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"You won't. I'm not lying to anybody."
"To anybody? But I know why you did it. From jealousy."
I even laughed.
"Jealous of whom?"
"And he even laughs, the scum!" she screamed.
Before I could catch her arm, she hit me in the face so hard that I
almost lost balance.
"You scum!" she repeated, choking with tears, and close to hysterics.
"Murderer! ... If it wasn't for Volodya Asafyev, Oleg would now be dead on
the operating table. Lying there dead, dead!"
A sudden darkness cut short her screams.
I seemed to be blind and deaf, and my body was pressed to the parquet
floor as if paralysed. I could not even stir, and felt nothing except the
coolness of the waxed floor against my temple. How many hours, or minutes,
perhaps seconds, this feeling lasted I don't know. I had lost all sense of
time.
Suddenly the blackness before my eyes faded like Indian ink does on
Whatman paper when you use it to spread a dull grey wash over an outlined
space. The space here was outlined by the walls of a narrow corridor lit by
a few dim electric bulbs and terminating in a steep stairway loading up to a
rectangle of daylight. I was standing now, pressing my face against the
waxed wall-panels, holding on to the handrail that ran the whole length of
the corridor.
As before, Lena was looking at me, but her expression had changed into
deep sympathy.
"Are you sea-sick?" she asked. "Nauseous?"
I certainly felt a bit under the weather, especially when the floor,
swaying like a swing, suddenly slipped from under my feet and my stomach
twisted in spasms.
"It's the pitching of the ship," she explained. "We're turning into the
harbour."
"Whereabouts are we?" I said, failing to grasp what she meant.
"We've already reached Istanbul, Professor. Come and take a look."
"Where?"
I still could not catch on to what was happening.
A new devilish metamorphosis. Out of one dream into another. A
Technicolor scene from a fairy tale.
"Come up on deck. You'll feel better where there's a breeze," and she
pulled me after her. "Incidentally, let's see what Istanbul looks like.
Though one can hardly make anything out - it's raining."
The rain did not actually fall, but hung around us like a lustreless,
hazy netting. Through this net, the shoreline panorama seemed made of
shapeless, abstract patches with the outlines here and there of murkily
gleaming minarets and cupolas, some blue and others green. Clouds teemed
above it all, bunting and overtaking each other.
"We'll need our raincoats," frowned Lena, with a hand above her eyes to
ward off the fine wet spray. "Can't go ashore like this. What cabin are you
in, seven? Wait for me by the ship's ladder or on shore. All right?"
Now I knew the number of my cabin. Well then, let's go for a
mackintosh. A trip through foreign seas and countries is always interesting.
Even in the rain, even in a dream.
Entering my cabin, I found Mikhail Sichuk busy by his bunk. He was
hurriedly pocketing some papers and packets, and did not seem at all pleased
with my appearance.
"Is it raining?" he asked.
"It is," I answered mechanically, trying to puzzle out why my dreams
persistently confronted me with the very same personages. "What are you
stuffing in your pockets?"
This seemed to embarrass Mikhail.
"Oh, that ... just souvenirs to exchange. So it's raining..." he
mumbled, avoiding my eyes.
"That's bad. We'll all be bunched in a group, holding on to each other.
Otherwise we'll get lost...."
Then I remembered what Mikhail had done in real life. In this very same
Istanbul. In reality, and not in a dream.
"What's the name of our ship?" I asked.
"What? You've forgotten?" grinned Mikhail.
"Sclerosis. Can't remember, somehow."
"The Ukraine. What of it?" He looked at me with suspicion.
Everything fell into place. This dream, in time, was a month ago. All
the better. I could change the course of events.
"Nothing special," and I even yawned to put him off the track. "It's
raining. Suppose we don't go."
"Not go where?"
"Ashore. They'll make us walk half the day in the rain: mosques,
museums.... Wishing we were home. Let's settle down in the bar over a glass
of beer."
"Isn't that the limit!" laughed Mikhail. "The last foreign port and we
go to the bar."
"Why the last? We still have Varna and Constanta to see. Very beautiful
cities, by the way."
"Socialist," drawled Mikhail scornfully.
"And you, of course, must have capitalist towns? "
"I paid good money out. I want my money's worth."
"Thirty pieces of silver," I said. "Judas money."
Incidentally in that other dream in the Metropole, I'd already put this
to Mikhail. And all for nothing. The shot had misfired. He never got his
excursion-voucher, and so never took the trip. But now I'd caught him in
time.
"Look, I know what you're planning," I went on. "Two words to a
policeman at the first bus stop, and off in a taxi to the American Embassy.
Quiet, don't deny it! And at the embassy you'll beg for political shelter."
For a moment Mikhail was turned into a pillar of salt, like Lot's wife
immortalized in the Bible. But only for a moment. Realizing that somebody
had looked into his soul, into its secret depths, a quiet terror came and
went in his eyes. He was a damned good actor.
"Rubbish," he said, with a show of good-heartedness, and reached out to
take his raincoat off the hanger.
"I am not joking, Sichuk," I said.
"What does that mean?"
"It means I know the dirty thing you intended to do, and I'm going to
stop it."
"That's interesting, but how?" he burst out.
"It's all very simple. Till we leave port, you don't go out of this
cabin."
"Might as well warn you, I'm not a good subject for hypnosis. So get
out of my way," he declared insolently, and began putting his coat on.
I sat on the edge of the bunk nearest the door. Then I wrapped my
handkerchief round my left hand. I'm left-handed, and punch with my left.
There's no curve to the punch, and it has all the power of my arm and
shoulder muscles behind it, and the whole weight of my body. I learned this
from Sazhin, the USSR boxing champion in the light-heavyweight class. That
was in the late forties. I was younger then and glad of his help. I would go
to him at the training gym after work, right from the editorial office.
There, in a sheltered corner, I would correct his notes - he was going to
turn journalist. Then I would ask him to show me a few tricks.
And he did. "You'll never make a boxer, of course," he told me. "Too
old, and no talent.... But if you ever get in a fight, you'll be able to
take care of yourself. Only see you don't break your knuckles. Wrap your
hand up."
Mikhail at once noticed my manipulation and became curious.
"What's that for?"
"So I don't skin my knuckles."
"What? You're joking?"
"I've already told once I'm not joking."
"One yell from me...."
"You won't yell," I interrupted him. "Or it'll be the worse for you.
I'll tell everything you plan doing and ... curtains, as they say."
"Who's going to believe it?"
"They'll believe it. Once they're tipped off, they'll start thinking
out the how's and wherefore's. You won't be let ashore."
"But I can accuse you of the same thing."
"Then they won't let either of us go. And when we get home, it'll all
be straightened out."
Dressed in his hat and coat, Mikhail sat opposite me on his bunk.
"You're crazy. What gave you the idea I was going to skip?"
"I saw it in a dream."
"I'm asking you straight."
"What difference does it make? The important thing is, I'm not
mistaken. I can read it in your eyes."
"I'm a Soviet citizen, Sergei."
"You're not. You're the scum of the earth. I found that out even at the
front. Knew you were a coward, a bad lot. Only I never managed to expose you
in time."
Red spots came up on Mikhail's cheeks. His fingers played nervously
with his coat buttons, doing them up and undoing them. He must have finally
realized that his well-worked-out plan could fail.
"I won't yell, of course. I don't want a row." His voice took on a
tearful note. "But, honestly, this is all nonsense. Sheer nonsense."
"What's in your pockets?"
"I told you. All kinds of stuff: pins, badges, photos."
"Show me."
"Why should I?"
"Then don't. Lie down on your bunk, and stay there."
He got up and walked to the door. I put my back against it.
"Let me out," he said through his teeth, grabbing my shoulders.
He was stronger than I, but out of cowardice didn't realize it.
However, without any manifest hesitation, he came straight for me.
"Let me out," he repeated, pulling me toward him.
I gave him the knee, and he flew back. Then, crouching, he tore at me
trying to smash his head under my chin.
But it didn't connect, and I let fly at his face with a straight left,
landing right on his mouth. He swayed and crashed to the floor between his
bunk and the wash-basin. A red trickle ran from his cut lip. He touched it
with his fingers, saw blood, and screamed: "He-elp...." And broke off.
"Go ahead, yell," I told him. "Yell louder. You don't scare me."
His eyes narrowed, radiating spite alone.
"All the same, I'll skip," he hissed. "Next time."
