explain why. He only said:
"That's what I told you, we'll have some real trouble." An hour later,
after our partner Sno-Cat and its caravan of sleighs had long since vanished
in the distance, we were still under repair. Incidentally, no one paid any
attention to Vano and there were no complaints. I was the only one who paced
about, lost in thought and getting into everyone's way. Irene was busy
concocting an article for the "Soviet Woman" magazine. Tolya was engaged in
drawing fanciful charts of air currents caused by the warm-up; Zernov was,
as he put it, getting together material for a scientific paper, perhaps for
a new dissertation.
"A second doctoral dissertation?" I asked in surprise. "What for?"
"No, it's not for a PhD, a candidate's dissertation."
I was positive he was joking, but he looked at me with pity: a good
mentor always pities his weak-minded pupils.
"My science," he explained patiently, "has been rejected by the
present, and it'll be too long to wait for the future. I won't live that
long."
I still didn't understand.
"Why?" In a couple of winters there'll be ice again in the Polar
regions."
"The process of ice formation," he interrupted me, "is a familiar thing
to every school child. What I am interested in is the thousand-year-old
continental ice. You say it'll get cold again and there'll be ice. Of course
there will. During the past half a million years there were at least three
ice invasions, the last one about twenty thousand years ago. Do you expect
me to wait for the next one? And even if I could, where would it come from?
There is no more hope from the deviation of the earth's axis. No, old boy,
there are no two ways about it, I'll have to change my speciality."
"To what?"
He laughed.
"It won't be far away from the 'horsemen'. You may say that there is
more that's hypothetical than experimental. Well, there is. But as the
cybernetics people say, it is possible to find an almost optimal solution
for nearly all problems." He was becoming bored, even the best of teachers
give up after too much questioning. "You ought to get out there and do some
photographing, your profession is still in demand."
I picked up my camera but couldn't find anything to shoot except the
last ice on the earth. Vano was welding the broken tread. A sheaf of while
sparks was flying out of his work. I looked around and suddenly saw
something big, a bright red chunk like an elephant standing at a distance of
about a kilometre in the middle of the perfect leeway. It had beautiful fur,
whatever it was. Maybe the reddish light in the distance further illuminated
by the sun hanging just over the horizon, produced that colour. On the other
hand, it might simply be a very large bright-red deer. I screwed up courage
and went up to Vano. "Listen, be a nice guy, take a look down the road."
He looked.
"What am I supposed to look at, that rusty rock?"
"It's not rusty, it's red." "All the rocks round here are red." "Why is
it in the middle of the road?" "It's not in the middle, it's on the side.
When they cut the ice, they left the rock there." "When we came here it
wasn't there." Vano took another and more attentive look. "Maybe it wasn't.
When we get this thing going we'll see."
From a distance the stone appeared to be stationary, but the more I
looked at it, the more it looked like a real stone and not a beast. Even at
school I had learned that there were no large animals in Greenland. Deer?
But what would a dear find to eat on glacial ice, particularly when it was
half cut away?
Vano went back to his welding and paid no more attention either to me
or the rock. I decided to get closer. I had a hunch, I can't say exactly
what kind, but something told me to go and find out, that it would well be
worth it. And so I went. At first the stone, or the lurking beast, did not
bring forth any associations. But I tried hard to recall something. It
happens occasionally, you try to recall something very familiar, but all
efforts are in vain. I kept on walking toward it and peering at it. Will I
recognize or recall something? And finally when the red beast grew big in
front of me and had ceased to be a stone, I realized that it was not a beast
at all. Then I recognized it.
In front of me, across the leeway, stood our famous old Antarctic
"Kharkovchanka" tractor, all purple. The most amazing and even frightening
thing about it all was the fact that it was precisely our machine, the one
with the bent-in front windshield and a fresh tracked snow-catcher. It was
our old "Kharkovchanka" vehicle, all right. The one we went out to seek the
rose clouds in, the one that plunged into a crevice and
later doubled before my eyes.
I was really afraid for the first time. Was this a hypno-trick or that
accursed reality? Cautiously, apprehensively, I went around the machine:
everything had been reproduced with ultimate exactitude. The metal was metal
to the touch, the cracks in the Plexiglas were real and fresh, and the inner
insulating padding on the door stuck out just a bit down below: the door was
not closed. Was this another trap, was I again in the role of an
experimental guinea pig? What was going to happen? Of course, I could run
back and that would most likely have been the wisest and safest thing to do.
But curiosity overcame my fright. I wanted to open that door myself and feel
the handle, press and hear the familiar clanking of metal and enter. I even
began to guess what I would see inside. My fur jacket on a hanger, skis
clamped in place and a wet floor, because the boys had tracked in snow. The
half-open inner door would, as usual, creak, and the cold air from the
platform would rush into the cabin with a swish.
That's exactly what happened, repeating what I had recalled a moment
before. It was even funny how the details were repeated-the sewn sleeve of
the jacket, the patched up rug with traces of snow that had not yet melted,
even scratches on the floor caused by sleigh runners: sleighs were hauled
into the cabin and then out the top hatch, because all that happened after
the machine took its downward plunge. I saw the tracks when going out, and I
saw my double a second time in the entrance way. Now I was seeing it for a
third time. The door to the cabin creaked, and once again I hesitated
whether to enter or not, my knees were knocking, my mouth was dry and my
fingers were cold.
"Come on, come on," I heard a voice from behind the door, "this isn't
the dentist, there's not going to be any drilling."
An awfully familiar voice, so familiar that it was impossible not to
recognize it. It was my own voice.
I pushed the door and entered the cabin where Tolya always worked and
where I regained consciousness on the floor after the accident that time on
the Antarctic plateau. At the table was my double, all smiles. He was
positively merry, something that I was definitely not. If I had given it
some thought and had been more observant, I would straightway have said that
this was another person, not the one I found that time unconscious in the
cabin of a tractor that had been duplicated by beings from space. This was
my modern model that had probably been replicated during the short minutes I
dropped by parachute into the blue cupola through the violet (or was it
crimson) gaseous trap-door. The overalls I had on at the time were
carelessly thrown on the couch. That was what I noticed a bit later, after I
had overcome my fright and amazement. At first I simply thought this was a
repetition- for what purpose I couldn't make out-of the performance in the
Antarctic.
"Have a seat, buddy," he said pointing to a vacant place opposite him.
I sat down. For a moment it seemed to me a mirror in front of me, and
behind the mirror my counterpart of the fairy world, my Anti-I. "What has he
come to life again for," I thought. "And with the 'Kharkovchanka' vehicle as
well?"
"Where do you expect me to live?" he said. "There's ice all around and
nobody has yet given me a flat with central heating."
I was no longer afraid, but I was mad as hell.
"What's the idea of living at all?" I said. "What storehouse did they
keep you in before resurrection?"
He gave a cunning smile, just like I do when I'm sure of my physical
and intellectual superiority.
"Resurrect whom? A frightened little fool that almost goes out of his
mind when he comes across his copy?"
"So he was afraid, after all," I replied with irony.
"I was a replication of you. 'Was' is what I want to stress. Now I am,
I exist, get it?" "No, I don't."
"At that time I did not know how you lived all these months, what you
ate, what you read, what illnesses you had and what you thought about. Now I
know. And even more than that." "More than what?"
"I know more and I know it better. You know only yourself, and even
that rather poorly. I know both myself and you too. I am a perfected model
of you, more refined than your movie camera compared with the camera of
Lumier."
