introduced, or possibly after, since it took a long time for the metric
system to come into general use.
2. The letters A M D G indicate that the person who put Fedor
Matveyev's manuscript in the box belonged to the Society of Jesus. He was a
count and his initials were J d M.
3. The box was found on the territory of the Russian Empire, from which
the Jesuits were expelled by Tsar Alexander I in 1820. Between 1803 and 1817
the Ambassador of the King of Sardinia to Russia was Count Joseph de
Maistre, an important Jesuit, and the J d M could have been his initials. He
was a mystic and an obscurantist who was unlikely to have recognized the
metric system introduced by the godless Convention but was quite likely to
have used a new-fangled pencil with a lead of ground graphite.
4. Fedor Matveyev could not have lived until the year 1803. Only a
grandson or a great-grandson could have been alive and grown-up between 1803
and 1817.
General Conclusions
The information in Fedor Matveyev's manuscript about electricity and
the uses to which it was put by an Indian religious sect came to the notice
of Count de Maistre, the Jesuit, between 1803 and 1817, and aroused his
interest, probably because he thought it might benefit the Society of Jesus.
For some reason, the Count hid the manuscript in a little iron box and
engraved the initials of the Jesuit motto and his own initials on the box.
He named the box 'The Source', evidently meaning 'the source of
information'.
In addition, the Count ordered (or intended to order) two more boxes.
We know their dimensions. One box, almost the same size as the box which
Boris Privalov found, was to contain 'The Evidence'-but we do not know of
what-and the other, a flat box, was to be for 'The Key to the Mystery'. The
third box may have contained the results of experiments to unravel the
secrets of the Indian Brahmans that Fedor Matveyev described."
"Not bad at all," said Boris Privalov when Nikolai and Yura showed him
the notebook. "It's all quite logical. But where do you go from here?"
"We'll start a search for the other two boxes," Nikolai replied.
"Should we make inquiries of the Society of Jesus?"
"That would be going too far. We'll confine ourselves to the bazaar
meanwhile."
"The bazaar?" Boris glanced questioningly at Nikolai. "But of course!
That's the only link you have, isn't it? You'd better not delay. I heard
it's going to be closed down for good very soon."
The bazaar's "hardware department" was practically deserted and Nikolai
and Yura quickly found the man they had dealt with before. It took them some
time to convince him they were not guardians of the law. Only then did he
confess that the iron bar which Privalov had bought was part of a batch of
junk obtained illegally from a state-operated scap metal depot.
A delicate and tactful interview with the man in charge of the depot
led to an introduction to the crew of waste disposal truck No. 92-39. The
crew immediately took Nikolai and Yura for detectives. The two young men did
not bother to disillusion them.
The driver and his assistants studied the iron box, talked it over for
a long time and finally recalled the address of the house where a family had
thrown out a great deal of junk just before moving into a new flat.
Yura and Nikolai found the house. A loquacious concierge told the
amateur detectives that one of the tenants had indeed moved out early in
summer. His name was Benedictov. He had discarded a lot of old things when
he moved. The neighbours had always complained of his experiments at home
for they had inevitably short-circuited the electricity. She could give them
his new address.
When the door opened, Yura later said, Nikolai tensed all his muscles
for flight. Rita was no less amazed to see the two young men.
Yura was the first to recover. "Please excuse us," he said in an
unnaturally loud voice. "May we see the master of the house?"
"He's not in. What do you want to see him about?"
Nikolai opened his mouth to say something but all that came out was a
hoarse sound. Yura hastened to his rescue.
"We'll explain what it's all about, but talking here in the doorway is
somewhat inconvenient."
Rita led her uninvited guests into the flat.
"My name is Yura Kostyukov," Yura said, "and this is my friend Nikolai
Potapkin."
"I'm Rita Benedictov."
Yura was beginning to feel quite at home. "You go in for diving, don't
you?" he said in a casual, friendly tone.
Rita frowned. "What did you want to see my husband about?"
"We'd like to know if you had a small iron bar in your old flat. Not
really a bar, though, but a metal box with Latin letters engraved on it."
"Latin letters?" Rita repeated slowly.
"Yes. The letters aren't very large and they're filled in with rust.
The box isn't much bigger than this." Yura marked off a rectangle on the
green tablecloth with his finger. "The thing is that the box contained an
eighteenth-century manuscript. We found the box quite by chance in a pile of
junk at the bazaar. The man who sold it to us said it came from a house in
Krasnoarmeiskaya Street. There we were told you had thrown out a lot of old
junk when you moved. You did live in Krasnoarmeiskaya Street, didn't you?"
Rita did not reply. As she stood there beside the table the lamplight
gave her hair a golden sheen.
"We've discovered that there should be two more boxes," Yura went on.
"We don't know what's in them, but we may assume whatever is there will have
either scientific or historical value." All of a sudden his patience came to
an end. "In brief," he said, "if you're the one who threw out that box maybe
you can tell us where the other two boxes are."
"Two more boxes, you say?" Rita asked thoughtfully.
"That's right, two more."
She looked Yura straight in the eye and said firmly: "You're quite
mistaken. We did live in Krasnoarmeiskaya Street before we moved into this
flat but we did not discard any small metal boxes."
"What a pity," said Yura after a moment. "Please excuse us for having
taken up so much of your time."
They hurried downstairs. When they were outside, in the street, Yura
gripped Nikolai by the arm.
"We're on the right track!" he exclaimed. "She knew the box we were
talking about but she hadn't known there was a manuscript inside it. She
thought it was just a solid bar of rusty iron and she threw it out. Now
she's sorry."
Nikolai said nothing. He was wondering why Rita's face seemed so
familiar.
Yura shook him by the shoulder. "Wake up, you miserable creature.
There's a mystery here, and as sure as my name is Yura I'll get to the
bottom of it. Together with you, right?"
It is hard to say which caused a greater stir at the Institute-the
transcaspian pipeline project or Fedor Matveyev's manuscript. Following
Privalov's detailed report to the staff about the manuscript, debates raged
in the departments and laboratories over the Incorporeal Brahman and the
stream of oil flowing through water. Many linked up the stream of oil with
the Caspian pipeline problem. The more fervid imaginations gave birth to
fantastic plans. The wildest and most hare-brained schemes were put before
Privalov. Some he discussed, while others he angrily dismissed as
ridiculous.
"What have I done to deserve this?" he grumbled. "The pipeline across
the Caspian will be built of the most ordinary pipes-I repeat, ordinary
pipes."
That was the honest truth. But it was also true that Professor Bagbanly
had visited the Institute several times in the evening and had had long
talks with Privalov. It was true, too, that a surprising machine was being
built in one of the rooms in Privalov's laboratory. Engineers Yura and
Nikolai, and also Valery Gorbachevsky, the lab technician, could have told
something about it, but they had strict orders not to divulge any
information.
Pavel Koltukhov was displeased by all the feverish and far-fetched
schemes being hatched at the Institute. The most stubborn debaters were
invited to his office, where he first heard them out and then cooled their
ardour with a stream of caustic remarks.
Meanwhile, Koltukhov continued to work on his resins. Sometimes, after
synthesizing a new compound, he would step across the street to the
Institute of Marine Physics and drop into Opratin's laboratory. He would
melt the resin in a mould and place it between the plates of a capacitor
linked up with a powerful electrostatic machine. While the resin was being
charged Koltukhov chatted calmly with Opratin about this and that and
related episodes from his life. "Does your resin hold its static charge
long?'" Opratin asked him one day.
"That depends on how I charge it. Your chief told me you are setting up
an installation with a Van de Graaft generator on an island somewhere. Now
if we were to charge the resin from that generator-"
"I'm afraid you'll have Lo wait some time for that," Opratin smiled.
"We've just begun installing it."
Pavel Koltukhov had his heart set on a strongly charged resin that
could be used to insulate underwater pipelines. He believed that a thin
insulation layer having a static charge could prevent corrosion more cheaply
and reliably than the many layers now used to cover the pipes.
"I knew about the properties of electrically charged resins before, but
it never occurred to me before," Koltukhov said. "Fedor Matveyev was the man
who gave me the idea." "Fedor Matveyev?"
"Remember the eighteenth century manuscript I told you about on the
beach?"
Opratin's expression grew guarded and his eyes flickered. "Why, yes, of
course. But what's the connection?"
"Matveyev wrote that the Hindus carried some kind of resin up into the
mountains," Koltukhov said slowly. "They left it for a time on high peaks,
where it received what they called 'heavenly strength'. This gave me the
idea that the Hindus might have been using the energy of cosmic rays without
actually being aware of it. There would be plenty of cosmic radiation at
high altitudes. They must have had some excellent resins, which they turned
into highly charged electrets."
"Highly charged electrets," Opratin repeated softly, tapping his
fingers on the table. "Yes, that certainly has possibilities."
In the twenties of the present century two Japanese researchers
discovered that some resins become charged and turn into permanent and quite
new sources of electricity after having been melted and left to cool in a
strong electrostatic field, between the plates of a capacitor. Like a
magnet, they pass on their properties without losing them. These were
electrets. If an electret is cut in two, new poles will arise at the new
ends.
Yura found himself spending more and more of his time in Koltukhov's
resin laboratory. He liked making new compounds according to Koltukhov's
formulas and measuring the electricity in the charged resins.
One day Koltukhov sent Yura over to Opratin's laboratory to charge the
latest batch of resin.
Opratin greeted Yura pleasantly, showed him the electrostatic machine,
and helped him to switch it on.