"You be man enough to announce that at home. Officially, so that all
can hear. Say it plainly, that you don't like our system, our society. Beg
for a visa from some embassy or other. You think you'll be held? Oh no.
We'll be glad to chuck you out. We don't need human scum like you."
"So why don't you let me go now?"
"Because you're crawling out quietly. By a fraud. Because you're
letting everybody down who trusted you."
Mikhail jumped up and rushed me again, his mouth stretched in an ugly
grin. He wasn't thinking now of getting out of the cabin at any cost; he was
gripped by blind anger and lost his head.
I knocked him off his feet again. Sazhin's lessons came in handy after
all. This time he fell on his bunk, but so hard that his head hit the wall.
It looked to me as if he had lost consciousness. But he stirred and groaned.
I folded a towel, wet it under the tap, and laid it on his face.
There was a knock at the door. I slid a glance at Mikhail. He did not
even turn round. I released the catch on the door. In came a perfect
stranger wearing a wet raincoat; apparently it was raining harder.
"You coming, Sergei Nikolaevich?"
"No," I answered. "I'm not. My friend isn't feeling well. Sea-sick, I
guess. I'll stay with him."
Mikhail still did not move, nor even raise his head. I waited till the
footsteps died away down the corridor.
"I'm going to the bar," I warned Mikhail. "But, if you'll excuse me,
I'm locking the door."
I locked the door, but did not get to the bar. Again the sudden
darkness, that I was so used to, returned me to the familiar chair with the
helmet and pick-ups.
The first thing I heard was the tail end of a conversation which
clearly was not meant for my ears.
"A traveller in time - that's stale. I should call it a 'walk in the
fifth dimension'."
"Maybe in the seventh?"
"We'll formulate it. How is he?"
"Unconscious, so far."
"Consciousness has already returned."
"And the encephalogram?"
"Recorded in full."
"I told you before he's a real find."
"Shall I turn on the isolator?"
"Turn it off, you meant to say? Give it zero three, and then zero ten.
Let his eyes get used to light gradually."
The blackness lifted a bit. As if a crack had opened somewhere letting
in a tiny ray of light. Though invisible, it made the objects around me
visible. With each passing second they grew more clear-cut, and soon I saw
Zargaryan's face before me, as if on a cinema screen.
"Ave, homo, amici te salutant. ( Greetings, man, friends salute you.-
tr.) Do I need to translate?"
"No," I answered.
There was now full light. The astronaut's helmet lightly slipped from
my head and lifted up. The chair-back gave me a push as if suggesting that I
get up. I did. Nikodimov was already in his place at the desk, inviting me
to join them both.
"Did you have many experiences?"
"Many. Shall I relate them?"
"Not in any case. You are tired. You will tell us tomorrow. What you
need now is rest, and a proper sleep. Without dreams."
"But what I saw ... were they dreams?" I asked.
"We'll put oft all exchange of information till tomorrow," he smiled.
"Today, don't relate a thing, not even at home. The main thing is sleep, and
more sleep."
"But shall I fall asleep?" I doubted.
"Without a doubt. After supper, take this tablet. And tomorrow we'll
meet again here. Let's say at two o'clock. Ruben Zargaryan will come for
you."
"Now I'll have him homo in a jiffy. Swift as the wind," said Zargaryan.
"And don't think about anything. Don't try to recollect anything. Don't
live it over again," added Nikodimov. Urbi ot orbi, not a word. Need I
translate?"
"I guess not," I said.
I kept my word, and gave Olga only a general outline about what had
taken place. I myself did not want to relive all I had seen in my artificial
dreams, even in my thoughts. Nor did I ask Olga about anything that had the
slightest connection with my dreams. But late at night, in bed, I could not
restrain myself.
"Did we ever get an invitation from the Hungarian Embassy?"
"No," said Olga in surprise. "Why do you ask?"
"Which of your acquaintances is called Fedor Ivanovich, and who is
Raisa?"
"I haven't the faintest," she answered, more surprised than ever. "I
don't know any people with those names. No wait ... I remember. You know who
Fedor Ivanovich is? The head of a polyclinic. Not ours, but the one I was
asked to work in, the one attached to the ministry. And Raisa - that's his
wife. It was she who made mo the offer. When did you get to know them?"
"I'll tell you tomorrow. Right now, my mind is a muddle. Forgive me," I
muttered, and fell asleep.
I woke up late, after Olga had already gone leaving my breakfast on the
table and coffee in the thermos. I didn't want to get up. I lay in bed,
unhurriedly going over the events of yesterday. I remembered with particular
clarity the dreams I had seen in Faust's laboratory - not dreams, but
living, concrete reality. I remembered them in detail, down to the little
things you usually don't notice in real life. And immediately I recalled
even the paper pad in the hospital consulting room, the colour of the
buttons on Mikhail's raincoat, the sound of the probe falling on the floor,
and the taste of the apricot palinka or brandy. I recalled all the
Hoffman-style confusion, compared the conversations, actions and
interrelations, finally coming to strange conclusions. Very strange, though
their strangeness hardly lessened their cogency.
A telephone call got me out of bed. It was Klenov, who had already
found out from Zoya about my meeting Zargaryan. I would have to take a hard
line.
"Do you know what 'taboo' means?"
"Suppose I do?"
"Then get this: Zargaryan is taboo, Nikodimov is also taboo,
telepathy's taboo. That's the works."
"I'll tear my clothes to ribbons."
"Tear away! By the way, have you got a cottage in Zhavoronki?"
"A garden plot, you mean to say? Only it's not in Zhavoronki. We were
offered two choices: Zhavoronki or Kupavna. I chose the last."
"But you could have chosen Zhavoronki?"
"Naturally. Why are you interested?"
"I'm interested in a lot of things. For instance, who is press-attache
now at the Hungarian Embassy? Kemenes?"
"You haven't got encephalitis, by any chance?"
"I'm asking in all seriousness."
"Kemenes is press-attache in Hungary. He hasn't been sent to Moscow."
"But he might have been?"
"I get it. You're writing a thesis on the subjunctive mood."
In a way, Klenov almost guessed it. In my attempts to figure out the
secret hovering around me, I tripped over the subjunctive mood time and
again that morning. What might have happened if.... If Oleg hadn't been
killed at Dunafoldvar? If it hadn't been Oleg that married Galya, but I? If
I had gone in for medicine after the war instead of entering the faculty of
journalism? If Olga had agreed to work at the ministry's clinic? If Tibor
Kemenes hadn't gone to work in Belgrade, but had come to Moscow? If, if....
Over the subjunctive mood, this Hoffman devilry burst into rich bloom. I
might have gone to a reception in the Hungarian Embassy. I might have gone
on the Ukraine around Europe. I might have been a Doctor of Medical
Sciences, a surgeon operating on a living Oleg. All of these things might
have been in real life, if....
And another if. What if I had seen not dreams at Zargaryan's, but a
hypnotic stream of life, altered here and there according to circumstances?
Then the fantastic Jekyll and Hyde story would have received a lawful vote.
If Gromov the journalist could be turned into a surgeon for a certain time,
then why shouldn't Gromov the surgeon become journalist Gromov for a time?
He had that day on Tverskoi Boulevard. In a flash, flooded with Indian ink
and lilac mist. In a flash, like Hyde jumping into Jekyll's body from the
foam-rubber chair in Faust's laboratory. You see, Dr. Gromov had his
Nikodimov and Zargaryan who controlled the same mysterious forces.
That meant that Zargaryan, Nikodimov and I, the three of us equally,
had taken part in the simultaneous current of certain parallel
non-intersecting lives. How many parallel lives were there? Two, five, six,
a hundred, a thousand of them? What course were they following, and in what
space or time? I remembered Galya's talk with Hyde about the plurality of
worlds. What if it wasn't a fantastic hypothesis, but a scientific discovery
- one more mystery solved about matter?
But my mind refused to accept this explanation. All the more so because
my mind was untrained in the exact sciences. I could only bewail the limited
knowledge of our education in the humanities. I did not have enough brains
to think over, to ponder upon, the problem I had brought to light,
That was the state of mind I was in when Galya dropped in on her way to
work. She had learned from Olga last night that I'd gone to see Zargaryan,
and she was literally burning with curiosity to know if I'd found the key to
the puzzle.
"I found it," I said. "Only I can't turn the key in the lock: I haven't
the strength."