He put a hand on the table. I touched it to find out whether he was a
person or not.
"Convinced? Only more cleverly constructed." I still had one trump card
in reserve. I was now going to play it.
"Huh, some superman!" I said deprecatingly. "You were devised during my
parachute jump. You know everything that happened to me prior to that time.
But what about afterwards?"
"And afterwards too. I know everything. If you like, I can repeat your
conversation with Thompson after landing. Also about the jigsaw puzzle, or
the talk with Zernov about ice and profession. Perhaps with Vano about the
red stone?" he guffawed.
I was silent racking my brains for some kind of reply.
"You won't find anything," he said.
"What's that, you reading my thoughts?"
"Precisely. In the Antarctic we could only guess about the thoughts of
one another, or to put it more exactly, about plans. Remember how you wanted
to kill me? But now I know everything you are thinking about. My neuron
antennas are simply more sensitive than yours. That is how I know what
happened to you after you landed. Remember that I am you plus a few
corrections to nature. Something in the way of supplementary elements."
I did not experience either fright or wonderment-only the excitement of
a losing player. But I still had one more trump, that is, I hoped I had it.
"Still and all, I am the real one, and you are the artificial one. I'm
a human being and you're a robot. I live, while you will be disassembled."
He replied without any braggadocio, as if he knew something that I did
not.
"Whether they do or they don't is yet to be seen," he added with my own
mocking intonation. "It is still quite debatable about which one of us is
real and which is artificial. Let's ask our friends, okay? I bet I win."
"It's a bet," I said, "but what are the conditions?"
"If I lose, I'll tell you something of interest. To you alone. Nobody
present. If you lose, I'll give you the story of Irene."
"Where?" I asked.
"Here if you like. In my headquarters on this sinful earth."
I did not answer.
"Afraid?"
"I simply recalled Martin's car that vanished in Sand City, remember?"
"But Martin himself did not vanish."
"You are a more refined model than his counterparts," I replied.
He squinted his left eye the way I do and snickered.
"All right," he said, "let's see how events develop."
Leaving our jackets on the hanger, we entered the cabin of our
Greenland tracked vehicle, just as alike as the twins in the "Iron Mask". It
was just dinner time when Irene, all in white, was dishing out soup.
"Where did you vanish to?" she asked without looking, then she raised
her head-and dropped everything.
There was a long silence with a streak of ominous austerity. My Anti-I
was not in the least disturbed however.
"That was not a stone at all, Vano, you know what it was?" he said in
my own voice-so much my own that I shuddered as if hearing it for the first
time. "Our 'Kharkovchanka' from Mirny. The very same replicated machine that
you saw and I photoed. Take a good look, it's out there right now. And this
claimant-he pointed to me- was sitting there calm as can be waiting for us."
I was numb from such insolence. The scene was Dostoyevskian. Mr.
Golyadkin and his nimble double. I didn't even have time to object while
four pairs of friendly eyes peered at me hostilely. They were not even
surprised. That is the way one looks at a robber not at a ghost.
The first one to come to was Zernov.
"Since you've come to dinner, be our guest," he said looking me over.
"The situation is not new but rather interesting."
"Boris Arkadievich," I implored, "why the official tone? He's the
double, not me. We simply bet to find out whether you would be able to
distinguish us or not."
Zernov went over us both again, somewhat longer this time, and he said:
"A real puzzle, they're as like as two matchsticks. Come on, admit
which is the real one?"
"What a pity," I said.
"Don't get excited," said my reflection, "we're both real."
It seemed to me that a spark of understanding flashed in Zernov's eyes
when he turned to the speaker and then again to me.
"Let's begin, comrades," he invited everyone to the table and said
softly to Irene, "add another place, please."
"I've even lost my appetite," I said. "Again codfish?"
That was the wrong thing to say. The Anti-I attacked immediately.
"There you are, Irene, now which one of us is Yuri Anokhin? Which one
of us ordered pea salad this morning?"
I had actually spoken to her about it, and had forgotten. Skipped my
memory completely. I only noticed how gratefully Irene looked at my
counterpart. The game was going in his favour.
"We'll make a check on this through the use of a familiar method," said
Zernov, looking again and again from one of us to the other.
"It won't work," I said exasperated, "he knows everything I did and
thought during that accursed interval between creation and appearance. He
himself said that his neuron antennas are far more sensitive than mine."
"That's what you said," my Anti-I put in.
I felt like throwing into his face the cold soup that I didn't want to
eat anyway. Too bad I didn't because he added like a pistol-shot:
"Incidentally, doubles do not eat, because they do not have a digestive
tract."
"You're lying, Anokhin," said Zernov. He was now on an official footing
with both of us.
"But we haven't verified it, Boris Arkadievich,'' my Anti-I put in
without losing any time, "there are a lot of things we have not yet
verified. For example, the memory. So you say your antennas are more
sensitive," my tormenter said turning round to me. "Let's check and see.
Remember the contest in Russian literature in the ninth grade?"
"In the days of the Tsar Kosar?" I wisecracked.
"That's where I failed, on that Tsar. Remember on what? The third
quote."
I did not remember either the first or the second or the third. What
Tsar? Peter? From the "Copper Horseman"?
"Your antennas are malfunctioning. Its from 'Poltava', Mr. Golyadkin."
The bastard was reading my thoughts, and I was losing. Could it be that
I had forgotten so much?
"I don't know whether you've forgotten everything- or not, but you
certainly don't remember the epigraph to 'Fiesta', right?"
I didn't remember it.
"I insisted that that was your favourite book.
"From Gertrude Stein," I recalled.
"And the text?"
I was silent.
"So you're going to wait until I mentally repeat it? You don't
recollect anything, you simply remove my own recollections from my memory
cells." Anti-I turned to Tolya and said, "Ask him, Tolya, ask him something
easier. Let him try
to work his memory." Tolya thought a moment and then asked:
"Remember our talk about the monsoons?"
"Where?"
"In Umanak."
"Did we talk about monsoons? I haven t the slightest idea about them.
Some kind of winds is all I know."
"What did you say at that time?
What did I say? Christ, I couldn't remember a thing, even under
torture.
"You ask me," said the other Mr. Golyadkin triumphantly, "I said that
since childhood I have confused monsoons with trade winds."
I recalled the way Agatha Christie finishes her novels, when Hercule
Poirot unmasks the criminal, who sits crumpled up under the cross fire of
interrogation. That was the way I felt at this damned dinner.
And then suddenly at the height of triumph of my tormenter, Irene
looked at me thoughtfully and said: "You know, Yura, you're terribly like
him. So much so that it's awful."
That's the way things go. There are football games when some
insignificant little player that nobody ever pays any attention to all of a
sudden shoots in a terrific goal that wins the game, and there isn't even
any yelling in the stands. They only look in amazement at the "wonder". That
was exactly the way four pairs of eyes, again friendly, turned on me.
This time Anti-I did not parry the blow, he waited. Very calmly, and it
seemed to me even indifferently to what was going to follow. Could it be
that I too had such cold and empty eyes?
"Personally, I guessed these two apart quite some time ago, and I
figured out which was Yura," said Zernov turning to Irene. "But what is it
that convinced you?"
"Memory," exclaimed Irene. "It's the memory," she repeated with
conviction. "A human person cannot remember everything. Inessential things
are nearly always forgotten, blurred in one's memory, all the more so that
Yura is on the absent-minded side. But this one remembers everything: crazy
contests, conversations, quotations. An inhuman memory."
Anti-I remained silent. He looked at Zernov as if he knew that that one
would deal him the last irresistible blow.