Yura looked about with curiosity. There were several people in white
overalls at work in the laboratory. One of them, a thickset man with a
shaggy head of hair, sat with his back to Yura, at a table on which an
aquarium with a wire coil round it and a valve oscillator stood. "Are you
doing high frequency experiments?" he asked casually.
"Oh, that's just a minor project," Opratin replied with a keen glance
at Yura. "Are you interested in high frequencies?" "No, not particularly."
A tall, husky man in blue overalls entered the laboratory. To Yura's
surprise, this was Uncle Vova Bugrov.
"Comrade Benedictov, here's the food for your fish," Bugrov said to
Anatole Benedictov in a deep, hoarse voice.
The shaggy-haired man sitting beside the valve oscillator turned round,
nodded, and took the two paper bags Bugrov was holding out to him. Yura was
unable to shift his gaze from the man's broad face and puffy eyelids.
"Why, hullo," said Bugrov shaking Yura's hand. "What brings you to our
Institute?"
"Do you work here?" Yura asked in surprise, his eyes still fixed on
Benedictov.
"I'm a laboratory technician. I've switched to science now. They think
very highly of me here. You know, I'm training a group of scientific workers
in wrestling."
"What does Benedictov do here?" Yura asked in a low voice.
"Benedictov? He's a scientist. He knows all there is to know about
fish. Shall I tell you what else I'm doing?" Bugrov asked boastfully. "I'm
an inventor, if you want to know. I'm making an electric dynamometer. What
d'you think of that?"
After charging the resin Yura rushed back to his own Institute and ran
up the stairs two at a time.
"There's news, Nikolai," he shouted. Panting, he told Nikolai about
seeing Benedictov, about the valve oscillator and about Vova Bugrov.
Nikolai ran the palm of his hand across his high forehead. "High
frequency- and fish? I wonder- But Opratin is studying the level of the
Caspian, isn't he?"
"Benedictov's the man to ask about the iron boxes."
"You think he'd tell you?"
During the lunch break Nikolai remained in the deserted laboratory.
Sitting at his desk, he cut a thin strip from the sheet of drawing paper on
his board. He pinned one end to the desk, twisted the other in a half-curl,
and glued the ends together.
He sat for a long time staring, in deep thought, at the twisted piece
of paper. Then, with a pencil, he drew a line along the edge of the paper
until it came full circle. The line ran round both sides of the strip of
paper, without Nikolai either lifting his pencil from the paper or crossing
the pencil line at any point. This strip of paper was the model of a
mathematical paradox known as the Mobius band. From the mathematical point
of view the band had no thickness and its surface was not divided into outer
and inner surfaces. It was only a surface, and nothing more. A window that
mathematics had opened up into the sphere of the Unknown.
Nikolai made a second strip twisted in the same direction and tried to
put it inside the first one, but this proved to be impossible. By trying to
put one strip into another he would have to bring the inner surface of one
towards the outer surface of the other. But if neither had an outer surface
or an inner surface how could he do this?
Nikolai flung the strips on the table and propped up his head on his
hand. "What if I made a similar spiral out of copper and linked it up to the
output circuit of an oscillator?"
He went out to the lounge, pulled Yura away from a game of table
tennis, and said: "Do you remember a thing called the Mobius band?"
NECESSITATING FEDOR MATVEYEV'S KNIFE,
OCCURS TO BENEDICTOV AND OPRATIN
"At last!" Opratin exclaimed, running his eyes across the letter, which
was typed on an official letterhead.
Ever since summer, Opratin's imagination had been fired by the letters
A M D G on Benedictov's box that had contained the missing knife. When
Benedictov showed him the box Opratin had immediately recalled the old
underground passage in Derbent, the crucifix on the chest of the skeleton,
and, lying beside it, the small flat box on a golden chain, with the letters
A M D G engraved on it.
From what Pavel Koltukhov had said Opratin now knew that there were
three boxes, and that the third box, the one in Derbent, contained some sort
of "key to the mystery".
Opratin had written a number of cautious letters, first to Derbent and
then to Moscow, after learning that the agent's equipment had been sent
there. Now the long-awaited reply was in his hands. The agent had been a
submarine officer in the Italian Tenth Torpedo-Boat Flotilla, notorious for
its sudden raids on British naval bases with mines guided by frogmen.
Part of the Tenth Flotilla had been transferred to the Crimea in 1942.
When the Nazis broke through to the North Caucasus part of the Flotilla had
concentrated submarines and frogmen-guided torpedoes at Mariupol on the Sea
of Azov for transfer to the Caspian Sea.
Vittorio da Castiglione, an officer of the Tenth Flotilla, parachuted
down onto the Caspian coast near Derbent on a dark autumn night. His mission
had probably been to reconnoitre the underwater approaches to the port of
Derbent and note installations that could be attacked with guided torpedoes.
But he had wandered into an old quarry and had perished there. Nobody would
ever have learned about Vittorio da Castiglione if Opratin had not stumbled
over him.
"To recapitulate," Opratin said to himself, "one box contained Fedor
Matveyev's manuscript and another the knife. But what was in the third box?
Probably something very important that would throw light on the entire
mystery."
Well, he'd soon know what it was all about.
Nikolai Opratin rubbed his hands in satisfaction.
The Institute of Marine Physics was making preparations to raise the
level of the Caspian Sea. This undertaking was based on the extremely simple
proposition that a heavy rain can produce one and a half millimetres of
precipitation in one minute. If rain poured down constantly on an area of
thirty square kilometres of the Caspian day in and day out, the level of the
sea would rise three metres in the course of a year. Water for the downpours
would have to be "borrowed" from the Black Sea, where there were plans to
build a powerful nuclear water boiler. A new Soviet method of obtaining
nuclear energy made such an installation possible.
As a gigantic fountain of steam gushed forth from the depths of the
Black Sea a system of directional antennae would force the endless grey
cloud to snake its way over the Caucasus Mountains. On reaching the downpour
area in the Caspian Sea the cloud would enter the zone of a powerful
electrostatic field. Here the concentrated steam would lose its heat, be
converted into water, and pour down on the sea.
Laboratory No. 8 was setting up cloud condensation experiments, and
this kept Opratin, as head of the laboratory, very busy indeed. The
installation had given him a good many sleepless nights. Erection of the
installation on a remote, uninhabited island in the Caspian was nearing
completion. Opratin was personally supervising the operations. He had in
mind certain other plans that were linked up with this installation.
The two new members of the staff introduced a somewhat disharmonious
note into the carefully planned arrangements in Opratin's laboratory.
Shaggy-haired, absent-minded Anatole Benedictov spilled reagents from
bottles on the tables, broke a great many vessels and often caused short
circuits. He argued with Opratin in a loud voice. Yet Opratin was patient
with him, and this was what aroused the greatest astonishment.
With Benedictov's arrival the "fish problem" suddenly loomed large in
the Institute programme. At any rate, it occupied all the best places in the
corridors, for that was where Anatole Benedictov had set up his aquariums.
He plagued the assistant manager in charge of supplies with demands for
various types of food for his fish.
Feeding the fish was one of the duties of the new lab technician, a
husky, rosy-cheeked man with slits for eyes and a tuft of reddish hair on
top of his head. This was Vova Bugrov. Bugrov very soon felt quite at home
in the world of scientific research. As one watched him puttering about
beside the spectrograph, softly humming a popular tune, one felt that the
delicate cassettes were doomed.
"I wonder why Opratin ever took this chap on as a technician," staff
members asked one another. "He looks more like a gangster than anything
else."
To everyone's surprise, though, the new technician turned out to have a
light touch; his huge paws handled the precise instruments gently and
deftly. Bugrov could do a marvellous soldering job. He put great effort into
developing the spectrograms, and he kept a detailed journal (with spelling
mistakes in it, true) of the functioning of the various lab instruments and
machines. This was more than even Opratin had expected from Bugrov.
The motorboat skimmed across the bay towards the open sea. Prow lifted
high, it left behind a pair of long, spreading, foamy moustaches. It was a
calm, sunny morning in October, with a slight chill in the air.
Bugrov, his cap pulled down over his forehead, sat beside the outboard
motor. Suddenly he pricked up his ears. Above the steady roar of the motor
he caught snatches of an interesting conversation.
"No, I don't think they know about the knife," said Nikolai Opratin.
"Then why did they come asking to see me?" Anatole Benedictov retorted.
"They asked questions, Rita says, about three small iron boxes. But why
three? One contained the knife; in the other, you say, they found a
manuscript. But where does a third box come from?"
"That's my business."
Opratin wrapped his raincoat more closely round him. Benedictov tried
to light a cigarette but every time he struck a match the wind blew it out.
He swore as he kept tossing matches into the water.
On reaching the island they guided the boat into a cove with a gently
sloping shore. Bugrov cut the motor and nimbly jumped out onto the damp
sand. He tied the painter to a length of pipe he had driven into the sand on
an earlier visit to the island.
Here, on this desolate little island, Laboratory No. 8 of the Institute
of Marine Physics had set up an experiment facility.
Two months ago a blunt-nose self-propelled barge had pulled its flat
belly up onto the sandy shore, and a tractor, followed by a crane on crawler
treads, had rolled out of its dark interior with much clanging.
An old concrete pillbox built on the island during the war had been
converted into a pilot plan for cloud condensation.
Benedictov and Opratin climbed to the top of the low but steep rise and
disappeared inside the former pillbox. Bugrov remained on the shore. He
walked up and down the sand for a while to stretch his legs, then sat down
on a rock to think.