I told her about the chair in Faust's laboratory, and about my three
'dreams'. She was silent for a long time before she gave me a question. "Had
he grown old?"
"Who?"
"Oleg."
"What did you expect? Twenty years have gone by."
She fell silent again, lost in thought. I was afraid that her personal
curiosity overshadowed that of a scientist. But I was mistaken.
"Something else interests me," she said, breaking the silence. "The
fact that you saw him grown older. With wrinkles. With a scar that never
existed. It's impossible!" "Why?"
"Because you've never read Pavlov. You cannot see in a dream what
you've never seen in real life. The blind from birth do not see dreams. And
what was Oleg like when you knew him? A boy, a youth. Where did the wrinkles
of a forty-year-old man come from, and the scar on the temple?"
"But if it's not a dream?"
"You've already got an explanation?" Galya shot back.
I got the idea that she had guessed exactly what explanation I thought
the most likely, and the most frightening.
"So far it's only an attempt at an explanation," I reminded her
hesitantly. "I keep trying to compare my adventure with these dreams.... If
Hyde could play such a joke on Jekyll, then why couldn't they both exchange
roles?"
"Mysticism."
"But don't you remember your talk with Hyde about the plurality of
worlds? Parallel worlds, parallel lives?"
"Rubbish," objected Galya.
"You simply don't want to take it seriously," I reproached her. "It's
easy enough to say 'rubbish'. They said the same thing about the Copernicus
hypothesis."
I didn't make her give in by this remark but at least forced her to
think about my own thesis.
"Parallel worlds? Why parallel?"
"Because they don't intersect anywhere."
Galya laughed, openly scornful.
"Don't try writing science fiction: that's my advice. You wouldn't get
anywhere. Non-intersecting worlds?" She snorted. "So Nikodimov and Zargaryan
have found a point of intersection? A window into an anti-world?"
"Who knows?" I said.
I found out the answer to that two hours later in Faust's laboratory.
To tell the truth, I went there as if to an examination, with the same
inner trepidation and fear before the unknown. Again and again I ran over
the dreams I recalled, the visions I'd seen during the experiment. I called
them 'dreams' from habit, though I had come to the final conclusion that
they weren't dreams at all. I compared all details suggesting such a
comparison, and systematized my conclusions.
"Have you got it well rehearsed?" asked Zargaryan merrily when he met
me.
"Rehearsed what?" I muttered, embarrassed.
"Your story, of course."
He saw through me. But rising anger made me overcome my embarrassment.
"I don't much like your attitude."
He only laughed in answer.
"Do all the complaining you like. The tape-recorder isn't turned on
yet."
"What tape-recorder?"
"The 'Yauza-10'. For purity of sound, it's wonderful."
I hadn't expected to make a tape-recording. It's one thing to tell a
story, bat quite another to tape-record. I shook my head, almost refusing.
"Sit down and begin," Nikodimov encouraged me. "You'll make your mark
in science. Pretend you're dictating to a pretty stenographer."
"Only no hunter's tales," added Zargaryan with sly humour. "The tape's
supersensitive, with Munchausen tuning.... I'm switching on."
Childishly, I stuck my tongue out at him, and my shyness disappeared at
once. I began my story without any prologue, quite freely, and the more I
talked the more colourful it became. I did not simply relate it: I explained
and compared, looking into the past; compared the vision with reality and my
experiences with my subsequent views. All Zargaryan's irony disappeared like
smoke: he listened greedily, stopping me only to reverse the tape. I
resurrected for them all the impressions I had in the lab chair: Lena's
anger in the hospital, Sichuk's face convulsed with evil, and the lifeless
smile of Oleg on the operating table, everything that I recalled and that
had staggered me, that even shocked me now while I tape-recorded my still
vivid recollections.
The tape reel was still turning when I finished: Zargaryan did not
immediately turn it off, and it recorded the whole minute of silence that
reigned in the room.
"So you didn't see the department store arcade," he observed bitterly.
"Nor the road to the lake. A pity."
"Wait, Ruben," Nikodimov stopped him. "That's not the point. You see.
the phases are almost identical. The same time, the same people."
"Not quite."
"Only infinitesimal deviations."
"But they are there," said Zargaryan,
"Not mathematically."
"And the difference in the signs?"
"Does such a difference change a man? Time changes, perhaps. If it's a
minus phase, then it's possibly time coining from an opposite direction -
counter-time."
"Don't be so sure. Perhaps it's only a different system of counting
time," said Zargaryan.
"All the same, everybody will call it fantasy! And reason?"
"If you don't violate reason, you won't get anywhere in general. Who
said that? Einstein."
The conversation didn't get any clearer. And I coughed.
"Excuse me," said Nikodimov, embarrassed. "We got carried away. Your
dreams don't give us any peace."
"But are they dreams?" I expressed my doubts.
"You doubt it? So you've been thinking, have you? Maybe we'll start off
the explanations with yours?"
I remembered all Galya's sneers, but I was not afraid of hearing the
same again. So I stubbornly repeated the myth of Jekyll and Hyde, who met on
the crossroads of space and time. If this was an anti-world, plurality,
mysticism, the ravings of a mad dog - so be it! But I had no other theories
to explain it with.
However, Nikodimov did not even smile.
"Have you studied physics?" he asked suddenly.
"Through a school textbook," I admitted, and thought: 'Now he'll
start!'
But Nikodimov did not mock me, he merely stroked his beard.
"A rich training. But how, with the help of a school textbook can you
define a plurality of worlds? Let's say, in Cartesian co-ordinates?"
Searching my memory, I found the Wellsian Utopia that Mr. Barnstaple
got into, without turning off an ordinary highway.
"Excellent," agreed Nikodimov. "We'll begin with that. What did Wells
compare our three-dimensional world to? To a book whose every page was a
two-dimensional world. So, one might suppose that in multi-dimensional space
there might also be neighbouring three-dimensional worlds, moving in time
along nearly parallel routes. That's according to Wells. When he wrote his
novel after the First World War, the genius Dirac was still a youth, and his
theory received popular acclaim only in the thirties. You can, of course,
picture up what Dirac's 'vacuum' is?"
"Approximately," I said carefully. "Generally speaking, it is not a
void, but something like a neutrino-antineutrino pulp. Like plankton in the
ocean."
"Picturesque, but not lacking sense," agreed Nikodimov again. "And this
very same plankton from elementary particles, the neutrino-antineutrino gas,
constitutes a border between worlds with a plus sign and those with a minus
sign. There are scientists who look for anti-worlds in other galaxies, but I
prefer seeking them right next door. And not only a symmetrical system -
world and anti-world, but the infinity of this symmetry. As we have an
infinite number of combinations in a game of chess, so even here there are
infinite combinations of worlds and anti-worlds, adjacent to each other. You
ask how I picture this adjacency? As a stable, geometrically isolated
existence? No, on the contrary. In a simplified form this is the idea of the
inexhaustibility of matter, of its perpetual motion generating these worlds
along certain new, still unknown co-ordinates. To be more exact, along
certain phase-like trajectories.
"Well, but what about ordinary motion then?" I interrupted, perplexed.
"I'm also a particle of matter, but I move through space independent of your
quasi-motion."
"Why 'quasi'? One is simply independent of the other. You are moving
through space independent of your moving through time. Whether you sit at
home or travel somewhere - you get equally older. So it is here: in one
world you might, let's say, be travelling by sea; in the other, at the very
same time, you are playing chess or having dinner at home. More than that:
in the infinite repetition of worlds you may travel, be ill, or work; while
in other infinite plurality of similar worlds, you don't actually exist,
perhaps through an unfortunate accident or suicide, or you were simply never
born at all because your parents never met. I hope I make myself clear?"
"Quite clear."
"He's shamming," said Zargaryan. "What he needs right now is a vivid
example - that's clear at a glance. Look here, imagine an unusual reel of
film. In one frame you are flying in an aeroplane, in another you are
shooting, in a third you are killed. In one frame a tree is growing, in
another it is cut down. In one, the Pushkin monument stands on Tverskoi
Boulevard, in another in the centre of the square. In a word, life shown in
separate frames, moving, let us say, vertically from below upward or from
above downward. And now picture the same life in separate frames, but moving
horizontally from every frame, from left to right or vice versa. There you
have an approximate model of matter in multi-dimensional space. Now what do
you think is the most essential difference between this model and the
simulated object?"
I didn't answer. What was the use of guessing?
"The difference is that there are no identical frames, but identical
worlds exist."