And Boris Arkadievich did.
"I was convinced by one sentence." He motioned with his elbow to my
counterpart. " 'We are both real.' Remember? Our Yuri and in fact anyone
else would never have said a thing like that. Each of us would have been
confident that he was the real one, and the duplication, the model-the
synthetic entity. Our Antarctic doubles that were modelled with great
exactitude would have reasoned in the very same way, for they did not know
that they were simply copies of human beings. But one of these two knew
that. Both that he was the duplicate and that the model was in actuality
indistinguishable from a human. He alone could have said 'We are both real'.
He alone." Applause broke out and Anti-I applauded as well.
"Bravo, Boris Arkadievich! That was an analysis worthy of a scientist.
There is nothing to counter it. I am indeed the model, but a more refined
entity than you, who are nature-made. I have already mentioned that to Yuri.
I freely perceive the impulses of his brain cells. To put it more simply, I
know all of his thoughts and in the same fashion I can transmit to him my
own thoughts. Likewise, my memory is not human, not yours. Irene grasped
that at once. That was my next mistake, I could not keep it a secret. True
enough, I remember perfectly what Anokhin has done, said and thought during
all the years of his life, in early childhood, yesterday and today. That is
not all. I remember everything that he has read and heard in the recent
past-in other words I remember the entire body of information that he has
received and processed concerning the rose clouds and the attitude of
humanity towards their appearance and conduct. I know by heart all the
newspaper clippings that Anokhin has read and studied about the Paris
Congress. I can recite word for word any speech, remark or conversation
behind the scenes that has in some way reached Anokhin. I remember all of
his conversations with you, Boris Arkadievich, both in actuality and in the
synthesized world. And what is most important, I know why all this
supermemory of mine was needed and why it is associated with the second
synthesization of Anokhin."
Now I looked upon him with gratitude. My tormenter had vanished and
this was friend and companion on the way into the unknown.
"So you knew from the very start that you were synthesized?" Zernov
asked.
"Of course."
"And you knew when and how?"
"Not exactly. The very first instant that I came to in the cabin of the
'Kharkovchanka' vehicle I was already Anokhin, but I also knew that there
exists another one besides me and I also knew that the difference was
between us. I was programmed in a different manner and with other
functions."
"What kind?"
"First of all, to make my appearance and tell you."
"About what?"
"That the second synthesization of Anokhin is connected with the
information that he obtained and processed concerning the attitude of
humanity towards the phenomenon of the rose clouds."
"Why was Anokhin chosen for this purpose?"
"It may be because he was the first one to undergo a psychic study by
the cosmic beings."
"You say 'may be'. Is that your conjecture?"
"No, a slip of the tongue. I know it."
"From whom?"
"From no one. I simply know it."
"What does 'simply' mean? From what sources?"
"They are within me myself. Like hereditary memory. There is a great
deal that I know, simply know from nowhere at all. The fact that I am a
model, about my supermemory, about two Anokhins. And about the fact that I
must retain and convey all the information that he has accumulated."
"In order to transmit it to whom?"
"I do not know."
"To the space beings?"
"I do not know."
"I can't figure out your 'know' and 'do not know'." Zernov was quite
obviously irritated, which was not typical of him. "How about the facts
without the mystic background?"
"Nothing mystic here," sneered my Anti-I condescendingly. "Knowledge is
the quality and quantity of information obtained and processed. My knowledge
has been programmed, that is all. I would call it subknowledge."
"Perhaps also subconsciousness as well?" added Zernov.
But the double declined the correction.
"Who knows about the processes that occur in the subconscious? Nobody.
My knowledge is incomplete for the reason that is excludes the source, but
it is knowledge nevertheless. What is suboptical speed? Nearly that of the
speed of light. So also my subknowledge, it is something contrary to
supermemory."
"What do you know besides the fact that you are a model?" Irene
suddenly asked.
It was as if I had looked into a mirror at my own impertinent mug. But
it was he, of course. And his reply was in the same manner.
"For example that I am in love with you no less than Yuri Anokhin."
Everyone laughed except me. I got red in the face. For some reason I
was the one, not Irene.
She continued:
"Suppose Yuri is in love. Suppose he is even thinking of marrying me
and taking me away. How about you?"
"Me too, of course."
I couldn't have said it with more alacrity.
"And where to?"
Silence.
"What are you worth when matched with Yuri," she said with a good deal
of pity in her voice. "You are empty. They need only puff and you vanish."
"Yet I have a hunch ... I fell I know something more."
"About what?"
"About my life beyond the psychic state of Yuri Anokhin."
"Is there such a thing, such a life."
For the first time my double mused and sadly gave thought to something.
"There are times when I think that there is. Or, of a sudden, something
or someone within me says that there will be."
"What does 'something' or 'someone' mean?" asked Zernov.
"That which has 'been programmed. For example, the confidence that the
person closest to the truth was not a scientist but a science-fiction writer
who spoke at the Paris Congress. Or, for instance, the conviction that
Zernov's conjecture about contacts is true. And the feeling that we are not
quite understood-I say 'we' as a human being, do not be offended, for I am
no rose cloud-the feeling that much in our life and in our psychic make-up
is still obscure and demands study and that investigations will continue. Do
not ask me where and how for I do not know. Do not ask me what goes on under
the cupola for I have not seen. To put it more precisely, I have only seen
with the eyes of Anokhin.
1 know one thing for certain: as soon as I have told you everything,
the programmed functions will be switched off. Excuse my terminology, I am
not a cybernetics specialist. And then I will be recalled." He smiled. "They
are calling already. Farewell."
"I'll see you off," I said.
"Me too," Vano put in, "I'd like a glimpse of the 'Kharkovchanka'."
"It isn't there any longer," Yuri Anokhin No.2 opened the door into the
hallway. "Do not accompany me. You know what will happen to me: Yuri has
shot that scene already." He smiled sadly. "I am still a human being, and I
probably wouldn't like such curiosity."
He stepped out and from beyond the doorway waved to me.
"Don't be angry at the mystification, Yuri. Or at the way I played
things. As for the bet we made, I will keep it and carry out what I
promised. To-you alone, as we agreed."
After his departure, no one could screw up the courage to speak. The
breath of death somewhere out there on the icy road had somehow penetrated
to us. No matter what you say about model-building and synthesis, he was a
human being after all!
"What a pity," Tolya sighed, finally. "They must be flying already...."
"Cut it out," Irene put in, "stop it."
But I wanted to talk.
"If it starts up again, you'll go queasy as before," sneered Vano,
probably recalling his antics in the Antarctic and added with embarrassment:
"You know, Yuri, I didn't recognize you at first. The other one seemed to be
smarter."
"That's what everybody thought," said Dyachuk with a mix of irony and
admiration. "With a memory like a library! That's a memory I'd like to
have."
"He probably wanted to live so much."
* * *
I thought, and he replied:
"What do you think I am, a log? Of course I wanted to, and right now I
want to live."
Everything occurred in my consciousness. I did not concoct, contrive or
imagine, I heard.
"Where are you now?" I asked him in thought.
"Out on the ice highway. It's white all about me. But there is no snow.
But what difference does that make? No difference at all, right?"
"'That's terrible, isn't it?"
"Yes, a little. After all I am not plastic. But don't pity me, do not
think in high-flown terms about 'the icy breath of death!' Firstly, because
that is a hackneyed phrase, secondly, it is not the truth."
"But you are going to vanish."
"That is not death but only a transition to another state."