There was plenty to think about. For two months now he had been
punching the clock, something he had never done before in his life- and what
was he getting out of it? Where was the knife for which he had agreed to
take on the job of lab technician?
It was becoming embarrassing. Friends were laughing at him. A steady,
full-time job, of all things! In science, too! It was time he gave up
working like a horse, they said.
Bugrov couldn't have agreed with them more. He would give it up-just as
soon as he finished his dynamometer. It would be a beauty! All you'd have to
do was step on the footboard and flex your muscles, and the machine would
show you how strong you were. There would be no lights or bells, like in the
ordinary dynamometers. This one was strictly scientific.
All of a sudden Bugrov grew angry with himself. What was he thinking
about? The knife was what he needed! Then he would be able to tour
provincial towns with an astonishing knife act.
He scrambled up the rise and approached the pillbox. After opening the
inclining steel door he entered an underground passageway lined with shelves
holding storage cells. The passageway led into a round room with a domed
ceiling. An internal combustion engine stood there. From this room Bugrov
passed through a narrow doorway into what had once been the casemate.
The room was crowded with laboratory equipment. Red-hot filaments
glowed in an electric fireplace. Nikolai Opratin and Anatole Benedictov sat
at a table under a bright light.
Bugrov marched to the middle of the room and stood there, hands in
pockets, his padded jacket flung open. His face wore an insolent expression.
"You promised me the knife," he said. "When will it be ready?"
Opratin drummed his fingers on the table. "Look here," he said in an
even voice, "if you get on my nerves you'll never lay eyes on the knife at
all. Can't you see we haven't set up all the equipment yet? Be patient."
"I'm patient, all right," Bugrov replied defiantly. "Too patient, in
fact. I'm just warning you. You'd better speed things up."
"That will do. Instead of complaining you could put your energies to
better use by tinkering with the power generator. You're the one who will be
servicing it."
Bugrov pushed his cap to the back of his head and left the room.
The mutiny on the island had been put down.
"I can't see why you have anything to do with that gorilla," Benedictov
remarked.
Opratin shook his head. "Rank ingratitude, I call it. That gorilla is
the person who gets you those ampoules you're so fond of."
Benedictov said nothing.
"He's right. We'll have to speed things up," Opratin went on. "We won't
be here alone forever. We'll have to start work on cloud condensation as
well, and that means researchers will be coming here to work. I shan't allow
them to see the equipment in the room below, of course, but still- Anyway, I
have an idea." He told Benedictov of his talk with Pavel Koltukhov, about
the episode mentioned in Fedor Matveyev's manuscript and about the
electrets.
"Don't you see? The Hindus may very well have used electrets as a
source of energy. Electrets have a peculiar property to which I have given a
great deal of thought."
"Namely?"
"A shift in polarity. Sometimes an electret begins to lose its charge
within a few hours. The charge drops to zero and then increases again, but
now the positive and negative poles have changed places. An electret with
altered poles will exist for an indefinite time. Sometimes this happens and
sometimes it doesn't. W7hat changes take place in the substance of the
electret? What is this zero threshold across which its charge passes? That's
the question."
"A magnet magnetizes other substances without losing its properties. An
electret charges other substances without losing its charge," said
Benedictov. He was speaking with his eyes closed, concentrating on his
words. "Splendid! That confirms my idea. What we must do is set up an
installation in which the knife will transmit the charge. The knife will
charge other bodies with its properties, will remake their structure to
resemble its own. To put it more exactly, the knife will transmit
penetrability."
Opratin stared at Benedictov in silence for a few seconds.
"Transmit penetrability," he repeated in a low voice. "Use the knife as
a transducer. That's a brainwave!"
Benedictov coughed to clear his throat and then amplified his idea.
"It's a brainwave!" Opratin repeated, striding up and down the room.
"Do you mean to say we can do it with living material too?"
"Exactly. My experiments with fish make me confident of success."
Opratin stopped pacing the floor. "To sum up, we'll make an electret
with switched polarity that will create a permanent field. We'll intensify
the field with a powerful charge of static electricity, using our Van de
Graaff generator. We'll set up the installation in such a way as to make the
fields intersect. We'll place Fedor Matveyev's knife, the transmitter of the
'charge,' at one intersection and an ultrashort wave radiator at the other.
It will be a kind of cage in which we'll put some of your fish, or maybe
dogs. Or anything else, for that matter. We'll keep changing the field
intensity and keep on experimenting until we hit on just the right angle!"
Opratin's eyes sparkled. He was so excited that he could hardly stand still.
"Yes, we'll force that knife to transmit its properties to another object!'"
Arguing and interrupting each other, the two scientists proceeded to
sketch designs of the future installation. Suddenly Benedictov flung aside
his pencil and rose, his joints creaking.
"The knife," he said. "We must have the knife. We won't get anywhere
without it. I don't think you're searching for it the way you should."
"I've combed the sea floor at that place three times." Opratin stopped,
then added in a lower voice, "Is there any reason why your wife should want
to hinder our work?"
"Hinder our work? No, although lately she's been urging me to drop my
experiments. But that's all. Why do you ask?"
^Because the knife doesn't seem to be at the bottom of the sea. I have
a feeling your wife is concealing it."
Benedictov's face grew long. "Impossible. Why should she do that?"
"Why should she try to persuade you to give up this line of
experiments?"
Benedictov did not reply. The electric fireplace threw red shadows
across his gloomy face.
"Never mind, you leave the knife to me," Opratin said. "I'll get it."
IN WHICH VALERY GORBACHEVSKY'S LITTLE FINGER PLAYS THE LEADING PART
Nikolai and Yura were now completely engrossed in the enigmatic Mobius
band. Their catch-all notebook was filled to overflowing with formulas and
sketches of intertwined bands.
"Your idea of using one side is marvellous, Nikolai!" Yura exclaimed.
"I'm sure the Mobius band will give us the field we need. Imagine! No pipes!
A stream of oil flowing straight through the sea!"
Yura's enthusiasm was infectious. "I've estimated," Nikolai said, "that
doing away with pipes to transport oil across the Caspian would save about
25,000 tons of steel."
"But that's not the main thing," Yura said impatiently. "We'll learn to
control surfaces. It'll be an epoch-making discovery!"
"Now don't let our imagination run away with you," Nikolai remarked.
"We aren't in that class at all. With our limited resources we can only set
ourselves a limited goal like increasing the surface tension of a drop of
mercury. If we succeed we'll try to do the same with oil."
Yura grew downcast. "Is that all?"
"No, not quite. Don't spread this all over the Institute and don't say
anything, meanwhile, to our chief. Is that clear?"
"Yes, strictly confidential," Yura said with a sigh. "The Inquisition
put the same kind of pressure on Galileo."
The evenings in Cooper Lane were now a busier time than ever. Yura and
Nikolai had enlisted the services of three young engineers from the
automation department, who helped them to assemble intricate electronic
circuits. They often blew the fuses and then had to go out with a candle to
repair the damage. Luckily, Nikolai's mother was a patient, kind-hearted
woman.
One day lab technician Valery Gorbachevsky took Yura aside. "Need any
help evenings?" he asked.
Yura stared at him. "How do you know what we're doing after working
hours?"
"I'm not deaf, am I?"
"All right, drop in tomorrow at eight. Just keep whatever you see under
your hat. Don't mention it to Privalov. What we're doing at home is our own
private concern."
Valery nodded.
"After all, Faraday was once a lab technician too."
"Faraday? A lab technician?"
"That's right. Not here, of course, but at the Royal Institution of
Great Britain. As you can see, a big future lies ahead of you."
That evening Yura, a guitar slung over his shoulder, strode briskly
down Cooper Lane and turned into the courtyard of Nikolai's house. A series
of what sounded like gunshots came from the other side of the archway, where
a tall, plump woman was beating a carpet. At sight of Yura she gave a broad
smile. "Haven't seen you for a long time," she said.
"Good evening, Claudia," said Yura.
"Is Nikolai throwing a birthday party?" she asked. "Guests keep coming
and coming. Young people, all of them." She smiled again. "My Vova is doing
scientific research too nowadays."
"Well, give him my best regards." Yura smiled politely and ran up the
steps two at a time. He flung open a door from behind which came voices and
laughter. Everyone was there. Nikolai and the three other young engineers
were tinkering with the instruments. They had the efficient assistance of
Valery, who never suspected he was destined to be the hero of the day.
"What held you up?" asked Nikolai.
"Uncle Vova's wife stopped me for a chat and asked me to pass on her
very best regards," Yura replied.
"Why the guitar?"
"I'll sing you some songs."
"Stop twaddling. Come on, let's check the connections."
"I'll tell you why I brought the guitar." Yura's tone was now serious.
"Our tuning-fork generator is made to oscillate by an electromagnet, isn't
it? But the electromagnet means an extra magnetic field, in other words,
frequencies that we don't need at all. So I thought-"
"That's right," swarthy Hussein Amirov put in. "A guitar can do the
work more simply than an electromagnet."
The installation stood on a big table behind blue draperies. It
consisted of the original mercury heart and valve oscillator with a
tuning-fork breaker, to which a twist of copper tubing, an enormous Mobius
band, had been added. The output circuit of the valve oscillator was
connected to coils surrounding the band. The scales containing the mercury
heart stood inside the band.