"Similar," I countered.
"Not only," Nikodimov interrupted. "We still don't know the law by
which matter moves in these dimensions. Take the simplest law: the
sinusoidal. With the ordinary sinusoid, the slightest change in the argument
brings about a corresponding change of function, and that means another
world. But in a period, we get the same value of the sine and consequently
the same world. And so on into eternity."
"That means I might also find myself in a world like ours? Exactly the
same?"
"You wouldn't even notice any difference," said Zargaryan.
"And how do you explain what happened to me on the boulevard?"
"The same as you do. Jekyll and Hyde."
"A Gromov from another world who looks the same as me?"
"Precisely. A certain Nikodimov and a Zargaryan in that world
transferred the conscious mind of your double. This did not occur
momentarily, not all at once. Your own mind protested, argued: that explains
the dualism during the first few minutes. But afterwards it gave in to the
aggressor."
I suggested the proposition that my trying episode in the hospital was
an exchange visit, but Nikodimov doubted it.
"It's possible, of course, but scarcely likely. It would be closer to
the truth to suppose that it was a Gromov more or less like your aggressor.
The same profession, the same circle of acquaintances, the same family
situation. But I've already told you of the possibility of an almost
complete, and even utterly complete, identity...."
"To put it more vividly," interrupted Zargaryan, "we have visited
worlds whose borders fit into the borders of ours, touching the interior. We
call them adjacent worlds, conditionally of course. And there are even more
interesting worlds intersecting ours or, shall we say, perhaps in general
not having points of contact with ours. There, time is either in advance of
our time, or it lags behind. And who knows by how much?" He was silent, then
added almost dreamily:
Far beyond a certain birch-tree,
So long, so very dear to me,
In sudden silence is revealed
The unknown - strange and most unreal.
"You didn't finish," I laughed, remembering the same verses. "It's
different farther on!"
To reach an unknown world we strive,
'It's sad, not all who go arrive.
The desk telephone rang.
"Not all who go," repeated Nikodimov thoughtfully. "Our chief wouldn't
arrive."
The telephone kept ringing.
"Talk of the devil, and.... Don't answer."
"All the same, he'll find us."
The trip into the unknown was put off till the evening when we were to
meet in the Sofia Restaurant, where freedom from the top brass was fully
guaranteed.
NOSCE TE IPSUM (KNOW THYSELF)
I did not see Olga until supper time: she was delayed at the
polyclinic. There was nobody to talk with, about what had happened. Galya
didn't ring up, and I was careful to avoid Klenov because of his
insufferable instructive manner; because of it I even slipped away from an
editorial meeting.
I wandered the streets for about an hour, so as not to arrive at the
restaurant too early and have to hang around the entrance looking foolish.
Trying to collect my thoughts, I sat by Pushkin's monument, but everything
I'd heard that morning was so new and surprising that I couldn't even think
it all out. Finally, all the flow of my thoughts led to the question of how
to evaluate my meeting the two scientists. As an unusual success,
'reporters' luck', or as a menace that always lies hidden in something the
mind cannot grasp. I was inclined to think it was 'reporters' luck'. If a
lab guinea-pig could reason, it would probably be proud of its association
with scientists. And I was proud of mine. Another sign of reporters' luck
was the type of scientists my friends belonged to. I read somewhere that
scientists are divided into classic and romantic types. The classic typo is
he who develops something new on the basis of the old, on what is firmly
established in science. But the romanticists are dreamers. They are
interested in fields of knowledge close to their own or remotely connected
with them. They not only produce something new founded on the old: more
often they do it by using utterly unlooked-for associations. I had even
expressed my admiration of this type in an article I wrote. Now 'reporters'
luck' had thrown us together. Only romantics can so bravely and recklessly
sin against reason. And, apparently, I was very anxious to continue my part
in this sinning.
Such were my thoughts as I went to keep my appointment, arriving not
earlier but even later than my new friends. They already awaited me at the
entrance: Zargaryan all in smiles and Nikodimov, dressed in an old-fashioned
stiff jacket, modestly effacing himself in the rear. The stand-up starched
collar, popular around the turn of the century, would have suited him
perfectly - he looked as severe as a prophet out of the Old Testament. The
irresistible Zargaryan more than made up for it. Wearing a strict dark suit,
with just enough of his tie showing to display a gold pin linked to a
rounded shirt-collar, he so impressed the stout, bald maitre d'hotel that
Nikodimov and I went unnoticed. We walked behind, half-smiling at the waiter
bustling ahead of our tall Ruben and captiously selecting the secluded table
we ordered.
When dinner was served, Zargaryan poured the cognac.
"The first toast is mine ... to chance meetings."
"Why 'chance'?"
"You can't possibly imagine how great a role chance plays in my life.
By chance I met Zoya and through her, by chance, you. I even met Pavel
Nikodimov by chance. Five years ago I read his article on the concentration
of the sub-quantum biofield in the Bulletin of the Academy of Sciences. I
went to him at once. It turned out that we were approaching one and the same
problem along different paths."
He was silent. I remembered Klenov telling me that they worked in
absolutely different fields of science, but before I could utter my question
Zargaryan read my mind.
"A strange union, eh? Physics and neurophysiology," he laughed.
"What are you, a mind-reader?"
"And why not? I must be according to my staff position. After all I'm a
telepathist. I'm engaged in many things in this field, but most of all I'm
interested in dreams. Why do we so often dream of what we never saw in our
conscious lives? How is this connected with Pavlov's teaching that the
essence of dreams is a reflection of reality. What stimulations, in such
cases, act on the brain cells? Perhaps things one is accustomed to - light,
sounds, contacts, smells? But if not? Then there must be certain new
stimulations we are not aware of...."
I remembered why my dreams drew his attention: they were not
reflections of reality. But, apparently, many people have seen such dreams.
Only these dreams weren't stable, as Zargaryan had explained. They were
easily forgotten, hazy in the conscious mind, but the main thing was they
did not repeat themselves.
"I figured it this way," he continued. "If, according to Pavlov, dreams
reflect what is seen in our waking hours, yet the one experiencing them
never actually saw the things he dreamed of, then it means somebody else
did. But who? And how can what he sees be imprinted on the conscious mind of
another?"
I interrupted him.
"Then my department store, street scene, the road to the lake or pond -
they are some stranger's dreams?"
"Without any doubt."
"But whose?"
"I still didn't know at the time. There arose a supposition that it was
hypnotic transmission. But suggestion does not occur by chance, suggestion
out of nowhere. It is always sent from the hypnotizer to the hypnotized. Not
one of the cases I observed showed any evidence of suggestion. I put forward
the idea of mental telepathy. In parapsychology, we call the brain sending
the signal the inductor, and the brain receiving it the percipient. And
again, not in one case investigated did we manage to discover the inductor.
Characteristic examples are your more stable dreams. Who transmits them to
you? From where? You wore lost in conjectures. I was, too, though I inclined
to the supposition that it is some other living person existing in another
form and perhaps in another world. However, that would he almost
mysticism.... I stood before a closed door. It was Pavel Nikodimov who
opened it for me, or rather his paper did. Then I said: 'Open, Sesame!'
Isn't that the way it was, Pavel?"
"Just about," affirmed Nikodimov good-heartedly. "But you skipped the
most picturesque details: Sesame did not open so easily. You see, I'm a
crabby fellow ... get along rather badly with people. My assistant ... well,
he ran away when they began to put pressure on us. Took you for a lunatic,
Ruben. I can even remember the district psychiatrist he phoned to. But even
that didn't stop you. But you're right, our collaboration began from a
chance meeting. So I back your toast. Let's drink to it."
"And afterwards?" I asked. "It's a big jump from an idea to
experimental tests."
"We didn't jump, we crawled. The mathematical idea led to the physical
state of the field. We started off with biocurrents. You see, the
biocurrents of the brain are actually electro-magnetic fields originating in
its nerve cells. Through their radiation they generate a sort of single
energy-field - the so-called conscious and subconscious of a person's mind.
Take your analogy. The fields of Jekyll and Hyde are only similar: they are
incompatible or, as we say, antipathetic.
While you are awake, while your brain is active, the antipathy of the
fields is constant and invariable. But when you fall asleep, the picture
changes. The antipathy is now weakened, so the fields of the 'doubles' are
superposed, so to say, and your dreams automatically repeat what the other
has seen. But for Jekyll to become Hyde a complete compatibility of fields
is necessary, which is possible only during exceptional activity on the part
of the inductor's field. And we've discovered that you possess this
exceptional gift of activity."