"A state in which you are no longer."
"Why? You simply do not have any sensations of yourself, like in a
dream."
"A dream passes. But in your case?"
"In mine too."
"You think you'll return?"
"Yes, sometime."
"And if you do not leave?"
"1 can't but leave."
"Go on strike."
"They're stronger than I am, old man."
"What kind of a man are you then? No freedom of the will, no?"
"Not yet."
"Not yet? What does the 'yet' mean?"
"What are you whispering, Yuri, poetry?"
I must have been moving my lips. That's why Irene asked.
"He's praying," said Tolya. "He's praying to God to wipe out his
duplicate. We had a cleric in our dormitory once, he was like that. He'd get
drunk and whisper just like that."
"Praying, my eye," Irene said. "Let the Admiral pray, Yuri can get
along with it, he's a poet. Your verses, right?"
I had to lie.
"Blok's. 'I know you, life, and I accept you and salute you with the
clash of shields...
"Whose life?"
"What difference does it make? Even if it is synthetic life."
"That's incorrect wording," he interrupted. Orthodox thinkers can make
an issue of it. Say, a live dog is better than a dead lion. That's the motto
of collaborationism. You would be calling for cooperation with a hostile
civilization."
"Thompson again. I'm fed up."
"They are too. They've figured it out."
"Are you conjecturing?"
"I know."
"What did you want to tell me?"
''That we'll meet again."
"Why do you say so to me alone?"
"Because that is the way the programme works. Think it over. There is
no need yet to spell out all the details."
"You want to do it honestly?"
"What?"
"I don't admire it that way. Not in the least, I don't."
"Let me tell you that you're not being polite, old man."
"Listen, I'm fed up with all these miracles and tricks, right up to the
ears, get me?"
"What are you whispering about?" again Irene.
"A bit off the rocker. I'd be raving if I were in his boots." That was
Tolya. Zernov was silent for some reason. And nobody had noticed. No, they
had.
"Why are you so quite, Boris Arkadievich? Tired of our talk?"
"No, just thinking." Zernov is always very tactful. "Real interesting
experiment! Amazingly conceived: just imagine reaching for all the
information they need via the person of Anokhin. Create a duplication of
memory. Apparently, they are not yet capable of responding to linguistic
(semantic) information directly, either acoustically, or optically. Words do
not reach them, either when pronounced or written. The only information they
can extract is in the form that is processed by a human brain-thoughts,
mental images."
"But why Anokhin? They could take any scientist." That was Tolya of
course.
"Is it really simply because he was synthesized first? What
significance can there be in being first?"
"The number one is of course meaningless. The importance lies in the
first experiment. Yes, that's it. Too, it might be because Anokhin has a
highly developed image perception. Every person has it but with varying
degrees of expressive-ness. The mathematician sees the world differently
from the painter or the musician, and naturally, the poet has his own image
of things. Say, when I mention the word 'pole', different people conjure up
widely disparate images, consciously or subconsciously, with their
connotations. One thinks of the North Pole, another recalls hoisting the
flag, a third pictures telephone poles and erection crews. What comes to
your mind, Anokhin?"
"Pole vaulting at college."
Everyone laughed.
And he laughed as well, I heard it. Not the acoustic part of laughter,
but the state of the nerve cells of the brain that generates laughter.
"You laughing?" I asked.
"Certainly. Pole vaulting?" He laughed again. "The trouble I had with
that pole!"
"Why you?"
"Don't ask silly questions. Incidentally, Zernov very correctly
perceived the necessity of imagery in receiving information."
"Did you listen into our conversation?"
"Through you I did. I respond to all the information that you process.
Invisibly I am present at all your conversations."
"Actually, I myself am not listening to everything."
"You're not listening, but you hear. And I store all that up in my
memory. By the way, listen to what's going on. Our Boris Arkadievich is
talking about that right now."
"... a lot is accumulated in a memory store of such kind. And a trained
memory can extract a great deal at a moment's notice. Generally speaking, a
'supermemory' is not a miracle. Recall Arago, what a phenomenon! And chess
players? Fantastic professional memory. If we only knew its code and the
mechanism of storing facts. ..."
"Do you think they know?"
That was Irene again. Rather unbelieving for some reason, and even with
a touch of irony. But Zernov did not notice the sarcasm, he was in dead
earnest.
"I am convinced. It may be that Anokhin is simply a successful
experiment. But they'll find out for sure. Somewhere among themselves."
"You believe that hypothesis too?"
"Why not? Is it worse than any of the others? Just as many points for
it as against it. What is more, it does not degrade human beings, rather
elevates them. The final link of contact and mutual study and, as a
consequence, of an exchange of information between two cosmic
civilizations."
"Did you hear that? Our Boris Arkadievich is real smart. The last link.
True enough. The lacking link."
"You believe that hypothesis too?"
"I'm not saying yes or no."
"Why?"
"It's too early. I do not yet have a free will. But the time will
come...."
I found that amusing.
"Mysticism again. I'm beginning to have doubts about your other-world
existence."
"Well, do you believe in saltations from the kingdom of necessity into
the kingdom of freedom^ We could formulate it that way, if you like. Freedom
of one's will. Freedom of thought. Freedom of creativity. Is there any
reason why we should not repeat the path you have traversed?"
"Then maybe the dreamer is right after all. A planet, some Earth Number
Two, will appear somewhere with our water, with our air and our cities?"
"You can joke through anything. Nobody knows what will appear and
where. Investigation does not always mean repetition, more often it
represents a search."
"For what? Synthesized dreams? A super-memory?"
"These are all trials, my friend. Only trials. We live in a world of
constants. Nature has long since created optimal dimensions and forms for
terrestrial conditions and protein life. So why change the constants?"
I must have said that aloud because Zernov smiled and replied:
"Naturally, why should it?"
I flushed. How would I account for my "thinking aloud" and about what?
Vano saved me.
"Perhaps we ought to get a move on, Boris Arkadievich, what do you
think?" he said. "The engine's working and the road's smooth, a racetrack
you might say."
Zernov looked at me sharply:
"What do you think, is it time to leave?"
"What did he mean by 'time'? I wonder whether he understood what was
going on."
"He's known for quite some time. And you know that he knows. Don't make
believe. You can tell them: It is time'. Anokhin the Second is ready to
leave."
"Don't torment me."
"Well, it is time. I am far away, they are close."
I suddenly felt weary, depressed, my throat constricted, I found it
hard to breathe. I no longer saw anyone or anything, except the distant
traveller in the white field.
"So this is the end."
"Not the end. Only till our next meeting."
"But will there be a next meeting?"
"No doubt about it."
"There or here?"
"Don't know, Yuri. What I don't know, I don't know. 'The point is that
it will be not only you and me that will meet. We and they. Remember how he
finished his speech at the Congress? 'And if they return, they will return
with an understanding of us, they will be enriched with a comprehension of
what to expect from us and with a knowledge of what to proffer us on this
mutual advance towards perfection.' That was well put, my friend!"
Suddenly, there was a break. I perceived a freedom of thought in no way
hampered, total.
"We can go," I said to Zernov, and I felt my voice shake. I hoped he
didn't notice.
"How come Anokhin's giving orders now?" asked Dyachuk.
Zernov answered, for I was helplessly weak.
"Out of the three thousand million human beings on the Earth, only
Anokhin is now linked with this extraterrestrial, perhaps even
extragalactic, civilization. So what will we say to humanity at large, Yuri?
Is there contact, and for how long?"
"For all time," I replied.