The one-sided Mobius band was expected to produce a field which would
sharply increase the surface tension of the mercury and squeeze it so hard
that it would stop pulsating. Then, by adding mercury until the heart
started beating again they would be able to calculate, from the additional
weight, the extent to which surface tension had been stepped up. Once they
hit on the right combination of frequencies they could start experimenting
with oil.
Nikolai switched on the battery of capacitors. To do this he had to
crawl under the table and disturb Rex, who was sound asleep there.
As Yura checked the connections the neon bulb in the handle of his
screwdriver glowed with a twinkling pink light from time to time.
"All systems functioning," Yura finally declared. "Breaker frequency is
440 hertz."
"Ting, ting, ting" went the tuning-fork gently in the silence of the
room.
Yura hurriedly tuned his guitar. Next they adjusted the tuning-fork
breaker by moving the weights on its prongs.
Now all they had to do was touch a guitar 'string, and the contacts of
the tuning-fork breaker |would begin to break the high-frequency circuit at
the rate of 440 times per second.
The mercury heart beat quietly inside the mysterious field of the
Mobius band. Our experimenters knew, of course, that a long, boring search
lay ahead of them. They knew that an experiment rarely yields the desired
result the first time. Still, deep down inside there was the hope that
perhaps today a miracle would take place.
It didn't.
"We'll have to vary the operating factors," said Nikolai. "Will you
strike B on the tuning-fork, Valery?"
Ting-ting-ting.
Yura plucked a guitar string.'
There was silence, broken suddenly by a sharp knock on the door.
"Who could that be?" Nikolai wondered.' "Mother said she wouldn't
return home until late."
The young men moved away from the installation and drew the draperies
to hide it from view. Only Valery, with his tuning-fork, :and Rex remained
behind the draperies.
"Let's liven up the party!" shouted Yura. He plucked the strings of the
guitar, took a few dancing steps, and began to sing:
Why do you wander in the moonlight,
Oh black-eyed beauty of mine?
Powder in your pocket to poison me with,
A locomotive in your pocket to crush me with.
Nikolai opened the door and Vova Bugrov, in a striped blue pyjama top,
came in.
"Hullo, everybody," he said politely, letting his eyes roam about the
room. His glance rested on the blue draperies and on the scraps of wire
scattered on the floor. Then he shook hands with each of the young men in
turn. "Having a party?" he asked. "That's fine. I'll take only a minute of
your time, Nikolai." He pulled a rusty spring out of his pocket. "Will you
calculate its strength, please?"
"You said you'd switched to electric dynamometers," said Yura.
"So I have," Bugrov replied with dignity. "This is just something-well,
to make a long story short, a couple of pals dropped in and asked me to help
them."
Nikolai quickly measured the diameter of the spring and the wire to
which it was attached, and then took out his slide-rule.
"Twenty-eight kilograms."
"Thanks." Bugrov picked up the spring and moved towards the door.
At that moment there was a crash behind the draperies. The young men
exchanged glances. Vova swung round and stared at the draperies. Rex emerged
from beneath them, his paws tapping the floor. He stretched and then sniffed
at Bugrov's shoes.
"Go away, dog," said Bugrov, backing towards the door. "I don't like
being sniffed at."
Nikolai saw Bugrov out and locked the door behind him. Yura struck
another few chords to be on the safe side. Strumming the bass strings, he
sang:
Powder in your pocket to poison me with,
A locomotive in your pocket to crush mo with.
Nikolai pulled back the draperies. The scales with the mercury heart
had crashed to the floor. The tuning-fork generator lay in a pool of
solution with sparkling drops of mercury in it. Valery sat on the table, his
face as white as a sheet. He was holding up his right hand and was staring
in horror at his extended little finger.
That evening Boris Privalov and Pavel Koltukhov remained at the
Institute long after everyone else had left.
"If you don't mind my saying so, Boris, you're going round the bend
about that idea of a pipeline without any pipes," said Koltukhov.
"Has Professor Bagbanly gone round the bend too?"
Koltukhov said nothing.
Privalov looked at his watch and stood up. "By the way, he should be
here soon. Would you like to see what we're doing?"
They went down to the first floor and walked along a seemingly endless
corridor. Privalov unlocked the doors of a room in which a stator from a big
dynamo stood. Inside the stator, almost touching the pole shoes and
windings, was a coil of glass tubing filled with a pink liquid. The ends of
the coil were connected with a tank and a centrifugal pump.
"It looks like a high-frequency still for making home-brew liquor,"
Koltukhov said with a laugh, touching the cold glass with the tips of his
fingers.
"We're doing two experiments with this apparatus," Privalov explained.
"The liquid in the tube is water to which we have added acid to make it a
conductor and a colouring substance to make it easier to observe. Now watch.
This is the first experiment."
At the push of a button a faint hum arose as the centrifugal pump began
to drive the pink liquid through the glass coil.
"The winding of the stator is not connected with the mains," said
Privalov. "It's only connected with the voltmeter. Watch this!"
The voltmeter needle trembled and crept towards the right-hand side of
the dial.
"See that?"
"Of course. The liquid is a conductor. It cuts the magnetic lines of
force of the stator and induces electromotive force in the windings. There's
nothing new about that. A meter in which a liquid passes through a tube of
non-magnetic material is based on this principle."
"That's true, there's nothing new about it. But whereas the voltage in
those meters is insignificant, here-"
"Oho!" exclaimed Koltukhov, his eyes on the voltmeter. "How did you
manage that?"
"Professor Bagbanly," Privalov said shortly. "Now we'll do the
experiment the other way round."
He switched off the pump. The liquid stopped moving and the voltmeter
needle returned to "zero".
"Now I'll simply send some current into the stator winding."
He pushed another button. Although not driven by the pump, the pink
liquid again ran up into the spiral.
"Let's make it harder." Privalov turned the knob of a valve. "Keep your
eye on the pressure-gauge. I could increase the resistance still more and
get a higher pressure. But the fragility of the glass tubes prevents me from
doing so. Do you see what I'm getting at?"
Koltukhov looked puzzled. His eyes stared fixedly from beneath his grey
eyebrows.
"Wait a minute," he said. "In other words, a liquid in an
electromagnetic field starts moving all by itself. Is this a model of the
movement of a liquid through a pipeless pipeline?"
"Right. The only difference is that the surface tension of the liquid
will take the place of pipes, while a directed field will replace the
windings and magnets."
" 'The only difference' is a mild way of putting it," Koltukhov
muttered.
They heard quick footsteps in the corridor. The door opened and
Professor Bakhtiar Bagbanly entered.
"Ah, our main opponent!" he said as he shook hands with Pavel
Koltukhov. "Have you come to see for yourself?"
"He's sceptical," said Privalov.
"Well, that's part of the scientific approach." Professor Bagbanly ran
his eyes over the apparatus, then asked Privalov some technical questions
about the experiment. He began to pace the room, a short, stocky,
large-headed man with thick grey hair.
"What examples do we have of mutual penetrability?" he asked suddenly.
"Diffusion," said Privalov. "The diffusion of solids."
"Yes, but diffusion calls for specific conditions. Even if you press
perfectly polished surfaces of lead and tin together very hard, it will take
years before even the slightest penetration takes place. However, if you
heat a compressed bundle of lead and tin to 100 degrees a layer of
intermingled molecules will appear in their border area within twelve hours.
What is it that puts up resistance to transition through the contact zone?"
The Professor stopped his pacing and gave the two engineers a thoughtful
look. "The surface! That mysterious world of two-dimensional phenomena."
He resumed his pacing, meanwhile smoothing; with his fingertips, the
grey moustaches beneath his hooked nose.
"There's another diffusional phenomenon," he went on, "and that is
pressure contact welding. It produces mutual penetration, but you need high
temperatures and pressures to do it."
"What about welding inside a vacuum?" Privalov asked. "It can be done
at a very low pressure and without much heating. What is more, you can join
the most diverse materials-steel and glass, for instance. Actually, it isn't
so much welding as intensified diffusion."
Professor Bagbanly nodded in agreement. "Yes, but why? Possibly,
because in a vacuum a surface is free and opens up, as it were, since it
borders on empty space. The forces protecting the surface weaken and open up
the substance. However, our goal is to intensify diffusion until we attain a
state of unhindered mutual penetration. Forcing matter to open its gates,
isn't that so?" He traced a question mark in the air with his forefinger.
"Is there a lot of matter in solids? The answer is no, there's very little.
Actually, an atom has a very insignificant volume. But what is the atom
filled with? After all, matter is concentrated in the nucleus of the atom.
From the standpoint of density, everything under the sun is as sparse as-"
he searched for a comparison-" as sparse as the hair on the head of our
friend Pavel Koltukhov."
Koltukhov gave a smirk and involuntarily ran a hand over his bald head.
"Considered from the position of a mechanical model, matter can easily
be penetrated," Professor Bagbanly went on. "Actually, though, we cannot
regard matter as a mechanical conglomeration of small spheres situated at a
great distance from one another. Powerful internal forces connect all the
components and prevent penetration. If those forces did not exist my hand
would easily pass through metal." He laid the palm of his hand on the
stator. "The probability of physical particles meeting is insignificant.
Less probable than peas colliding if two handfuls are thrown towards each
other."
The Professor wiped his hands on his handkerchief and looked at the two
men, his former pupils, as though expecting them to make some objections.
"Now I'll formulate the problem," he said, in the same tone of voice he
had once used when lecturing to his students. "Hang your ears on the hook of
attention. Without changing the mechanical structure of matter we must
rearrange its bonds-the bonds between atoms and between molecules-in such a
system to come into general use.