I listened eagerly to Nikodimov, but not all of it sank in, some of it
escaped me. It was as if I had spells of deafness and from time to time lost
the guiding thread in this devilish labyrinth of fields, doubles,
frequencies and rhythms; but with sheer force of will I would catch it
again. It looked like a speech interrupted by dots to indicate omissions.
"... through our experiments," Nikodimov was saying, "we came to the
conclusion that under reciprocal transmission the fields activate waves with
a frequency much higher than the usual alpha-rhythm. We called this new type
of frequency kappa-rhythm. And the higher the frequency of the kappa waves,
the more vivid are the dreams received by the sleeping receptor. Further on
it wasn't so difficult to establish the regularities as well. Complete
compatibility of fields is connected with a sharp rise in frequency. So we
got the idea of making a concentrator, or a transformer of biocurrents. By
establishing the directed current of radiation we apparently transfer your
conscious mind, locating an identical mind for it beyond the borders of our
three-dimensional world. Of course, we are still at the very beginning of
the road - the movement of the field along a phase trajectory is somewhat
chaotic for the time being, because we cannot yet control it. We cannot say
exactly where you will regain consciousness - in the present, past or in the
future, going by our time. Dozens of experiments must still be made...."
"I'm ready," I interrupted him.
Nikodimov did not answer.
A husky, boyish voice drifted down to us from the stage where a
juke-box stood that a young pop-music fan had turned on. The voice floated
over the noisy dining-hall, over the short- or long-haired or bald heads,
over the wine-darkened crystal goblets, floated invisibly and powerfully
with a strength and purity of feeling unexpected in a restaurant almost blue
with cigarette smoke.
"A song with an undercurrent," said Zargaryan.
I listened. "You are my destiny," sang the boy, "you are my
happiness...."
"And you are our destiny," Zargaryan picked up the words with a serious
and even triumphant note. "And maybe our happiness. You alone."
I averted my eyes, embarrassed. Whatever you say, there is something
good about being somebody's destiny and happiness. Nikodimov at once caught
my movements and the rather vain idea behind it.
"But perhaps we are your destiny, too," he said. "You will know a lot
more, and particularly about yourself. You see, you are only a particle of
that living matter which is 'you' in an endlessly complicated vastness -
time. In a word, as the ancient Romans said: Nosce te ipsum - know thyself."
I was ready to know myself in all the sum total of dimensions, phases
and co-ordinates, but I didn't tell Olga about it that night. I gave her a
vague sketch of my talk with the scientists and promised to relate it in
greater detail the following day, which was her birthday. We usually
celebrated it alone, but this time I invited Galya and Klenov to be our
guests. I wanted very much to include Zargaryan and Nikodimov, the guilty
parties in this unexpected - I could even say wonderful - event in my life.
I had mentioned it in passing when we left the restaurant, but Nikodimov
either wasn't listening attentively or missed it through absent-mindedness.
"Best leave it," Zargaryan had whispered confidentially. "He won't come
anyway - he's a hermit, as he admitted himself. But I'll come when I can get
away, perhaps a bit late though. We haven't finished our talk yet," and he
slyly stressed it, "about self-knowledge, have we?"
He certainly came later than the rest of our company, arriving when the
table-talk had already turned into argument, so hot an argument that there
was shouting, an argument stubborn to the point of rudeness when you forget
all formalities in an effort to get your word in.
My story of what I experienced during the test and of my later talk
with the scientists had made the impression of maniacal raving.
"We-ell..." Klenov muttered uncertainly, and was silent.
"I don't believe it," cried out Galya excitedly, red in the face and
with sparks in her eyes.
"Why not?"
"It's nonsense! And it's sensation-hunting, as my lab colleagues say. A
shady business. They're pulling the wool over your eyes."
"But why should they?" snapped Klenov. "What's their game? Nikodimov
and Zargaryan aren't glory-hunters or schemers. It would be all very well if
they wanted publicity, but they demand silence, d'you see. With their names,
they don't want to arouse even a shadow of doubt that it's a truly
scientific venture."
"Everything new in science, all discoveries, are built on past
experiments," said Galya heatedly. "And where can you see that in this
experiment?"
"The new often refutes the old."
"There are different kinds of refutations."
"Exactly. Einstein wasn't believed either, at first, for it was Newton
he refuted!"
Olga kept stubbornly silent and out of it all, until it drew Galya's
attention.
"W7hy don't you say something?"
"I'm afraid to."
"Whatever for?"
"You people are only arguing about certain abstract ideas, but Sergei
is taking a direct part in the experiment. And, as I understand it, it won't
stop here. If everything he says is true, why, the brain of an average
person can scarcely sustain it."
"And are you so sure that I'm an average person?" I joked.
But she did not take it as a joke, nor did she answer me. Galya and
Klenov again ruled the conversation. I had to answer dozens of questions and
again repeat my story of the dreams I'd had in Faust's laboratory.
"To anybody? But I know why you did it. From jealousy."
I even laughed.
"Jealous of whom?"
"And he even laughs, the scum!" she screamed.
Before I could catch her arm, she hit me in the face so hard that I
almost lost balance.
"You scum!" she repeated, choking with tears, and close to hysterics.
"Murderer! ... If it wasn't for Volodya Asafyev, Oleg would now be dead on
the operating table. Lying there dead, dead!"
A sudden darkness cut short her screams.
I seemed to be blind and deaf, and my body was pressed to the parquet
floor as if paralysed. I could not even stir, and felt nothing except the
coolness of the waxed floor against my temple. How many hours, or minutes,
perhaps seconds, this feeling lasted I don't know. I had lost all sense of
time.
Suddenly the blackness before my eyes faded like Indian ink does on
Whatman paper when you use it to spread a dull grey wash over an outlined
space. The space here was outlined by the walls of a narrow corridor lit by
a few dim electric bulbs and terminating in a steep stairway loading up to a
rectangle of daylight. I was standing now, pressing my face against the
waxed wall-panels, holding on to the handrail that ran the whole length of
the corridor.
As before, Lena was looking at me, but her expression had changed into
deep sympathy.
"Are you sea-sick?" she asked. "Nauseous?"
I certainly felt a bit under the weather, especially when the floor,
swaying like a swing, suddenly slipped from under my feet and my stomach
twisted in spasms.
"It's the pitching of the ship," she explained. "We're turning into the
harbour."
"Whereabouts are we?" I said, failing to grasp what she meant.
"We've already reached Istanbul, Professor. Come and take a look."
"Where?"
I still could not catch on to what was happening.
A new devilish metamorphosis. Out of one dream into another. A
Technicolor scene from a fairy tale.
"Come up on deck. You'll feel better where there's a breeze," and she
pulled me after her. "Incidentally, let's see what Istanbul looks like.
Though one can hardly make anything out - it's raining."
The rain did not actually fall, but hung around us like a lustreless,
hazy netting. Through this net, the shoreline panorama seemed made of
shapeless, abstract patches with the outlines here and there of murkily
gleaming minarets and cupolas, some blue and others green. Clouds teemed
above it all, bunting and overtaking each other.
"We'll need our raincoats," frowned Lena, with a hand above her eyes to
ward off the fine wet spray. "Can't go ashore like this. What cabin are you
in, seven? Wait for me by the ship's ladder or on shore. All right?"
Now I knew the number of my cabin. Well then, let's go for a
mackintosh. A trip through foreign seas and countries is always interesting.
Even in the rain, even in a dream.
Entering my cabin, I found Mikhail Sichuk busy by his bunk. He was
hurriedly pocketing some papers and packets, and did not seem at all pleased
with my appearance.
"Is it raining?" he asked.
"It is," I answered mechanically, trying to puzzle out why my dreams
persistently confronted me with the very same personages. "What are you
stuffing in your pockets?"
This seemed to embarrass Mikhail.
"Oh, that ... just souvenirs to exchange. So it's raining..." he
mumbled, avoiding my eyes.
"That's bad. We'll all be bunched in a group, holding on to each other.
Otherwise we'll get lost...."
Then I remembered what Mikhail had done in real life. In this very same
Istanbul. In reality, and not in a dream.
"What's the name of our ship?" I asked.
"What? You've forgotten?" grinned Mikhail.
"Sclerosis. Can't remember, somehow."