___________________________
"That's what I told you, we'll have some real trouble." An hour later,
after our partner Sno-Cat and its caravan of sleighs had long since vanished
in the distance, we were still under repair. Incidentally, no one paid any
attention to Vano and there were no complaints. I was the only one who paced
about, lost in thought and getting into everyone's way. Irene was busy
concocting an article for the "Soviet Woman" magazine. Tolya was engaged in
drawing fanciful charts of air currents caused by the warm-up; Zernov was,
as he put it, getting together material for a scientific paper, perhaps for
a new dissertation.
"A second doctoral dissertation?" I asked in surprise. "What for?"
"No, it's not for a PhD, a candidate's dissertation."
I was positive he was joking, but he looked at me with pity: a good
mentor always pities his weak-minded pupils.
"My science," he explained patiently, "has been rejected by the
present, and it'll be too long to wait for the future. I won't live that
long."
I still didn't understand.
"Why?" In a couple of winters there'll be ice again in the Polar
regions."
"The process of ice formation," he interrupted me, "is a familiar thing
to every school child. What I am interested in is the thousand-year-old
continental ice. You say it'll get cold again and there'll be ice. Of course
there will. During the past half a million years there were at least three
ice invasions, the last one about twenty thousand years ago. Do you expect
me to wait for the next one? And even if I could, where would it come from?
There is no more hope from the deviation of the earth's axis. No, old boy,
there are no two ways about it, I'll have to change my speciality."
"To what?"
He laughed.
"It won't be far away from the 'horsemen'. You may say that there is
more that's hypothetical than experimental. Well, there is. But as the
cybernetics people say, it is possible to find an almost optimal solution
for nearly all problems." He was becoming bored, even the best of teachers
give up after too much questioning. "You ought to get out there and do some
photographing, your profession is still in demand."
I picked up my camera but couldn't find anything to shoot except the
last ice on the earth. Vano was welding the broken tread. A sheaf of while
sparks was flying out of his work. I looked around and suddenly saw
something big, a bright red chunk like an elephant standing at a distance of
about a kilometre in the middle of the perfect leeway. It had beautiful fur,
whatever it was. Maybe the reddish light in the distance further illuminated
by the sun hanging just over the horizon, produced that colour. On the other
hand, it might simply be a very large bright-red deer. I screwed up courage
and went up to Vano. "Listen, be a nice guy, take a look down the road."
He looked.
"What am I supposed to look at, that rusty rock?"
"It's not rusty, it's red." "All the rocks round here are red." "Why is
it in the middle of the road?" "It's not in the middle, it's on the side.
When they cut the ice, they left the rock there." "When we came here it
wasn't there." Vano took another and more attentive look. "Maybe it wasn't.
When we get this thing going we'll see."
From a distance the stone appeared to be stationary, but the more I
looked at it, the more it looked like a real stone and not a beast. Even at
school I had learned that there were no large animals in Greenland. Deer?
But what would a dear find to eat on glacial ice, particularly when it was
half cut away?
Vano went back to his welding and paid no more attention either to me
or the rock. I decided to get closer. I had a hunch, I can't say exactly
what kind, but something told me to go and find out, that it would well be
worth it. And so I went. At first the stone, or the lurking beast, did not
bring forth any associations. But I tried hard to recall something. It
happens occasionally, you try to recall something very familiar, but all
efforts are in vain. I kept on walking toward it and peering at it. Will I
recognize or recall something? And finally when the red beast grew big in
front of me and had ceased to be a stone, I realized that it was not a beast
at all. Then I recognized it.
In front of me, across the leeway, stood our famous old Antarctic
"Kharkovchanka" tractor, all purple. The most amazing and even frightening
thing about it all was the fact that it was precisely our machine, the one
with the bent-in front windshield and a fresh tracked snow-catcher. It was
our old "Kharkovchanka" vehicle, all right. The one we went out to seek the
rose clouds in, the one that plunged into a crevice and
later doubled before my eyes.
I was really afraid for the first time. Was this a hypno-trick or that
accursed reality? Cautiously, apprehensively, I went around the machine:
everything had been reproduced with ultimate exactitude. The metal was metal
to the touch, the cracks in the Plexiglas were real and fresh, and the inner
insulating padding on the door stuck out just a bit down below: the door was
not closed. Was this another trap, was I again in the role of an
experimental guinea pig? What was going to happen? Of course, I could run
back and that would most likely have been the wisest and safest thing to do.
But curiosity overcame my fright. I wanted to open that door myself and feel
the handle, press and hear the familiar clanking of metal and enter. I even
began to guess what I would see inside. My fur jacket on a hanger, skis
clamped in place and a wet floor, because the boys had tracked in snow. The
half-open inner door would, as usual, creak, and the cold air from the
platform would rush into the cabin with a swish.
That's exactly what happened, repeating what I had recalled a moment
before. It was even funny how the details were repeated-the sewn sleeve of
the jacket, the patched up rug with traces of snow that had not yet melted,
even scratches on the floor caused by sleigh runners: sleighs were hauled
into the cabin and then out the top hatch, because all that happened after
the machine took its downward plunge. I saw the tracks when going out, and I
saw my double a second time in the entrance way. Now I was seeing it for a
third time. The door to the cabin creaked, and once again I hesitated
whether to enter or not, my knees were knocking, my mouth was dry and my
fingers were cold.
"Come on, come on," I heard a voice from behind the door, "this isn't
the dentist, there's not going to be any drilling."
An awfully familiar voice, so familiar that it was impossible not to
recognize it. It was my own voice.
I pushed the door and entered the cabin where Tolya always worked and
where I regained consciousness on the floor after the accident that time on
the Antarctic plateau. At the table was my double, all smiles. He was
positively merry, something that I was definitely not. If I had given it
some thought and had been more observant, I would straightway have said that
this was another person, not the one I found that time unconscious in the
cabin of a tractor that had been duplicated by beings from space. This was
my modern model that had probably been replicated during the short minutes I
dropped by parachute into the blue cupola through the violet (or was it
crimson) gaseous trap-door. The overalls I had on at the time were
carelessly thrown on the couch. That was what I noticed a bit later, after I
had overcome my fright and amazement. At first I simply thought this was a
repetition- for what purpose I couldn't make out-of the performance in the
Antarctic.
"Have a seat, buddy," he said pointing to a vacant place opposite him.
I sat down. For a moment it seemed to me a mirror in front of me, and
behind the mirror my counterpart of the fairy world, my Anti-I. "What has he
come to life again for," I thought. "And with the 'Kharkovchanka' vehicle as
well?"
"Where do you expect me to live?" he said. "There's ice all around and
nobody has yet given me a flat with central heating."
I was no longer afraid, but I was mad as hell.
"What's the idea of living at all?" I said. "What storehouse did they
keep you in before resurrection?"
He gave a cunning smile, just like I do when I'm sure of my physical
and intellectual superiority.
"Resurrect whom? A frightened little fool that almost goes out of his
mind when he comes across his copy?"
"So he was afraid, after all," I replied with irony.
"I was a replication of you. 'Was' is what I want to stress. Now I am,
I exist, get it?" "No, I don't."
"At that time I did not know how you lived all these months, what you
ate, what you read, what illnesses you had and what you thought about. Now I
know. And even more than that." "More than what?"
"I know more and I know it better. You know only yourself, and even
that rather poorly. I know both myself and you too. I am a perfected model
of you, more refined than your movie camera compared with the camera of
Lumier."
He put a hand on the table. I touched it to find out whether he was a
person or not.