2. The letters A M D G indicate that the person who put Fedor
Matveyev's manuscript in the box belonged to the Society of Jesus. He was a
count and his initials were J d M.
3. The box was found on the territory of the Russian Empire, from which
the Jesuits were expelled by Tsar Alexander I in 1820. Between 1803 and 1817
the Ambassador of the King of Sardinia to Russia was Count Joseph de
Maistre, an important Jesuit, and the J d M could have been his initials. He
was a mystic and an obscurantist who was unlikely to have recognized the
metric system introduced by the godless Convention but was quite likely to
have used a new-fangled pencil with a lead of ground graphite.
4. Fedor Matveyev could not have lived until the year 1803. Only a
grandson or a great-grandson could have been alive and grown-up between 1803
and 1817.
General Conclusions
The information in Fedor Matveyev's manuscript about electricity and
the uses to which it was put by an Indian religious sect came to the notice
of Count de Maistre, the Jesuit, between 1803 and 1817, and aroused his
interest, probably because he thought it might benefit the Society of Jesus.
For some reason, the Count hid the manuscript in a little iron box and
engraved the initials of the Jesuit motto and his own initials on the box.
He named the box 'The Source', evidently meaning 'the source of
information'.
In addition, the Count ordered (or intended to order) two more boxes.
We know their dimensions. One box, almost the same size as the box which
Boris Privalov found, was to contain 'The Evidence'-but we do not know of
what-and the other, a flat box, was to be for 'The Key to the Mystery'. The
third box may have contained the results of experiments to unravel the
secrets of the Indian Brahmans that Fedor Matveyev described."
"Not bad at all," said Boris Privalov when Nikolai and Yura showed him
the notebook. "It's all quite logical. But where do you go from here?"
"We'll start a search for the other two boxes," Nikolai replied.
"Should we make inquiries of the Society of Jesus?"
"That would be going too far. We'll confine ourselves to the bazaar
meanwhile."
"The bazaar?" Boris glanced questioningly at Nikolai. "But of course!
That's the only link you have, isn't it? You'd better not delay. I heard
it's going to be closed down for good very soon."
The bazaar's "hardware department" was practically deserted and Nikolai
and Yura quickly found the man they had dealt with before. It took them some
time to convince him they were not guardians of the law. Only then did he
confess that the iron bar which Privalov had bought was part of a batch of
junk obtained illegally from a state-operated scap metal depot.
A delicate and tactful interview with the man in charge of the depot
led to an introduction to the crew of waste disposal truck No. 92-39. The
crew immediately took Nikolai and Yura for detectives. The two young men did
not bother to disillusion them.
The driver and his assistants studied the iron box, talked it over for
a long time and finally recalled the address of the house where a family had
thrown out a great deal of junk just before moving into a new flat.
Yura and Nikolai found the house. A loquacious concierge told the
amateur detectives that one of the tenants had indeed moved out early in
summer. His name was Benedictov. He had discarded a lot of old things when
he moved. The neighbours had always complained of his experiments at home
for they had inevitably short-circuited the electricity. She could give them
his new address.
When the door opened, Yura later said, Nikolai tensed all his muscles
for flight. Rita was no less amazed to see the two young men.
Yura was the first to recover. "Please excuse us," he said in an
unnaturally loud voice. "May we see the master of the house?"
"He's not in. What do you want to see him about?"
Nikolai opened his mouth to say something but all that came out was a
hoarse sound. Yura hastened to his rescue.
"We'll explain what it's all about, but talking here in the doorway is
somewhat inconvenient."
Rita led her uninvited guests into the flat.
"My name is Yura Kostyukov," Yura said, "and this is my friend Nikolai
Potapkin."
"I'm Rita Benedictov."
Yura was beginning to feel quite at home. "You go in for diving, don't
you?" he said in a casual, friendly tone.
Rita frowned. "What did you want to see my husband about?"
"We'd like to know if you had a small iron bar in your old flat. Not
really a bar, though, but a metal box with Latin letters engraved on it."
"Latin letters?" Rita repeated slowly.
"Yes. The letters aren't very large and they're filled in with rust.
The box isn't much bigger than this." Yura marked off a rectangle on the
green tablecloth with his finger. "The thing is that the box contained an
eighteenth-century manuscript. We found the box quite by chance in a pile of
junk at the bazaar. The man who sold it to us said it came from a house in
Krasnoarmeiskaya Street. There we were told you had thrown out a lot of old
junk when you moved. You did live in Krasnoarmeiskaya Street, didn't you?"
Rita did not reply. As she stood there beside the table the lamplight
gave her hair a golden sheen.
"We've discovered that there should be two more boxes," Yura went on.
"We don't know what's in them, but we may assume whatever is there will have
either scientific or historical value." All of a sudden his patience came to
an end. "In brief," he said, "if you're the one who threw out that box maybe
you can tell us where the other two boxes are."
"Two more boxes, you say?" Rita asked thoughtfully.
"That's right, two more."
She looked Yura straight in the eye and said firmly: "You're quite
mistaken. We did live in Krasnoarmeiskaya Street before we moved into this
flat but we did not discard any small metal boxes."
"What a pity," said Yura after a moment. "Please excuse us for having
taken up so much of your time."
They hurried downstairs. When they were outside, in the street, Yura
gripped Nikolai by the arm.
"We're on the right track!" he exclaimed. "She knew the box we were
talking about but she hadn't known there was a manuscript inside it. She
thought it was just a solid bar of rusty iron and she threw it out. Now
she's sorry."
Nikolai said nothing. He was wondering why Rita's face seemed so
familiar.
Yura shook him by the shoulder. "Wake up, you miserable creature.
There's a mystery here, and as sure as my name is Yura I'll get to the
bottom of it. Together with you, right?"
It is hard to say which caused a greater stir at the Institute-the
transcaspian pipeline project or Fedor Matveyev's manuscript. Following
Privalov's detailed report to the staff about the manuscript, debates raged
in the departments and laboratories over the Incorporeal Brahman and the
stream of oil flowing through water. Many linked up the stream of oil with
the Caspian pipeline problem. The more fervid imaginations gave birth to
fantastic plans. The wildest and most hare-brained schemes were put before
Privalov. Some he discussed, while others he angrily dismissed as
ridiculous.
"What have I done to deserve this?" he grumbled. "The pipeline across
the Caspian will be built of the most ordinary pipes-I repeat, ordinary
pipes."
That was the honest truth. But it was also true that Professor Bagbanly
had visited the Institute several times in the evening and had had long
talks with Privalov. It was true, too, that a surprising machine was being
built in one of the rooms in Privalov's laboratory. Engineers Yura and
Nikolai, and also Valery Gorbachevsky, the lab technician, could have told
something about it, but they had strict orders not to divulge any
information.
Pavel Koltukhov was displeased by all the feverish and far-fetched
schemes being hatched at the Institute. The most stubborn debaters were
invited to his office, where he first heard them out and then cooled their
ardour with a stream of caustic remarks.
Meanwhile, Koltukhov continued to work on his resins. Sometimes, after
synthesizing a new compound, he would step across the street to the
Institute of Marine Physics and drop into Opratin's laboratory. He would
melt the resin in a mould and place it between the plates of a capacitor
linked up with a powerful electrostatic machine. While the resin was being
charged Koltukhov chatted calmly with Opratin about this and that and
related episodes from his life. "Does your resin hold its static charge
long?'" Opratin asked him one day.
"That depends on how I charge it. Your chief told me you are setting up
an installation with a Van de Graaft generator on an island somewhere. Now
if we were to charge the resin from that generator-"
"I'm afraid you'll have Lo wait some time for that," Opratin smiled.
"We've just begun installing it."
Pavel Koltukhov had his heart set on a strongly charged resin that
could be used to insulate underwater pipelines. He believed that a thin
insulation layer having a static charge could prevent corrosion more cheaply
and reliably than the many layers now used to cover the pipes.
"I knew about the properties of electrically charged resins before, but
it never occurred to me before," Koltukhov said. "Fedor Matveyev was the man
who gave me the idea." "Fedor Matveyev?"
"Remember the eighteenth century manuscript I told you about on the
beach?"
Opratin's expression grew guarded and his eyes flickered. "Why, yes, of
course. But what's the connection?"
"Matveyev wrote that the Hindus carried some kind of resin up into the
mountains," Koltukhov said slowly. "They left it for a time on high peaks,
where it received what they called 'heavenly strength'. This gave me the
idea that the Hindus might have been using the energy of cosmic rays without
actually being aware of it. There would be plenty of cosmic radiation at
high altitudes. They must have had some excellent resins, which they turned
into highly charged electrets."
"Highly charged electrets," Opratin repeated softly, tapping his
fingers on the table. "Yes, that certainly has possibilities."
In the twenties of the present century two Japanese researchers
discovered that some resins become charged and turn into permanent and quite
new sources of electricity after having been melted and left to cool in a
strong electrostatic field, between the plates of a capacitor. Like a
magnet, they pass on their properties without losing them. These were
electrets. If an electret is cut in two, new poles will arise at the new
ends.
Yura found himself spending more and more of his time in Koltukhov's
resin laboratory. He liked making new compounds according to Koltukhov's
formulas and measuring the electricity in the charged resins.
One day Koltukhov sent Yura over to Opratin's laboratory to charge the
latest batch of resin.
Opratin greeted Yura pleasantly, showed him the electrostatic machine,
and helped him to switch it on.