"The Ukraine. What of it?" He looked at me with suspicion.
Everything fell into place. This dream, in time, was a month ago. All
the better. I could change the course of events.
"Nothing special," and I even yawned to put him off the track. "It's
raining. Suppose we don't go."
"Not go where?"
"Ashore. They'll make us walk half the day in the rain: mosques,
museums.... Wishing we were home. Let's settle down in the bar over a glass
of beer."
"Isn't that the limit!" laughed Mikhail. "The last foreign port and we
go to the bar."
"Why the last? We still have Varna and Constanta to see. Very beautiful
cities, by the way."
"Socialist," drawled Mikhail scornfully.
"And you, of course, must have capitalist towns? "
"I paid good money out. I want my money's worth."
"Thirty pieces of silver," I said. "Judas money."
Incidentally in that other dream in the Metropole, I'd already put this
to Mikhail. And all for nothing. The shot had misfired. He never got his
excursion-voucher, and so never took the trip. But now I'd caught him in
time.
"Look, I know what you're planning," I went on. "Two words to a
policeman at the first bus stop, and off in a taxi to the American Embassy.
Quiet, don't deny it! And at the embassy you'll beg for political shelter."
For a moment Mikhail was turned into a pillar of salt, like Lot's wife
immortalized in the Bible. But only for a moment. Realizing that somebody
had looked into his soul, into its secret depths, a quiet terror came and
went in his eyes. He was a damned good actor.
"Rubbish," he said, with a show of good-heartedness, and reached out to
take his raincoat off the hanger.
"I am not joking, Sichuk," I said.
"What does that mean?"
"It means I know the dirty thing you intended to do, and I'm going to
stop it."
"That's interesting, but how?" he burst out.
"It's all very simple. Till we leave port, you don't go out of this
cabin."
"Might as well warn you, I'm not a good subject for hypnosis. So get
out of my way," he declared insolently, and began putting his coat on.
I sat on the edge of the bunk nearest the door. Then I wrapped my
handkerchief round my left hand. I'm left-handed, and punch with my left.
There's no curve to the punch, and it has all the power of my arm and
shoulder muscles behind it, and the whole weight of my body. I learned this
from Sazhin, the USSR boxing champion in the light-heavyweight class. That
was in the late forties. I was younger then and glad of his help. I would go
to him at the training gym after work, right from the editorial office.
There, in a sheltered corner, I would correct his notes - he was going to
turn journalist. Then I would ask him to show me a few tricks.
And he did. "You'll never make a boxer, of course," he told me. "Too
old, and no talent.... But if you ever get in a fight, you'll be able to
take care of yourself. Only see you don't break your knuckles. Wrap your
hand up."
Mikhail at once noticed my manipulation and became curious.
"What's that for?"
"So I don't skin my knuckles."
"What? You're joking?"
"I've already told once I'm not joking."
"One yell from me...."
"You won't yell," I interrupted him. "Or it'll be the worse for you.
I'll tell everything you plan doing and ... curtains, as they say."
"Who's going to believe it?"
"They'll believe it. Once they're tipped off, they'll start thinking
out the how's and wherefore's. You won't be let ashore."
"But I can accuse you of the same thing."
"Then they won't let either of us go. And when we get home, it'll all
be straightened out."
Dressed in his hat and coat, Mikhail sat opposite me on his bunk.
"You're crazy. What gave you the idea I was going to skip?"
"I saw it in a dream."
"I'm asking you straight."
"What difference does it make? The important thing is, I'm not
mistaken. I can read it in your eyes."
"I'm a Soviet citizen, Sergei."
"You're not. You're the scum of the earth. I found that out even at the
front. Knew you were a coward, a bad lot. Only I never managed to expose you
in time."
Red spots came up on Mikhail's cheeks. His fingers played nervously
with his coat buttons, doing them up and undoing them. He must have finally
realized that his well-worked-out plan could fail.
"I won't yell, of course. I don't want a row." His voice took on a
tearful note. "But, honestly, this is all nonsense. Sheer nonsense."
"What's in your pockets?"
"I told you. All kinds of stuff: pins, badges, photos."
"Show me."
"Why should I?"
"Then don't. Lie down on your bunk, and stay there."
He got up and walked to the door. I put my back against it.
"Let me out," he said through his teeth, grabbing my shoulders.
He was stronger than I, but out of cowardice didn't realize it.
However, without any manifest hesitation, he came straight for me.
"Let me out," he repeated, pulling me toward him.
I gave him the knee, and he flew back. Then, crouching, he tore at me
trying to smash his head under my chin.
But it didn't connect, and I let fly at his face with a straight left,
landing right on his mouth. He swayed and crashed to the floor between his
bunk and the wash-basin. A red trickle ran from his cut lip. He touched it
with his fingers, saw blood, and screamed: "He-elp...." And broke off.
"Go ahead, yell," I told him. "Yell louder. You don't scare me."
His eyes narrowed, radiating spite alone.
"All the same, I'll skip," he hissed. "Next time."
"You be man enough to announce that at home. Officially, so that all
can hear. Say it plainly, that you don't like our system, our society. Beg
for a visa from some embassy or other. You think you'll be held? Oh no.
We'll be glad to chuck you out. We don't need human scum like you."
"So why don't you let me go now?"
"Because you're crawling out quietly. By a fraud. Because you're
letting everybody down who trusted you."
Mikhail jumped up and rushed me again, his mouth stretched in an ugly
grin. He wasn't thinking now of getting out of the cabin at any cost; he was
gripped by blind anger and lost his head.
I knocked him off his feet again. Sazhin's lessons came in handy after
all. This time he fell on his bunk, but so hard that his head hit the wall.
It looked to me as if he had lost consciousness. But he stirred and groaned.
I folded a towel, wet it under the tap, and laid it on his face.
There was a knock at the door. I slid a glance at Mikhail. He did not
even turn round. I released the catch on the door. In came a perfect
stranger wearing a wet raincoat; apparently it was raining harder.
"You coming, Sergei Nikolaevich?"
"No," I answered. "I'm not. My friend isn't feeling well. Sea-sick, I
guess. I'll stay with him."
Mikhail still did not move, nor even raise his head. I waited till the
footsteps died away down the corridor.
"I'm going to the bar," I warned Mikhail. "But, if you'll excuse me,
I'm locking the door."
I locked the door, but did not get to the bar. Again the sudden
darkness, that I was so used to, returned me to the familiar chair with the
helmet and pick-ups.
The first thing I heard was the tail end of a conversation which
clearly was not meant for my ears.
"A traveller in time - that's stale. I should call it a 'walk in the
fifth dimension'."
"Maybe in the seventh?"
"We'll formulate it. How is he?"
"Unconscious, so far."
"Consciousness has already returned."
"And the encephalogram?"
"Recorded in full."
"I told you before he's a real find."
"Shall I turn on the isolator?"
"Turn it off, you meant to say? Give it zero three, and then zero ten.
Let his eyes get used to light gradually."
The blackness lifted a bit. As if a crack had opened somewhere letting
in a tiny ray of light. Though invisible, it made the objects around me
visible. With each passing second they grew more clear-cut, and soon I saw
Zargaryan's face before me, as if on a cinema screen.
"Ave, homo, amici te salutant. ( Greetings, man, friends salute you.-
tr.) Do I need to translate?"
"No," I answered.
There was now full light. The astronaut's helmet lightly slipped from
my head and lifted up. The chair-back gave me a push as if suggesting that I
get up. I did. Nikodimov was already in his place at the desk, inviting me
to join them both.
"Did you have many experiences?"
"Many. Shall I relate them?"
"Not in any case. You are tired. You will tell us tomorrow. What you
need now is rest, and a proper sleep. Without dreams."
"But what I saw ... were they dreams?" I asked.
"We'll put oft all exchange of information till tomorrow," he smiled.
"Today, don't relate a thing, not even at home. The main thing is sleep, and
more sleep."
"But shall I fall asleep?" I doubted.
"Without a doubt. After supper, take this tablet. And tomorrow we'll
meet again here. Let's say at two o'clock. Ruben Zargaryan will come for
you."
"Now I'll have him homo in a jiffy. Swift as the wind," said Zargaryan.
"And don't think about anything. Don't try to recollect anything. Don't
live it over again," added Nikodimov. Urbi ot orbi, not a word. Need I
translate?"
"I guess not," I said.
