now?"
"No," said Nikolai. "Bring it to me at home."
Bugrov swam back to his rowboat.
"I see you know him," remarked Opratin.
"Yes, we live in the same house." Nikolai stared at the generator, the
face plate of the cathode-ray tube of the oscillograph and the drum with the
cable running into the sea.
Opratin smiled. "How I envy you. Sailing is a wonderful sport. But I,
as you can see, have to carry out investigations on Sundays too."
"Yes, I see," said Nikolai, trying feverishly to make out what sort of
cable it was. "Well, good luck."
He pushed off from the motorboat and swam back to the sailboat. If only
he had known the circumstances under which he would cling to the life line
of that motorboat a second time!
The wheel now worked well. Unwinding the "spool", a tug had laid the
first pipeline to Neftianiye Reefs. The pressure trials completed, they
returned home towards evening. At this time of day there was not much
traffic on the road, which ran between vineyards, with oil derricks beyond
them, and their sleek grey car made good time.
Privalov relaxed in the back seat, satisfied after two days of
intensive work. Pavel Koltukhov, who sat beside him, dozed and smoked
simultaneously; he woke every now and then to take a puff or two on his
cigarette and then closed his eyes again.
Nikolai was at the wheel. Beside him Yura was going through his notes
on the pressure trials.
"That's a load off my mind," Privalov said with a sigh. "I hope the
builders will be able to handle the parallel pipelines without us."
"You can gird your loins for another job," said Koltukhov.
"You mean the transcaspian pipeline? But the project hasn't been
approved yet."
"Approval was wired yesterday. Is your survey programme ready?"
"It's been ready a long time."
"That's fine. We'll discuss it tomorrow."
Nikolai slowed down as they passed through a small town and then put on
speed when they came out into open country again.
"How are things going, boys?" Privalov asked in a low voice. "Have you
read that book by Adam?"
"It isn't what you'd call light reading," Nikolai replied. "We're
stuck, Boris. We're thinking of experimenting with mercury."
The remainder of the drive into town passed in silence. After the young
men got out on the corner of Toilers of the Sea Street, Privalov took the
wheel and drove to the Institute.
"Look here, Boris," said Koltukhov. "Do you think it's fair to let your
imagination run wild and make those two young men pay for it by wasting
their time and energy?"
"I'm not making them do anything. They started experimenting without
sufficient theoretical grounding. I told them what to read and gave them
some advice. That's all."
"Then why does Nikolai spend every free minute of his time in the
automation department, showering everyone there with questions?"
Privalov shrugged his shoulders. "Aren't you letting your own
imagination run wild? Dabbling in resins like an alchemist, in between
conferences?"
"I'm doing something useful. I'm improving pipeline insulation
materials."
"But you've done that already. Now you're making some smelly new
compounds. People have to hold their noses when they go past your den under
the stairway."
Koltukhov merely grinned.
"All right," he said, lighting another cigarette. "I'll let you in on
my secret. My idea is a much better one than yours. How do we protect our
pipes and steel structures from corrosion by sea water? By covering them
with insulation. Besides being expensive, this method isn't always
dependable. When cracks form in the insulation, corrosion goes ahead faster
than ever, as you yourself know. Another way of controlling corrosion is by
using electricity, but this is expensive too, and it involves a lot of work.
You have to string transmission lines and bring a positive charge to the
pipeline. My idea is a plastic coating that would serve as insulation and
have an electrostatic charge at the same time."
"Not a bad idea," said Privalov. "But mine is better. It does away with
both pipes and insulation."
Koltukhov dismissed it with a wave of his hand. "You talk like a
college boy, Boris."
The car drove into the Institute yard.
"Is old man Bagbanly in town?" Privalov asked.
"I think so. Why?"
"I'd like to get in touch with him."
"Yes, do go and have a talk with him. He'll throw cold water on your
idea, if anyone does."
They sat on the balcony drinking tea. Professor Bakhtiar Bagbanly
thoughtfully stirred his glass as he gazed out on the broad crescent of city
lights skirting the bay. A Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences,
he was a clever, erudite man with the skilful hands of a gifted
experimenter. He had been Privalov's favourite lecturer when Privalov was an
undergraduate twenty years before. Many of Professor Bagbanly's former
students dropped in to discuss their work with him. He was generous with his
knowledge and advice, and he addressed all the young people by their first
names. They addressed him in the Eastern fashion as "Bakhtiar Muellim",
meaning "Teacher Bakhtiar".
The old man had a large grey head, black eyebrows and a drooping
silvery moustache beneath a hooked nose.
Professor Bakhtiar Bagbanly fixed his twinkling brown eyes on Privalov
and said, "I didn't understand a thing. Your words are as vague as the
dreams of a camel. Now tell me straight out. What is it that you want?"
Privalov knew that the old man's brusque manner was not to be taken
seriously, and so he let the "camel" bit pass unheeded.
"I'll begin from the beginning", he said, taking a sip of tea. "We're
starting to design a pipeline across the bed of the Caspian."
The old man nodded.
"A pipeline, as you know, is not an end in itself," Privalov continued.
"It is only a means towards an end, which is a regular supply of oil."
"What's wrong with using a pipeline to attain this end?"
"As far as that goes, nothing. But what is the purpose of the pipes? To
separate the oil from the environment."
"That's well put."