Yura looked about with curiosity. There were several people in white
overalls at work in the laboratory. One of them, a thickset man with a
shaggy head of hair, sat with his back to Yura, at a table on which an
aquarium with a wire coil round it and a valve oscillator stood. "Are you
doing high frequency experiments?" he asked casually.
"Oh, that's just a minor project," Opratin replied with a keen glance
at Yura. "Are you interested in high frequencies?" "No, not particularly."
A tall, husky man in blue overalls entered the laboratory. To Yura's
surprise, this was Uncle Vova Bugrov.
"Comrade Benedictov, here's the food for your fish," Bugrov said to
Anatole Benedictov in a deep, hoarse voice.
The shaggy-haired man sitting beside the valve oscillator turned round,
nodded, and took the two paper bags Bugrov was holding out to him. Yura was
unable to shift his gaze from the man's broad face and puffy eyelids.
"Why, hullo," said Bugrov shaking Yura's hand. "What brings you to our
Institute?"
"Do you work here?" Yura asked in surprise, his eyes still fixed on
Benedictov.
"I'm a laboratory technician. I've switched to science now. They think
very highly of me here. You know, I'm training a group of scientific workers
in wrestling."
"What does Benedictov do here?" Yura asked in a low voice.
"Benedictov? He's a scientist. He knows all there is to know about
fish. Shall I tell you what else I'm doing?" Bugrov asked boastfully. "I'm
an inventor, if you want to know. I'm making an electric dynamometer. What
d'you think of that?"
After charging the resin Yura rushed back to his own Institute and ran
up the stairs two at a time.
"There's news, Nikolai," he shouted. Panting, he told Nikolai about
seeing Benedictov, about the valve oscillator and about Vova Bugrov.
Nikolai ran the palm of his hand across his high forehead. "High
frequency- and fish? I wonder- But Opratin is studying the level of the
Caspian, isn't he?"
"Benedictov's the man to ask about the iron boxes."
"You think he'd tell you?"
During the lunch break Nikolai remained in the deserted laboratory.
Sitting at his desk, he cut a thin strip from the sheet of drawing paper on
his board. He pinned one end to the desk, twisted the other in a half-curl,
and glued the ends together.
He sat for a long time staring, in deep thought, at the twisted piece
of paper. Then, with a pencil, he drew a line along the edge of the paper
until it came full circle. The line ran round both sides of the strip of
paper, without Nikolai either lifting his pencil from the paper or crossing
the pencil line at any point. This strip of paper was the model of a
mathematical paradox known as the Mobius band. From the mathematical point
of view the band had no thickness and its surface was not divided into outer
and inner surfaces. It was only a surface, and nothing more. A window that
mathematics had opened up into the sphere of the Unknown.
Nikolai made a second strip twisted in the same direction and tried to
put it inside the first one, but this proved to be impossible. By trying to
put one strip into another he would have to bring the inner surface of one
towards the outer surface of the other. But if neither had an outer surface
or an inner surface how could he do this?
Nikolai flung the strips on the table and propped up his head on his
hand. "What if I made a similar spiral out of copper and linked it up to the
output circuit of an oscillator?"
He went out to the lounge, pulled Yura away from a game of table
tennis, and said: "Do you remember a thing called the Mobius band?"
NECESSITATING FEDOR MATVEYEV'S KNIFE,
OCCURS TO BENEDICTOV AND OPRATIN
"At last!" Opratin exclaimed, running his eyes across the letter, which
was typed on an official letterhead.
Ever since summer, Opratin's imagination had been fired by the letters
A M D G on Benedictov's box that had contained the missing knife. When
Benedictov showed him the box Opratin had immediately recalled the old
underground passage in Derbent, the crucifix on the chest of the skeleton,
and, lying beside it, the small flat box on a golden chain, with the letters
A M D G engraved on it.
From what Pavel Koltukhov had said Opratin now knew that there were
three boxes, and that the third box, the one in Derbent, contained some sort
of "key to the mystery".
Opratin had written a number of cautious letters, first to Derbent and
then to Moscow, after learning that the agent's equipment had been sent
there. Now the long-awaited reply was in his hands. The agent had been a
submarine officer in the Italian Tenth Torpedo-Boat Flotilla, notorious for
its sudden raids on British naval bases with mines guided by frogmen.
Part of the Tenth Flotilla had been transferred to the Crimea in 1942.
When the Nazis broke through to the North Caucasus part of the Flotilla had
concentrated submarines and frogmen-guided torpedoes at Mariupol on the Sea
of Azov for transfer to the Caspian Sea.
Vittorio da Castiglione, an officer of the Tenth Flotilla, parachuted
down onto the Caspian coast near Derbent on a dark autumn night. His mission
had probably been to reconnoitre the underwater approaches to the port of
Derbent and note installations that could be attacked with guided torpedoes.
But he had wandered into an old quarry and had perished there. Nobody would
ever have learned about Vittorio da Castiglione if Opratin had not stumbled
over him.
"To recapitulate," Opratin said to himself, "one box contained Fedor
Matveyev's manuscript and another the knife. But what was in the third box?
Probably something very important that would throw light on the entire
mystery."
Well, he'd soon know what it was all about.
Nikolai Opratin rubbed his hands in satisfaction.
The Institute of Marine Physics was making preparations to raise the
level of the Caspian Sea. This undertaking was based on the extremely simple
proposition that a heavy rain can produce one and a half millimetres of
precipitation in one minute. If rain poured down constantly on an area of
thirty square kilometres of the Caspian day in and day out, the level of the
sea would rise three metres in the course of a year. Water for the downpours
would have to be "borrowed" from the Black Sea, where there were plans to
build a powerful nuclear water boiler. A new Soviet method of obtaining
nuclear energy made such an installation possible.
As a gigantic fountain of steam gushed forth from the depths of the
Black Sea a system of directional antennae would force the endless grey
cloud to snake its way over the Caucasus Mountains. On reaching the downpour
area in the Caspian Sea the cloud would enter the zone of a powerful
electrostatic field. Here the concentrated steam would lose its heat, be
converted into water, and pour down on the sea.
Laboratory No. 8 was setting up cloud condensation experiments, and
this kept Opratin, as head of the laboratory, very busy indeed. The
installation had given him a good many sleepless nights. Erection of the
installation on a remote, uninhabited island in the Caspian was nearing
completion. Opratin was personally supervising the operations. He had in
mind certain other plans that were linked up with this installation.
The two new members of the staff introduced a somewhat disharmonious
note into the carefully planned arrangements in Opratin's laboratory.
Shaggy-haired, absent-minded Anatole Benedictov spilled reagents from
bottles on the tables, broke a great many vessels and often caused short
circuits. He argued with Opratin in a loud voice. Yet Opratin was patient
with him, and this was what aroused the greatest astonishment.
With Benedictov's arrival the "fish problem" suddenly loomed large in
the Institute programme. At any rate, it occupied all the best places in the
corridors, for that was where Anatole Benedictov had set up his aquariums.
He plagued the assistant manager in charge of supplies with demands for
various types of food for his fish.
Feeding the fish was one of the duties of the new lab technician, a
husky, rosy-cheeked man with slits for eyes and a tuft of reddish hair on
top of his head. This was Vova Bugrov. Bugrov very soon felt quite at home
in the world of scientific research. As one watched him puttering about
beside the spectrograph, softly humming a popular tune, one felt that the
delicate cassettes were doomed.
"I wonder why Opratin ever took this chap on as a technician," staff
members asked one another. "He looks more like a gangster than anything
else."
To everyone's surprise, though, the new technician turned out to have a
light touch; his huge paws handled the precise instruments gently and
deftly. Bugrov could do a marvellous soldering job. He put great effort into
developing the spectrograms, and he kept a detailed journal (with spelling
mistakes in it, true) of the functioning of the various lab instruments and
machines. This was more than even Opratin had expected from Bugrov.
The motorboat skimmed across the bay towards the open sea. Prow lifted
high, it left behind a pair of long, spreading, foamy moustaches. It was a
calm, sunny morning in October, with a slight chill in the air.
Bugrov, his cap pulled down over his forehead, sat beside the outboard
motor. Suddenly he pricked up his ears. Above the steady roar of the motor
he caught snatches of an interesting conversation.
"No, I don't think they know about the knife," said Nikolai Opratin.
"Then why did they come asking to see me?" Anatole Benedictov retorted.
"They asked questions, Rita says, about three small iron boxes. But why
three? One contained the knife; in the other, you say, they found a
manuscript. But where does a third box come from?"
"That's my business."
Opratin wrapped his raincoat more closely round him. Benedictov tried
to light a cigarette but every time he struck a match the wind blew it out.
He swore as he kept tossing matches into the water.
On reaching the island they guided the boat into a cove with a gently
sloping shore. Bugrov cut the motor and nimbly jumped out onto the damp
sand. He tied the painter to a length of pipe he had driven into the sand on
an earlier visit to the island.
Here, on this desolate little island, Laboratory No. 8 of the Institute
of Marine Physics had set up an experiment facility.
Two months ago a blunt-nose self-propelled barge had pulled its flat
belly up onto the sandy shore, and a tractor, followed by a crane on crawler
treads, had rolled out of its dark interior with much clanging.
An old concrete pillbox built on the island during the war had been
converted into a pilot plan for cloud condensation.
Benedictov and Opratin climbed to the top of the low but steep rise and
disappeared inside the former pillbox. Bugrov remained on the shore. He
walked up and down the sand for a while to stretch his legs, then sat down
on a rock to think.