I kept my word, and gave Olga only a general outline about what had
taken place. I myself did not want to relive all I had seen in my artificial
dreams, even in my thoughts. Nor did I ask Olga about anything that had the
slightest connection with my dreams. But late at night, in bed, I could not
restrain myself.
"Did we ever get an invitation from the Hungarian Embassy?"
"No," said Olga in surprise. "Why do you ask?"
"Which of your acquaintances is called Fedor Ivanovich, and who is
Raisa?"
"I haven't the faintest," she answered, more surprised than ever. "I
don't know any people with those names. No wait ... I remember. You know who
Fedor Ivanovich is? The head of a polyclinic. Not ours, but the one I was
asked to work in, the one attached to the ministry. And Raisa - that's his
wife. It was she who made mo the offer. When did you get to know them?"
"I'll tell you tomorrow. Right now, my mind is a muddle. Forgive me," I
muttered, and fell asleep.
I woke up late, after Olga had already gone leaving my breakfast on the
table and coffee in the thermos. I didn't want to get up. I lay in bed,
unhurriedly going over the events of yesterday. I remembered with particular
clarity the dreams I had seen in Faust's laboratory - not dreams, but
living, concrete reality. I remembered them in detail, down to the little
things you usually don't notice in real life. And immediately I recalled
even the paper pad in the hospital consulting room, the colour of the
buttons on Mikhail's raincoat, the sound of the probe falling on the floor,
and the taste of the apricot palinka or brandy. I recalled all the
Hoffman-style confusion, compared the conversations, actions and
interrelations, finally coming to strange conclusions. Very strange, though
their strangeness hardly lessened their cogency.
A telephone call got me out of bed. It was Klenov, who had already
found out from Zoya about my meeting Zargaryan. I would have to take a hard
line.
"Do you know what 'taboo' means?"
"Suppose I do?"
"Then get this: Zargaryan is taboo, Nikodimov is also taboo,
telepathy's taboo. That's the works."
"I'll tear my clothes to ribbons."
"Tear away! By the way, have you got a cottage in Zhavoronki?"
"A garden plot, you mean to say? Only it's not in Zhavoronki. We were
offered two choices: Zhavoronki or Kupavna. I chose the last."
"But you could have chosen Zhavoronki?"
"Naturally. Why are you interested?"
"I'm interested in a lot of things. For instance, who is press-attache
now at the Hungarian Embassy? Kemenes?"
"You haven't got encephalitis, by any chance?"
"I'm asking in all seriousness."
"Kemenes is press-attache in Hungary. He hasn't been sent to Moscow."
"But he might have been?"
"I get it. You're writing a thesis on the subjunctive mood."
In a way, Klenov almost guessed it. In my attempts to figure out the
secret hovering around me, I tripped over the subjunctive mood time and
again that morning. What might have happened if.... If Oleg hadn't been
killed at Dunafoldvar? If it hadn't been Oleg that married Galya, but I? If
I had gone in for medicine after the war instead of entering the faculty of
journalism? If Olga had agreed to work at the ministry's clinic? If Tibor
Kemenes hadn't gone to work in Belgrade, but had come to Moscow? If, if....
Over the subjunctive mood, this Hoffman devilry burst into rich bloom. I
might have gone to a reception in the Hungarian Embassy. I might have gone
on the Ukraine around Europe. I might have been a Doctor of Medical
Sciences, a surgeon operating on a living Oleg. All of these things might
have been in real life, if....
And another if. What if I had seen not dreams at Zargaryan's, but a
hypnotic stream of life, altered here and there according to circumstances?
Then the fantastic Jekyll and Hyde story would have received a lawful vote.
If Gromov the journalist could be turned into a surgeon for a certain time,
then why shouldn't Gromov the surgeon become journalist Gromov for a time?
He had that day on Tverskoi Boulevard. In a flash, flooded with Indian ink
and lilac mist. In a flash, like Hyde jumping into Jekyll's body from the
foam-rubber chair in Faust's laboratory. You see, Dr. Gromov had his
Nikodimov and Zargaryan who controlled the same mysterious forces.
That meant that Zargaryan, Nikodimov and I, the three of us equally,
had taken part in the simultaneous current of certain parallel
non-intersecting lives. How many parallel lives were there? Two, five, six,
a hundred, a thousand of them? What course were they following, and in what
space or time? I remembered Galya's talk with Hyde about the plurality of
worlds. What if it wasn't a fantastic hypothesis, but a scientific discovery
- one more mystery solved about matter?
But my mind refused to accept this explanation. All the more so because
my mind was untrained in the exact sciences. I could only bewail the limited
knowledge of our education in the humanities. I did not have enough brains
to think over, to ponder upon, the problem I had brought to light,
That was the state of mind I was in when Galya dropped in on her way to
work. She had learned from Olga last night that I'd gone to see Zargaryan,
and she was literally burning with curiosity to know if I'd found the key to
the puzzle.
"I found it," I said. "Only I can't turn the key in the lock: I haven't
the strength."
I told her about the chair in Faust's laboratory, and about my three
'dreams'. She was silent for a long time before she gave me a question. "Had
he grown old?"
"Who?"
"Oleg."
"What did you expect? Twenty years have gone by."
She fell silent again, lost in thought. I was afraid that her personal
curiosity overshadowed that of a scientist. But I was mistaken.
"Something else interests me," she said, breaking the silence. "The
fact that you saw him grown older. With wrinkles. With a scar that never
existed. It's impossible!" "Why?"
"Because you've never read Pavlov. You cannot see in a dream what
you've never seen in real life. The blind from birth do not see dreams. And
what was Oleg like when you knew him? A boy, a youth. Where did the wrinkles
of a forty-year-old man come from, and the scar on the temple?"
"But if it's not a dream?"
"You've already got an explanation?" Galya shot back.
I got the idea that she had guessed exactly what explanation I thought
the most likely, and the most frightening.
"So far it's only an attempt at an explanation," I reminded her
hesitantly. "I keep trying to compare my adventure with these dreams.... If
Hyde could play such a joke on Jekyll, then why couldn't they both exchange
roles?"
"Mysticism."
"But don't you remember your talk with Hyde about the plurality of
worlds? Parallel worlds, parallel lives?"
"Rubbish," objected Galya.
"You simply don't want to take it seriously," I reproached her. "It's
easy enough to say 'rubbish'. They said the same thing about the Copernicus
hypothesis."
I didn't make her give in by this remark but at least forced her to
think about my own thesis.
"Parallel worlds? Why parallel?"
"Because they don't intersect anywhere."
Galya laughed, openly scornful.
"Don't try writing science fiction: that's my advice. You wouldn't get
anywhere. Non-intersecting worlds?" She snorted. "So Nikodimov and Zargaryan
have found a point of intersection? A window into an anti-world?"
"Who knows?" I said.
I found out the answer to that two hours later in Faust's laboratory.
To tell the truth, I went there as if to an examination, with the same
inner trepidation and fear before the unknown. Again and again I ran over
the dreams I recalled, the visions I'd seen during the experiment. I called
them 'dreams' from habit, though I had come to the final conclusion that
they weren't dreams at all. I compared all details suggesting such a
comparison, and systematized my conclusions.
"Have you got it well rehearsed?" asked Zargaryan merrily when he met
me.
"Rehearsed what?" I muttered, embarrassed.
"Your story, of course."
He saw through me. But rising anger made me overcome my embarrassment.
"I don't much like your attitude."
He only laughed in answer.
"Do all the complaining you like. The tape-recorder isn't turned on
yet."
"What tape-recorder?"
"The 'Yauza-10'. For purity of sound, it's wonderful."
I hadn't expected to make a tape-recording. It's one thing to tell a
story, bat quite another to tape-record. I shook my head, almost refusing.
"Sit down and begin," Nikodimov encouraged me. "You'll make your mark
in science. Pretend you're dictating to a pretty stenographer."
"Only no hunter's tales," added Zargaryan with sly humour. "The tape's
supersensitive, with Munchausen tuning.... I'm switching on."
Childishly, I stuck my tongue out at him, and my shyness disappeared at
once. I began my story without any prologue, quite freely, and the more I
talked the more colourful it became. I did not simply relate it: I explained
and compared, looking into the past; compared the vision with reality and my
experiences with my subsequent views. All Zargaryan's irony disappeared like
smoke: he listened greedily, stopping me only to reverse the tape. I
resurrected for them all the impressions I had in the lab chair: Lena's
anger in the hospital, Sichuk's face convulsed with evil, and the lifeless
smile of Oleg on the operating table, everything that I recalled and that
had staggered me, that even shocked me now while I tape-recorded my still
vivid recollections.