"Convinced? Only more cleverly constructed." I still had one trump card
in reserve. I was now going to play it.
"Huh, some superman!" I said deprecatingly. "You were devised during my
parachute jump. You know everything that happened to me prior to that time.
But what about afterwards?"
"And afterwards too. I know everything. If you like, I can repeat your
conversation with Thompson after landing. Also about the jigsaw puzzle, or
the talk with Zernov about ice and profession. Perhaps with Vano about the
red stone?" he guffawed.
I was silent racking my brains for some kind of reply.
"You won't find anything," he said.
"What's that, you reading my thoughts?"
"Precisely. In the Antarctic we could only guess about the thoughts of
one another, or to put it more exactly, about plans. Remember how you wanted
to kill me? But now I know everything you are thinking about. My neuron
antennas are simply more sensitive than yours. That is how I know what
happened to you after you landed. Remember that I am you plus a few
corrections to nature. Something in the way of supplementary elements."
I did not experience either fright or wonderment-only the excitement of
a losing player. But I still had one more trump, that is, I hoped I had it.
"Still and all, I am the real one, and you are the artificial one. I'm
a human being and you're a robot. I live, while you will be disassembled."
He replied without any braggadocio, as if he knew something that I did
not.
"Whether they do or they don't is yet to be seen," he added with my own
mocking intonation. "It is still quite debatable about which one of us is
real and which is artificial. Let's ask our friends, okay? I bet I win."
"It's a bet," I said, "but what are the conditions?"
"If I lose, I'll tell you something of interest. To you alone. Nobody
present. If you lose, I'll give you the story of Irene."
"Where?" I asked.
"Here if you like. In my headquarters on this sinful earth."
I did not answer.
"Afraid?"
"I simply recalled Martin's car that vanished in Sand City, remember?"
"But Martin himself did not vanish."
"You are a more refined model than his counterparts," I replied.
He squinted his left eye the way I do and snickered.
"All right," he said, "let's see how events develop."
Leaving our jackets on the hanger, we entered the cabin of our
Greenland tracked vehicle, just as alike as the twins in the "Iron Mask". It
was just dinner time when Irene, all in white, was dishing out soup.
"Where did you vanish to?" she asked without looking, then she raised
her head-and dropped everything.
There was a long silence with a streak of ominous austerity. My Anti-I
was not in the least disturbed however.
"That was not a stone at all, Vano, you know what it was?" he said in
my own voice-so much my own that I shuddered as if hearing it for the first
time. "Our 'Kharkovchanka' from Mirny. The very same replicated machine that
you saw and I photoed. Take a good look, it's out there right now. And this
claimant-he pointed to me- was sitting there calm as can be waiting for us."
I was numb from such insolence. The scene was Dostoyevskian. Mr.
Golyadkin and his nimble double. I didn't even have time to object while
four pairs of friendly eyes peered at me hostilely. They were not even
surprised. That is the way one looks at a robber not at a ghost.
The first one to come to was Zernov.
"Since you've come to dinner, be our guest," he said looking me over.
"The situation is not new but rather interesting."
"Boris Arkadievich," I implored, "why the official tone? He's the
double, not me. We simply bet to find out whether you would be able to
distinguish us or not."
Zernov went over us both again, somewhat longer this time, and he said:
"A real puzzle, they're as like as two matchsticks. Come on, admit
which is the real one?"
"What a pity," I said.
"Don't get excited," said my reflection, "we're both real."
It seemed to me that a spark of understanding flashed in Zernov's eyes
when he turned to the speaker and then again to me.
"Let's begin, comrades," he invited everyone to the table and said
softly to Irene, "add another place, please."
"I've even lost my appetite," I said. "Again codfish?"
That was the wrong thing to say. The Anti-I attacked immediately.
"There you are, Irene, now which one of us is Yuri Anokhin? Which one
of us ordered pea salad this morning?"
I had actually spoken to her about it, and had forgotten. Skipped my
memory completely. I only noticed how gratefully Irene looked at my
counterpart. The game was going in his favour.
"We'll make a check on this through the use of a familiar method," said
Zernov, looking again and again from one of us to the other.
"It won't work," I said exasperated, "he knows everything I did and
thought during that accursed interval between creation and appearance. He
himself said that his neuron antennas are far more sensitive than mine."
"That's what you said," my Anti-I put in.
I felt like throwing into his face the cold soup that I didn't want to
eat anyway. Too bad I didn't because he added like a pistol-shot:
"Incidentally, doubles do not eat, because they do not have a digestive
tract."
"You're lying, Anokhin," said Zernov. He was now on an official footing
with both of us.
"But we haven't verified it, Boris Arkadievich,'' my Anti-I put in
without losing any time, "there are a lot of things we have not yet
verified. For example, the memory. So you say your antennas are more
sensitive," my tormenter said turning round to me. "Let's check and see.
Remember the contest in Russian literature in the ninth grade?"
"In the days of the Tsar Kosar?" I wisecracked.
"That's where I failed, on that Tsar. Remember on what? The third
quote."
I did not remember either the first or the second or the third. What
Tsar? Peter? From the "Copper Horseman"?
"Your antennas are malfunctioning. Its from 'Poltava', Mr. Golyadkin."
The bastard was reading my thoughts, and I was losing. Could it be that
I had forgotten so much?
"I don't know whether you've forgotten everything- or not, but you
certainly don't remember the epigraph to 'Fiesta', right?"
I didn't remember it.
"I insisted that that was your favourite book.
"From Gertrude Stein," I recalled.
"And the text?"
I was silent.
"So you're going to wait until I mentally repeat it? You don't
recollect anything, you simply remove my own recollections from my memory
cells." Anti-I turned to Tolya and said, "Ask him, Tolya, ask him something
easier. Let him try
to work his memory." Tolya thought a moment and then asked:
"Remember our talk about the monsoons?"
"Where?"
"In Umanak."
"Did we talk about monsoons? I haven t the slightest idea about them.
Some kind of winds is all I know."
"What did you say at that time?
What did I say? Christ, I couldn't remember a thing, even under
torture.
"You ask me," said the other Mr. Golyadkin triumphantly, "I said that
since childhood I have confused monsoons with trade winds."
I recalled the way Agatha Christie finishes her novels, when Hercule
Poirot unmasks the criminal, who sits crumpled up under the cross fire of
interrogation. That was the way I felt at this damned dinner.
And then suddenly at the height of triumph of my tormenter, Irene
looked at me thoughtfully and said: "You know, Yura, you're terribly like
him. So much so that it's awful."
That's the way things go. There are football games when some
insignificant little player that nobody ever pays any attention to all of a
sudden shoots in a terrific goal that wins the game, and there isn't even
any yelling in the stands. They only look in amazement at the "wonder". That
was exactly the way four pairs of eyes, again friendly, turned on me.
This time Anti-I did not parry the blow, he waited. Very calmly, and it
seemed to me even indifferently to what was going to follow. Could it be
that I too had such cold and empty eyes?
"Personally, I guessed these two apart quite some time ago, and I
figured out which was Yura," said Zernov turning to Irene. "But what is it
that convinced you?"
"Memory," exclaimed Irene. "It's the memory," she repeated with
conviction. "A human person cannot remember everything. Inessential things
are nearly always forgotten, blurred in one's memory, all the more so that
Yura is on the absent-minded side. But this one remembers everything: crazy
contests, conversations, quotations. An inhuman memory."
Anti-I remained silent. He looked at Zernov as if he knew that that one
would deal him the last irresistible blow.