There was plenty to think about. For two months now he had been
punching the clock, something he had never done before in his life- and what
was he getting out of it? Where was the knife for which he had agreed to
take on the job of lab technician?
It was becoming embarrassing. Friends were laughing at him. A steady,
full-time job, of all things! In science, too! It was time he gave up
working like a horse, they said.
Bugrov couldn't have agreed with them more. He would give it up-just as
soon as he finished his dynamometer. It would be a beauty! All you'd have to
do was step on the footboard and flex your muscles, and the machine would
show you how strong you were. There would be no lights or bells, like in the
ordinary dynamometers. This one was strictly scientific.
All of a sudden Bugrov grew angry with himself. What was he thinking
about? The knife was what he needed! Then he would be able to tour
provincial towns with an astonishing knife act.
He scrambled up the rise and approached the pillbox. After opening the
inclining steel door he entered an underground passageway lined with shelves
holding storage cells. The passageway led into a round room with a domed
ceiling. An internal combustion engine stood there. From this room Bugrov
passed through a narrow doorway into what had once been the casemate.
The room was crowded with laboratory equipment. Red-hot filaments
glowed in an electric fireplace. Nikolai Opratin and Anatole Benedictov sat
at a table under a bright light.
Bugrov marched to the middle of the room and stood there, hands in
pockets, his padded jacket flung open. His face wore an insolent expression.
"You promised me the knife," he said. "When will it be ready?"
Opratin drummed his fingers on the table. "Look here," he said in an
even voice, "if you get on my nerves you'll never lay eyes on the knife at
all. Can't you see we haven't set up all the equipment yet? Be patient."
"I'm patient, all right," Bugrov replied defiantly. "Too patient, in
fact. I'm just warning you. You'd better speed things up."
"That will do. Instead of complaining you could put your energies to
better use by tinkering with the power generator. You're the one who will be
servicing it."
Bugrov pushed his cap to the back of his head and left the room.
The mutiny on the island had been put down.
"I can't see why you have anything to do with that gorilla," Benedictov
remarked.
Opratin shook his head. "Rank ingratitude, I call it. That gorilla is
the person who gets you those ampoules you're so fond of."
Benedictov said nothing.
"He's right. We'll have to speed things up," Opratin went on. "We won't
be here alone forever. We'll have to start work on cloud condensation as
well, and that means researchers will be coming here to work. I shan't allow
them to see the equipment in the room below, of course, but still- Anyway, I
have an idea." He told Benedictov of his talk with Pavel Koltukhov, about
the episode mentioned in Fedor Matveyev's manuscript and about the
electrets.
"Don't you see? The Hindus may very well have used electrets as a
source of energy. Electrets have a peculiar property to which I have given a
great deal of thought."
"Namely?"
"A shift in polarity. Sometimes an electret begins to lose its charge
within a few hours. The charge drops to zero and then increases again, but
now the positive and negative poles have changed places. An electret with
altered poles will exist for an indefinite time. Sometimes this happens and
sometimes it doesn't. W7hat changes take place in the substance of the
electret? What is this zero threshold across which its charge passes? That's
the question."
"A magnet magnetizes other substances without losing its properties. An
electret charges other substances without losing its charge," said
Benedictov. He was speaking with his eyes closed, concentrating on his
words. "Splendid! That confirms my idea. What we must do is set up an
installation in which the knife will transmit the charge. The knife will
charge other bodies with its properties, will remake their structure to
resemble its own. To put it more exactly, the knife will transmit
penetrability."
Opratin stared at Benedictov in silence for a few seconds.
"Transmit penetrability," he repeated in a low voice. "Use the knife as
a transducer. That's a brainwave!"
Benedictov coughed to clear his throat and then amplified his idea.
"It's a brainwave!" Opratin repeated, striding up and down the room.
"Do you mean to say we can do it with living material too?"
"Exactly. My experiments with fish make me confident of success."
Opratin stopped pacing the floor. "To sum up, we'll make an electret
with switched polarity that will create a permanent field. We'll intensify
the field with a powerful charge of static electricity, using our Van de
Graaff generator. We'll set up the installation in such a way as to make the
fields intersect. We'll place Fedor Matveyev's knife, the transmitter of the
'charge,' at one intersection and an ultrashort wave radiator at the other.
It will be a kind of cage in which we'll put some of your fish, or maybe
dogs. Or anything else, for that matter. We'll keep changing the field
intensity and keep on experimenting until we hit on just the right angle!"
Opratin's eyes sparkled. He was so excited that he could hardly stand still.
"Yes, we'll force that knife to transmit its properties to another object!'"
Arguing and interrupting each other, the two scientists proceeded to
sketch designs of the future installation. Suddenly Benedictov flung aside
his pencil and rose, his joints creaking.
"The knife," he said. "We must have the knife. We won't get anywhere
without it. I don't think you're searching for it the way you should."
"I've combed the sea floor at that place three times." Opratin stopped,
then added in a lower voice, "Is there any reason why your wife should want
to hinder our work?"
"Hinder our work? No, although lately she's been urging me to drop my
experiments. But that's all. Why do you ask?"
^Because the knife doesn't seem to be at the bottom of the sea. I have
a feeling your wife is concealing it."
Benedictov's face grew long. "Impossible. Why should she do that?"
"Why should she try to persuade you to give up this line of
experiments?"
Benedictov did not reply. The electric fireplace threw red shadows
across his gloomy face.
"Never mind, you leave the knife to me," Opratin said. "I'll get it."
IN WHICH VALERY GORBACHEVSKY'S LITTLE FINGER PLAYS THE LEADING PART
Nikolai and Yura were now completely engrossed in the enigmatic Mobius
band. Their catch-all notebook was filled to overflowing with formulas and
sketches of intertwined bands.
"Your idea of using one side is marvellous, Nikolai!" Yura exclaimed.
"I'm sure the Mobius band will give us the field we need. Imagine! No pipes!
A stream of oil flowing straight through the sea!"
Yura's enthusiasm was infectious. "I've estimated," Nikolai said, "that
doing away with pipes to transport oil across the Caspian would save about
25,000 tons of steel."
"But that's not the main thing," Yura said impatiently. "We'll learn to
control surfaces. It'll be an epoch-making discovery!"
"Now don't let our imagination run away with you," Nikolai remarked.
"We aren't in that class at all. With our limited resources we can only set
ourselves a limited goal like increasing the surface tension of a drop of
mercury. If we succeed we'll try to do the same with oil."
Yura grew downcast. "Is that all?"
"No, not quite. Don't spread this all over the Institute and don't say
anything, meanwhile, to our chief. Is that clear?"
"Yes, strictly confidential," Yura said with a sigh. "The Inquisition
put the same kind of pressure on Galileo."
The evenings in Cooper Lane were now a busier time than ever. Yura and
Nikolai had enlisted the services of three young engineers from the
automation department, who helped them to assemble intricate electronic
circuits. They often blew the fuses and then had to go out with a candle to
repair the damage. Luckily, Nikolai's mother was a patient, kind-hearted
woman.
One day lab technician Valery Gorbachevsky took Yura aside. "Need any
help evenings?" he asked.
Yura stared at him. "How do you know what we're doing after working
hours?"
"I'm not deaf, am I?"
"All right, drop in tomorrow at eight. Just keep whatever you see under
your hat. Don't mention it to Privalov. What we're doing at home is our own
private concern."
Valery nodded.
"After all, Faraday was once a lab technician too."
"Faraday? A lab technician?"
"That's right. Not here, of course, but at the Royal Institution of
Great Britain. As you can see, a big future lies ahead of you."
That evening Yura, a guitar slung over his shoulder, strode briskly
down Cooper Lane and turned into the courtyard of Nikolai's house. A series
of what sounded like gunshots came from the other side of the archway, where
a tall, plump woman was beating a carpet. At sight of Yura she gave a broad
smile. "Haven't seen you for a long time," she said.
"Good evening, Claudia," said Yura.
"Is Nikolai throwing a birthday party?" she asked. "Guests keep coming
and coming. Young people, all of them." She smiled again. "My Vova is doing
scientific research too nowadays."
"Well, give him my best regards." Yura smiled politely and ran up the
steps two at a time. He flung open a door from behind which came voices and
laughter. Everyone was there. Nikolai and the three other young engineers
were tinkering with the instruments. They had the efficient assistance of
Valery, who never suspected he was destined to be the hero of the day.
"What held you up?" asked Nikolai.
"Uncle Vova's wife stopped me for a chat and asked me to pass on her
very best regards," Yura replied.
"Why the guitar?"
"I'll sing you some songs."
"Stop twaddling. Come on, let's check the connections."
"I'll tell you why I brought the guitar." Yura's tone was now serious.
"Our tuning-fork generator is made to oscillate by an electromagnet, isn't
it? But the electromagnet means an extra magnetic field, in other words,
frequencies that we don't need at all. So I thought-"
"That's right," swarthy Hussein Amirov put in. "A guitar can do the
work more simply than an electromagnet."
The installation stood on a big table behind blue draperies. It
consisted of the original mercury heart and valve oscillator with a
tuning-fork breaker, to which a twist of copper tubing, an enormous Mobius
band, had been added. The output circuit of the valve oscillator was
connected to coils surrounding the band. The scales containing the mercury
heart stood inside the band.