"Please don't make fun of me, Bakhtiar Muellim. When it comes to the
technique of transporting oil across a sea, or transporting one liquid
through another in general, our thinking is conservative. How do our
pipelines differ from those used in ancient times? Well, the pipes are more
durable and the pumps more powerful. But the principle of the thing remains
the same. Pipeline delivery is better than using oil tankers, of course.
It's cheaper and it does not pollute the sea. But, you realize-"
"I realize that you don't like pipes. How do you propose to replace
them?"
"This is what came to my mind." Privalov finished his tea and moved his
glass aside. "I recalled Plato's experiment. If we take oil with the same
specific weight as that of water and pour it into the water, surface tension
will cause the oil to assume the minimum shape and form a sphere. Isn't that
so? But suppose we build up surface tension in such a way that it acts along
two axes instead of three? Then one cross-section of the oil will be a
circle and the other- In a word, the oil will take the shape of a cylinder.
The surface of the oil will become a pipe, as it were."
Professor Bagbanly grinned and shook his head. "Ingenious! A pipe
without a pipe. But please proceed."
"Further," Privalov continued enthusiastically, "we must have a field.
Imagine an underwater power beam pulsed along a route. A definite frequency
would generate a field in which the oil stretches along the beam. Do you
realize what that would mean? A stream of oil running through the water from
the west coast of the Caspian to the east coast."
"You've described the design of the steam locomotive to me," the
professor said. "Now tell me how it can travel without being pulled by
horses. What would make the stream of oil move?"
"Perhaps the energy of the beam itself. A conductor moves in a magnetic
field if it crosses lines of force, doesn't it? I don't know yet, Bakhtiar
Muellim. I'm just advancing a bare hypothesis."
"Bare and defenceless," the old man added.
There was a long silence. Then Professor Bagbanly rose and began to
pace the balcony.
"You speak of surface tension," he said finally, "and you hope old
Bakhtiar will gladden your ears with a harmonious concept. You nurse an idle
hope, my son. The surfaces of matter constitute one of the fundamental
riddles of modern physics. The surface tension of liquids is a zone where
the specific properties of surfaces manifest themselves. Surface tension
produces forces that are always directed inwards. The tea in that glass is
in a state of tension. Its surface presses inwards from the top and bottom
and sides with a force of more than ten tons per square centimetre. Hence,
liquids are well-nigh incompressible. Until recently it was thought that
liquids could not be compressed at all. Or take solids. When we cut a piece
of clay with a knife we disunite whole worlds and form new surfaces. In the
process, energy is released."
"Just what lies under a surface?" Privalov asked.
"I don't know, my son. Nobody knows yet. How can you get under it? If
you scrape off a surface, another surface of the substance immediately
forms. It is the interface on which the interatomic forces that hold the
elements of a substance together interact with the ambient medium and
achieve a balance in some specific fashion. How? That is something we don't
yet know. But if we get to know it, then sooner or later we'll penetrate to
the heart of the matter. And once we have fathomed the secrets of surfaces
we will proceed to utilize the colossal force latent in them."
"Do you mean to say that my idea is too far ahead of the times?"
Privalov asked sadly.
"It well may be. Take an example which Shuleikin cites in his Marine
Physics. When an express train brakes suddenly the enormous kinetic energy
it releases is absorbed by the extremely thin surface layer of contact
between the wheels and brake-shoes, yet this does not seem unbelievable.
"Suppose," Bagbanly continued as he walked back and forth, "we succeed
in increasing the surface tension and-"
"You agree, Bakhtiar Muellim!" Privalov almost shouted.
"Don't be in such a hurry. I assume that it is possible-theoretically,
but not in reality."
"Why?"
"Because your oil 'sausage'-if you succeed in making one-will encounter
tremendous resistance as it moves through the water. Friction, my friend.
Friction is also a property of surfaces. The surface layers will tear away
from the inner layers, and the jet will disintegrate."
"Excellent," said Privalov. "That means we have another job-that of
reducing the friction."
Bagbanly dropped into an armchair and burst out laughing.
"You're wonderful, Boris," he said, wiping his eyes with his
handkerchief. "Both friction and surface tension are child's play to you.
You're even prepared to turn matter inside out."
"Well, I'll be going, Bakhtiar Muellim, " Privalov said with a sigh.
"Thanks for your advice."
The old man stared at him intently. "You know what? Take me in as a
member of the team on this project. I'll work on it out of curiosity. Who
knows what may come of it? But only on condition we don't go to extremes.
We'll concentrate on the underlying principles and nothing more."
"Are you sure the knife fell overboard, Rita?" Anatole Benedictov said.
"Yes, I'm sure."
"Quite sure?"
"Well, really!" Rita laid aside her book and rose from the sofa.
"Don't be angry, darling. You see, a couple of men have hunted for the
knife on the sea bottom at that place and they failed to find it."
"It would be easier to find a needle in a haystack."
"You've changed lately. Your attitude to my work is different. That's
why I asked."
"You're the one who's changed, Anatole. You're simply stopped noticing
me. Do give up those experiments. Please give them up. They'll drive you
crazy. They've already come between us. Think of how wonderfully we were
getting along before that ill-fated discovery."
"That's true," said Benedictov.
"We were, weren't we?" Rita asked hopefully.
Benedictov glanced at his watch. "A person is coming to see me in a few
minutes. We'll be doing some work together."
Rita shook her head and silently left the study.