And Boris Arkadievich did.
"I was convinced by one sentence." He motioned with his elbow to my
counterpart. " 'We are both real.' Remember? Our Yuri and in fact anyone
else would never have said a thing like that. Each of us would have been
confident that he was the real one, and the duplication, the model-the
synthetic entity. Our Antarctic doubles that were modelled with great
exactitude would have reasoned in the very same way, for they did not know
that they were simply copies of human beings. But one of these two knew
that. Both that he was the duplicate and that the model was in actuality
indistinguishable from a human. He alone could have said 'We are both real'.
He alone." Applause broke out and Anti-I applauded as well.
"Bravo, Boris Arkadievich! That was an analysis worthy of a scientist.
There is nothing to counter it. I am indeed the model, but a more refined
entity than you, who are nature-made. I have already mentioned that to Yuri.
I freely perceive the impulses of his brain cells. To put it more simply, I
know all of his thoughts and in the same fashion I can transmit to him my
own thoughts. Likewise, my memory is not human, not yours. Irene grasped
that at once. That was my next mistake, I could not keep it a secret. True
enough, I remember perfectly what Anokhin has done, said and thought during
all the years of his life, in early childhood, yesterday and today. That is
not all. I remember everything that he has read and heard in the recent
past-in other words I remember the entire body of information that he has
received and processed concerning the rose clouds and the attitude of
humanity towards their appearance and conduct. I know by heart all the
newspaper clippings that Anokhin has read and studied about the Paris
Congress. I can recite word for word any speech, remark or conversation
behind the scenes that has in some way reached Anokhin. I remember all of
his conversations with you, Boris Arkadievich, both in actuality and in the
synthesized world. And what is most important, I know why all this
supermemory of mine was needed and why it is associated with the second
synthesization of Anokhin."
Now I looked upon him with gratitude. My tormenter had vanished and
this was friend and companion on the way into the unknown.
"So you knew from the very start that you were synthesized?" Zernov
asked.
"Of course."
"And you knew when and how?"
"Not exactly. The very first instant that I came to in the cabin of the
'Kharkovchanka' vehicle I was already Anokhin, but I also knew that there
exists another one besides me and I also knew that the difference was
between us. I was programmed in a different manner and with other
functions."
"What kind?"
"First of all, to make my appearance and tell you."
"About what?"
"That the second synthesization of Anokhin is connected with the
information that he obtained and processed concerning the attitude of
humanity towards the phenomenon of the rose clouds."
"Why was Anokhin chosen for this purpose?"
"It may be because he was the first one to undergo a psychic study by
the cosmic beings."
"You say 'may be'. Is that your conjecture?"
"No, a slip of the tongue. I know it."
"From whom?"
"From no one. I simply know it."
"What does 'simply' mean? From what sources?"
"They are within me myself. Like hereditary memory. There is a great
deal that I know, simply know from nowhere at all. The fact that I am a
model, about my supermemory, about two Anokhins. And about the fact that I
must retain and convey all the information that he has accumulated."
"In order to transmit it to whom?"
"I do not know."
"To the space beings?"
"I do not know."
"I can't figure out your 'know' and 'do not know'." Zernov was quite
obviously irritated, which was not typical of him. "How about the facts
without the mystic background?"
"Nothing mystic here," sneered my Anti-I condescendingly. "Knowledge is
the quality and quantity of information obtained and processed. My knowledge
has been programmed, that is all. I would call it subknowledge."
"Perhaps also subconsciousness as well?" added Zernov.
But the double declined the correction.
"Who knows about the processes that occur in the subconscious? Nobody.
My knowledge is incomplete for the reason that is excludes the source, but
it is knowledge nevertheless. What is suboptical speed? Nearly that of the
speed of light. So also my subknowledge, it is something contrary to
supermemory."
"What do you know besides the fact that you are a model?" Irene
suddenly asked.
It was as if I had looked into a mirror at my own impertinent mug. But
it was he, of course. And his reply was in the same manner.
"For example that I am in love with you no less than Yuri Anokhin."
Everyone laughed except me. I got red in the face. For some reason I
was the one, not Irene.
She continued:
"Suppose Yuri is in love. Suppose he is even thinking of marrying me
and taking me away. How about you?"
"Me too, of course."
I couldn't have said it with more alacrity.
"And where to?"
Silence.
"What are you worth when matched with Yuri," she said with a good deal
of pity in her voice. "You are empty. They need only puff and you vanish."
"Yet I have a hunch ... I fell I know something more."
"About what?"
"About my life beyond the psychic state of Yuri Anokhin."
"Is there such a thing, such a life."
For the first time my double mused and sadly gave thought to something.
"There are times when I think that there is. Or, of a sudden, something
or someone within me says that there will be."
"What does 'something' or 'someone' mean?" asked Zernov.
"That which has 'been programmed. For example, the confidence that the
person closest to the truth was not a scientist but a science-fiction writer
who spoke at the Paris Congress. Or, for instance, the conviction that
Zernov's conjecture about contacts is true. And the feeling that we are not
quite understood-I say 'we' as a human being, do not be offended, for I am
no rose cloud-the feeling that much in our life and in our psychic make-up
is still obscure and demands study and that investigations will continue. Do
not ask me where and how for I do not know. Do not ask me what goes on under
the cupola for I have not seen. To put it more precisely, I have only seen
with the eyes of Anokhin.
1 know one thing for certain: as soon as I have told you everything,
the programmed functions will be switched off. Excuse my terminology, I am
not a cybernetics specialist. And then I will be recalled." He smiled. "They
are calling already. Farewell."
"I'll see you off," I said.
"Me too," Vano put in, "I'd like a glimpse of the 'Kharkovchanka'."
"It isn't there any longer," Yuri Anokhin No.2 opened the door into the
hallway. "Do not accompany me. You know what will happen to me: Yuri has
shot that scene already." He smiled sadly. "I am still a human being, and I
probably wouldn't like such curiosity."
He stepped out and from beyond the doorway waved to me.
"Don't be angry at the mystification, Yuri. Or at the way I played
things. As for the bet we made, I will keep it and carry out what I
promised. To-you alone, as we agreed."
After his departure, no one could screw up the courage to speak. The
breath of death somewhere out there on the icy road had somehow penetrated
to us. No matter what you say about model-building and synthesis, he was a
human being after all!
"What a pity," Tolya sighed, finally. "They must be flying already...."
"Cut it out," Irene put in, "stop it."
But I wanted to talk.
"If it starts up again, you'll go queasy as before," sneered Vano,
probably recalling his antics in the Antarctic and added with embarrassment:
"You know, Yuri, I didn't recognize you at first. The other one seemed to be
smarter."
"That's what everybody thought," said Dyachuk with a mix of irony and
admiration. "With a memory like a library! That's a memory I'd like to
have."
"He probably wanted to live so much."
* * *
I thought, and he replied:
"What do you think I am, a log? Of course I wanted to, and right now I
want to live."
Everything occurred in my consciousness. I did not concoct, contrive or
imagine, I heard.
"Where are you now?" I asked him in thought.
"Out on the ice highway. It's white all about me. But there is no snow.
But what difference does that make? No difference at all, right?"
"'That's terrible, isn't it?"
"Yes, a little. After all I am not plastic. But don't pity me, do not
think in high-flown terms about 'the icy breath of death!' Firstly, because
that is a hackneyed phrase, secondly, it is not the truth."
"But you are going to vanish."
"That is not death but only a transition to another state."