The one-sided Mobius band was expected to produce a field which would
sharply increase the surface tension of the mercury and squeeze it so hard
that it would stop pulsating. Then, by adding mercury until the heart
started beating again they would be able to calculate, from the additional
weight, the extent to which surface tension had been stepped up. Once they
hit on the right combination of frequencies they could start experimenting
with oil.
Nikolai switched on the battery of capacitors. To do this he had to
crawl under the table and disturb Rex, who was sound asleep there.
As Yura checked the connections the neon bulb in the handle of his
screwdriver glowed with a twinkling pink light from time to time.
"All systems functioning," Yura finally declared. "Breaker frequency is
440 hertz."
"Ting, ting, ting" went the tuning-fork gently in the silence of the
room.
Yura hurriedly tuned his guitar. Next they adjusted the tuning-fork
breaker by moving the weights on its prongs.
Now all they had to do was touch a guitar 'string, and the contacts of
the tuning-fork breaker |would begin to break the high-frequency circuit at
the rate of 440 times per second.
The mercury heart beat quietly inside the mysterious field of the
Mobius band. Our experimenters knew, of course, that a long, boring search
lay ahead of them. They knew that an experiment rarely yields the desired
result the first time. Still, deep down inside there was the hope that
perhaps today a miracle would take place.
It didn't.
"We'll have to vary the operating factors," said Nikolai. "Will you
strike B on the tuning-fork, Valery?"
Ting-ting-ting.
Yura plucked a guitar string.'
There was silence, broken suddenly by a sharp knock on the door.
"Who could that be?" Nikolai wondered.' "Mother said she wouldn't
return home until late."
The young men moved away from the installation and drew the draperies
to hide it from view. Only Valery, with his tuning-fork, :and Rex remained
behind the draperies.
"Let's liven up the party!" shouted Yura. He plucked the strings of the
guitar, took a few dancing steps, and began to sing:
Why do you wander in the moonlight,
Oh black-eyed beauty of mine?
Powder in your pocket to poison me with,
A locomotive in your pocket to crush me with.
Nikolai opened the door and Vova Bugrov, in a striped blue pyjama top,
came in.
"Hullo, everybody," he said politely, letting his eyes roam about the
room. His glance rested on the blue draperies and on the scraps of wire
scattered on the floor. Then he shook hands with each of the young men in
turn. "Having a party?" he asked. "That's fine. I'll take only a minute of
your time, Nikolai." He pulled a rusty spring out of his pocket. "Will you
calculate its strength, please?"
"You said you'd switched to electric dynamometers," said Yura.
"So I have," Bugrov replied with dignity. "This is just something-well,
to make a long story short, a couple of pals dropped in and asked me to help
them."
Nikolai quickly measured the diameter of the spring and the wire to
which it was attached, and then took out his slide-rule.
"Twenty-eight kilograms."
"Thanks." Bugrov picked up the spring and moved towards the door.
At that moment there was a crash behind the draperies. The young men
exchanged glances. Vova swung round and stared at the draperies. Rex emerged
from beneath them, his paws tapping the floor. He stretched and then sniffed
at Bugrov's shoes.
"Go away, dog," said Bugrov, backing towards the door. "I don't like
being sniffed at."
Nikolai saw Bugrov out and locked the door behind him. Yura struck
another few chords to be on the safe side. Strumming the bass strings, he
sang:
Powder in your pocket to poison me with,
A locomotive in your pocket to crush mo with.
Nikolai pulled back the draperies. The scales with the mercury heart
had crashed to the floor. The tuning-fork generator lay in a pool of
solution with sparkling drops of mercury in it. Valery sat on the table, his
face as white as a sheet. He was holding up his right hand and was staring
in horror at his extended little finger.
That evening Boris Privalov and Pavel Koltukhov remained at the
Institute long after everyone else had left.
"If you don't mind my saying so, Boris, you're going round the bend
about that idea of a pipeline without any pipes," said Koltukhov.
"Has Professor Bagbanly gone round the bend too?"
Koltukhov said nothing.
Privalov looked at his watch and stood up. "By the way, he should be
here soon. Would you like to see what we're doing?"
They went down to the first floor and walked along a seemingly endless
corridor. Privalov unlocked the doors of a room in which a stator from a big
dynamo stood. Inside the stator, almost touching the pole shoes and
windings, was a coil of glass tubing filled with a pink liquid. The ends of
the coil were connected with a tank and a centrifugal pump.
"It looks like a high-frequency still for making home-brew liquor,"
Koltukhov said with a laugh, touching the cold glass with the tips of his
fingers.
"We're doing two experiments with this apparatus," Privalov explained.
"The liquid in the tube is water to which we have added acid to make it a
conductor and a colouring substance to make it easier to observe. Now watch.
This is the first experiment."
At the push of a button a faint hum arose as the centrifugal pump began
to drive the pink liquid through the glass coil.
"The winding of the stator is not connected with the mains," said
Privalov. "It's only connected with the voltmeter. Watch this!"
The voltmeter needle trembled and crept towards the right-hand side of
the dial.
"See that?"
"Of course. The liquid is a conductor. It cuts the magnetic lines of
force of the stator and induces electromotive force in the windings. There's
nothing new about that. A meter in which a liquid passes through a tube of
non-magnetic material is based on this principle."
"That's true, there's nothing new about it. But whereas the voltage in
those meters is insignificant, here-"
"Oho!" exclaimed Koltukhov, his eyes on the voltmeter. "How did you
manage that?"
"Professor Bagbanly," Privalov said shortly. "Now we'll do the
experiment the other way round."
He switched off the pump. The liquid stopped moving and the voltmeter
needle returned to "zero".
"Now I'll simply send some current into the stator winding."
He pushed another button. Although not driven by the pump, the pink
liquid again ran up into the spiral.
"Let's make it harder." Privalov turned the knob of a valve. "Keep your
eye on the pressure-gauge. I could increase the resistance still more and
get a higher pressure. But the fragility of the glass tubes prevents me from
doing so. Do you see what I'm getting at?"
Koltukhov looked puzzled. His eyes stared fixedly from beneath his grey
eyebrows.
"Wait a minute," he said. "In other words, a liquid in an
electromagnetic field starts moving all by itself. Is this a model of the
movement of a liquid through a pipeless pipeline?"
"Right. The only difference is that the surface tension of the liquid
will take the place of pipes, while a directed field will replace the
windings and magnets."
" 'The only difference' is a mild way of putting it," Koltukhov
muttered.
They heard quick footsteps in the corridor. The door opened and
Professor Bakhtiar Bagbanly entered.
"Ah, our main opponent!" he said as he shook hands with Pavel
Koltukhov. "Have you come to see for yourself?"
"He's sceptical," said Privalov.
"Well, that's part of the scientific approach." Professor Bagbanly ran
his eyes over the apparatus, then asked Privalov some technical questions
about the experiment. He began to pace the room, a short, stocky,
large-headed man with thick grey hair.
"What examples do we have of mutual penetrability?" he asked suddenly.
"Diffusion," said Privalov. "The diffusion of solids."
"Yes, but diffusion calls for specific conditions. Even if you press
perfectly polished surfaces of lead and tin together very hard, it will take
years before even the slightest penetration takes place. However, if you
heat a compressed bundle of lead and tin to 100 degrees a layer of
intermingled molecules will appear in their border area within twelve hours.
What is it that puts up resistance to transition through the contact zone?"
The Professor stopped his pacing and gave the two engineers a thoughtful
look. "The surface! That mysterious world of two-dimensional phenomena."
He resumed his pacing, meanwhile smoothing; with his fingertips, the
grey moustaches beneath his hooked nose.
"There's another diffusional phenomenon," he went on, "and that is
pressure contact welding. It produces mutual penetration, but you need high
temperatures and pressures to do it."
"What about welding inside a vacuum?" Privalov asked. "It can be done
at a very low pressure and without much heating. What is more, you can join
the most diverse materials-steel and glass, for instance. Actually, it isn't
so much welding as intensified diffusion."
Professor Bagbanly nodded in agreement. "Yes, but why? Possibly,
because in a vacuum a surface is free and opens up, as it were, since it
borders on empty space. The forces protecting the surface weaken and open up
the substance. However, our goal is to intensify diffusion until we attain a
state of unhindered mutual penetration. Forcing matter to open its gates,
isn't that so?" He traced a question mark in the air with his forefinger.
"Is there a lot of matter in solids? The answer is no, there's very little.
Actually, an atom has a very insignificant volume. But what is the atom
filled with? After all, matter is concentrated in the nucleus of the atom.
From the standpoint of density, everything under the sun is as sparse as-"
he searched for a comparison-" as sparse as the hair on the head of our
friend Pavel Koltukhov."
Koltukhov gave a smirk and involuntarily ran a hand over his bald head.
"Considered from the position of a mechanical model, matter can easily
be penetrated," Professor Bagbanly went on. "Actually, though, we cannot
regard matter as a mechanical conglomeration of small spheres situated at a
great distance from one another. Powerful internal forces connect all the
components and prevent penetration. If those forces did not exist my hand
would easily pass through metal." He laid the palm of his hand on the
stator. "The probability of physical particles meeting is insignificant.
Less probable than peas colliding if two handfuls are thrown towards each
other."
The Professor wiped his hands on his handkerchief and looked at the two
men, his former pupils, as though expecting them to make some objections.
"Now I'll formulate the problem," he said, in the same tone of voice he
had once used when lecturing to his students. "Hang your ears on the hook of
attention. Without changing the mechanical structure of matter we must
rearrange its bonds-the bonds between atoms and between molecules-in such a