"A state in which you are no longer."
"Why? You simply do not have any sensations of yourself, like in a
dream."
"A dream passes. But in your case?"
"In mine too."
"You think you'll return?"
"Yes, sometime."
"And if you do not leave?"
"1 can't but leave."
"Go on strike."
"They're stronger than I am, old man."
"What kind of a man are you then? No freedom of the will, no?"
"Not yet."
"Not yet? What does the 'yet' mean?"
"What are you whispering, Yuri, poetry?"
I must have been moving my lips. That's why Irene asked.
"He's praying," said Tolya. "He's praying to God to wipe out his
duplicate. We had a cleric in our dormitory once, he was like that. He'd get
drunk and whisper just like that."
"Praying, my eye," Irene said. "Let the Admiral pray, Yuri can get
along with it, he's a poet. Your verses, right?"
I had to lie.
"Blok's. 'I know you, life, and I accept you and salute you with the
clash of shields...
"Whose life?"
"What difference does it make? Even if it is synthetic life."
"That's incorrect wording," he interrupted. Orthodox thinkers can make
an issue of it. Say, a live dog is better than a dead lion. That's the motto
of collaborationism. You would be calling for cooperation with a hostile
civilization."
"Thompson again. I'm fed up."
"They are too. They've figured it out."
"Are you conjecturing?"
"I know."
"What did you want to tell me?"
''That we'll meet again."
"Why do you say so to me alone?"
"Because that is the way the programme works. Think it over. There is
no need yet to spell out all the details."
"You want to do it honestly?"
"What?"
"I don't admire it that way. Not in the least, I don't."
"Let me tell you that you're not being polite, old man."
"Listen, I'm fed up with all these miracles and tricks, right up to the
ears, get me?"
"What are you whispering about?" again Irene.
"A bit off the rocker. I'd be raving if I were in his boots." That was
Tolya. Zernov was silent for some reason. And nobody had noticed. No, they
had.
"Why are you so quite, Boris Arkadievich? Tired of our talk?"
"No, just thinking." Zernov is always very tactful. "Real interesting
experiment! Amazingly conceived: just imagine reaching for all the
information they need via the person of Anokhin. Create a duplication of
memory. Apparently, they are not yet capable of responding to linguistic
(semantic) information directly, either acoustically, or optically. Words do
not reach them, either when pronounced or written. The only information they
can extract is in the form that is processed by a human brain-thoughts,
mental images."
"But why Anokhin? They could take any scientist." That was Tolya of
course.
"Is it really simply because he was synthesized first? What
significance can there be in being first?"
"The number one is of course meaningless. The importance lies in the
first experiment. Yes, that's it. Too, it might be because Anokhin has a
highly developed image perception. Every person has it but with varying
degrees of expressive-ness. The mathematician sees the world differently
from the painter or the musician, and naturally, the poet has his own image
of things. Say, when I mention the word 'pole', different people conjure up
widely disparate images, consciously or subconsciously, with their
connotations. One thinks of the North Pole, another recalls hoisting the
flag, a third pictures telephone poles and erection crews. What comes to
your mind, Anokhin?"
"Pole vaulting at college."
Everyone laughed.
And he laughed as well, I heard it. Not the acoustic part of laughter,
but the state of the nerve cells of the brain that generates laughter.
"You laughing?" I asked.
"Certainly. Pole vaulting?" He laughed again. "The trouble I had with
that pole!"
"Why you?"
"Don't ask silly questions. Incidentally, Zernov very correctly
perceived the necessity of imagery in receiving information."
"Did you listen into our conversation?"
"Through you I did. I respond to all the information that you process.
Invisibly I am present at all your conversations."
"Actually, I myself am not listening to everything."
"You're not listening, but you hear. And I store all that up in my
memory. By the way, listen to what's going on. Our Boris Arkadievich is
talking about that right now."
"... a lot is accumulated in a memory store of such kind. And a trained
memory can extract a great deal at a moment's notice. Generally speaking, a
'supermemory' is not a miracle. Recall Arago, what a phenomenon! And chess
players? Fantastic professional memory. If we only knew its code and the
mechanism of storing facts. ..."
"Do you think they know?"
That was Irene again. Rather unbelieving for some reason, and even with
a touch of irony. But Zernov did not notice the sarcasm, he was in dead
earnest.
"I am convinced. It may be that Anokhin is simply a successful
experiment. But they'll find out for sure. Somewhere among themselves."
"You believe that hypothesis too?"
"Why not? Is it worse than any of the others? Just as many points for
it as against it. What is more, it does not degrade human beings, rather
elevates them. The final link of contact and mutual study and, as a
consequence, of an exchange of information between two cosmic
civilizations."
"Did you hear that? Our Boris Arkadievich is real smart. The last link.
True enough. The lacking link."
"You believe that hypothesis too?"
"I'm not saying yes or no."
"Why?"
"It's too early. I do not yet have a free will. But the time will
come...."
I found that amusing.
"Mysticism again. I'm beginning to have doubts about your other-world
existence."
"Well, do you believe in saltations from the kingdom of necessity into
the kingdom of freedom^ We could formulate it that way, if you like. Freedom
of one's will. Freedom of thought. Freedom of creativity. Is there any
reason why we should not repeat the path you have traversed?"
"Then maybe the dreamer is right after all. A planet, some Earth Number
Two, will appear somewhere with our water, with our air and our cities?"
"You can joke through anything. Nobody knows what will appear and
where. Investigation does not always mean repetition, more often it
represents a search."
"For what? Synthesized dreams? A super-memory?"
"These are all trials, my friend. Only trials. We live in a world of
constants. Nature has long since created optimal dimensions and forms for
terrestrial conditions and protein life. So why change the constants?"
I must have said that aloud because Zernov smiled and replied:
"Naturally, why should it?"
I flushed. How would I account for my "thinking aloud" and about what?
Vano saved me.
"Perhaps we ought to get a move on, Boris Arkadievich, what do you
think?" he said. "The engine's working and the road's smooth, a racetrack
you might say."
Zernov looked at me sharply:
"What do you think, is it time to leave?"
"What did he mean by 'time'? I wonder whether he understood what was
going on."
"He's known for quite some time. And you know that he knows. Don't make
believe. You can tell them: It is time'. Anokhin the Second is ready to
leave."
"Don't torment me."
"Well, it is time. I am far away, they are close."
I suddenly felt weary, depressed, my throat constricted, I found it
hard to breathe. I no longer saw anyone or anything, except the distant
traveller in the white field.
"So this is the end."
"Not the end. Only till our next meeting."
"But will there be a next meeting?"
"No doubt about it."
"There or here?"
"Don't know, Yuri. What I don't know, I don't know. 'The point is that
it will be not only you and me that will meet. We and they. Remember how he
finished his speech at the Congress? 'And if they return, they will return
with an understanding of us, they will be enriched with a comprehension of
what to expect from us and with a knowledge of what to proffer us on this
mutual advance towards perfection.' That was well put, my friend!"
Suddenly, there was a break. I perceived a freedom of thought in no way
hampered, total.
"We can go," I said to Zernov, and I felt my voice shake. I hoped he
didn't notice.
"How come Anokhin's giving orders now?" asked Dyachuk.
Zernov answered, for I was helplessly weak.
"Out of the three thousand million human beings on the Earth, only
Anokhin is now linked with this extraterrestrial, perhaps even
extragalactic, civilization. So what will we say to humanity at large, Yuri?
Is there contact, and for how long?"
"For all time," I replied.
___________________________