The tape reel was still turning when I finished: Zargaryan did not
immediately turn it off, and it recorded the whole minute of silence that
reigned in the room.
"So you didn't see the department store arcade," he observed bitterly.
"Nor the road to the lake. A pity."
"Wait, Ruben," Nikodimov stopped him. "That's not the point. You see.
the phases are almost identical. The same time, the same people."
"Not quite."
"Only infinitesimal deviations."
"But they are there," said Zargaryan,
"Not mathematically."
"And the difference in the signs?"
"Does such a difference change a man? Time changes, perhaps. If it's a
minus phase, then it's possibly time coining from an opposite direction -
counter-time."
"Don't be so sure. Perhaps it's only a different system of counting
time," said Zargaryan.
"All the same, everybody will call it fantasy! And reason?"
"If you don't violate reason, you won't get anywhere in general. Who
said that? Einstein."
The conversation didn't get any clearer. And I coughed.
"Excuse me," said Nikodimov, embarrassed. "We got carried away. Your
dreams don't give us any peace."
"But are they dreams?" I expressed my doubts.
"You doubt it? So you've been thinking, have you? Maybe we'll start off
the explanations with yours?"
I remembered all Galya's sneers, but I was not afraid of hearing the
same again. So I stubbornly repeated the myth of Jekyll and Hyde, who met on
the crossroads of space and time. If this was an anti-world, plurality,
mysticism, the ravings of a mad dog - so be it! But I had no other theories
to explain it with.
However, Nikodimov did not even smile.
"Have you studied physics?" he asked suddenly.
"Through a school textbook," I admitted, and thought: 'Now he'll
start!'
But Nikodimov did not mock me, he merely stroked his beard.
"A rich training. But how, with the help of a school textbook can you
define a plurality of worlds? Let's say, in Cartesian co-ordinates?"
Searching my memory, I found the Wellsian Utopia that Mr. Barnstaple
got into, without turning off an ordinary highway.
"Excellent," agreed Nikodimov. "We'll begin with that. What did Wells
compare our three-dimensional world to? To a book whose every page was a
two-dimensional world. So, one might suppose that in multi-dimensional space
there might also be neighbouring three-dimensional worlds, moving in time
along nearly parallel routes. That's according to Wells. When he wrote his
novel after the First World War, the genius Dirac was still a youth, and his
theory received popular acclaim only in the thirties. You can, of course,
picture up what Dirac's 'vacuum' is?"
"Approximately," I said carefully. "Generally speaking, it is not a
void, but something like a neutrino-antineutrino pulp. Like plankton in the
ocean."
"Picturesque, but not lacking sense," agreed Nikodimov again. "And this
very same plankton from elementary particles, the neutrino-antineutrino gas,
constitutes a border between worlds with a plus sign and those with a minus
sign. There are scientists who look for anti-worlds in other galaxies, but I
prefer seeking them right next door. And not only a symmetrical system -
world and anti-world, but the infinity of this symmetry. As we have an
infinite number of combinations in a game of chess, so even here there are
infinite combinations of worlds and anti-worlds, adjacent to each other. You
ask how I picture this adjacency? As a stable, geometrically isolated
existence? No, on the contrary. In a simplified form this is the idea of the
inexhaustibility of matter, of its perpetual motion generating these worlds
along certain new, still unknown co-ordinates. To be more exact, along
certain phase-like trajectories.
"Well, but what about ordinary motion then?" I interrupted, perplexed.
"I'm also a particle of matter, but I move through space independent of your
quasi-motion."
"Why 'quasi'? One is simply independent of the other. You are moving
through space independent of your moving through time. Whether you sit at
home or travel somewhere - you get equally older. So it is here: in one
world you might, let's say, be travelling by sea; in the other, at the very
same time, you are playing chess or having dinner at home. More than that:
in the infinite repetition of worlds you may travel, be ill, or work; while
in other infinite plurality of similar worlds, you don't actually exist,
perhaps through an unfortunate accident or suicide, or you were simply never
born at all because your parents never met. I hope I make myself clear?"
"Quite clear."
"He's shamming," said Zargaryan. "What he needs right now is a vivid
example - that's clear at a glance. Look here, imagine an unusual reel of
film. In one frame you are flying in an aeroplane, in another you are
shooting, in a third you are killed. In one frame a tree is growing, in
another it is cut down. In one, the Pushkin monument stands on Tverskoi
Boulevard, in another in the centre of the square. In a word, life shown in
separate frames, moving, let us say, vertically from below upward or from
above downward. And now picture the same life in separate frames, but moving
horizontally from every frame, from left to right or vice versa. There you
have an approximate model of matter in multi-dimensional space. Now what do
you think is the most essential difference between this model and the
simulated object?"
I didn't answer. What was the use of guessing?
"The difference is that there are no identical frames, but identical
worlds exist."
"Similar," I countered.
"Not only," Nikodimov interrupted. "We still don't know the law by
which matter moves in these dimensions. Take the simplest law: the
sinusoidal. With the ordinary sinusoid, the slightest change in the argument
brings about a corresponding change of function, and that means another
world. But in a period, we get the same value of the sine and consequently
the same world. And so on into eternity."
"That means I might also find myself in a world like ours? Exactly the
same?"
"You wouldn't even notice any difference," said Zargaryan.
"And how do you explain what happened to me on the boulevard?"
"The same as you do. Jekyll and Hyde."
"A Gromov from another world who looks the same as me?"
"Precisely. A certain Nikodimov and a Zargaryan in that world
transferred the conscious mind of your double. This did not occur
momentarily, not all at once. Your own mind protested, argued: that explains
the dualism during the first few minutes. But afterwards it gave in to the
aggressor."
I suggested the proposition that my trying episode in the hospital was
an exchange visit, but Nikodimov doubted it.
"It's possible, of course, but scarcely likely. It would be closer to
the truth to suppose that it was a Gromov more or less like your aggressor.
The same profession, the same circle of acquaintances, the same family
situation. But I've already told you of the possibility of an almost
complete, and even utterly complete, identity...."
"To put it more vividly," interrupted Zargaryan, "we have visited
worlds whose borders fit into the borders of ours, touching the interior. We
call them adjacent worlds, conditionally of course. And there are even more
interesting worlds intersecting ours or, shall we say, perhaps in general
not having points of contact with ours. There, time is either in advance of
our time, or it lags behind. And who knows by how much?" He was silent, then
added almost dreamily:
Far beyond a certain birch-tree,
So long, so very dear to me,
In sudden silence is revealed
The unknown - strange and most unreal.
"You didn't finish," I laughed, remembering the same verses. "It's
different farther on!"
To reach an unknown world we strive,
'It's sad, not all who go arrive.
The desk telephone rang.
"Not all who go," repeated Nikodimov thoughtfully. "Our chief wouldn't
arrive."
The telephone kept ringing.
"Talk of the devil, and.... Don't answer."
"All the same, he'll find us."
The trip into the unknown was put off till the evening when we were to
meet in the Sofia Restaurant, where freedom from the top brass was fully
guaranteed.
NOSCE TE IPSUM (KNOW THYSELF)
I did not see Olga until supper time: she was delayed at the
polyclinic. There was nobody to talk with, about what had happened. Galya
didn't ring up, and I was careful to avoid Klenov because of his
insufferable instructive manner; because of it I even slipped away from an
editorial meeting.
I wandered the streets for about an hour, so as not to arrive at the
restaurant too early and have to hang around the entrance looking foolish.
Trying to collect my thoughts, I sat by Pushkin's monument, but everything
I'd heard that morning was so new and surprising that I couldn't even think
it all out. Finally, all the flow of my thoughts led to the question of how
to evaluate my meeting the two scientists. As an unusual success,
'reporters' luck', or as a menace that always lies hidden in something the
mind cannot grasp. I was inclined to think it was 'reporters' luck'. If a
lab guinea-pig could reason, it would probably be proud of its association
with scientists. And I was proud of mine. Another sign of reporters' luck
was the type of scientists my friends belonged to. I read somewhere that
scientists are divided into classic and romantic types. The classic typo is
he who develops something new on the basis of the old, on what is firmly
established in science. But the romanticists are dreamers. They are
interested in fields of knowledge close to their own or remotely connected
with them. They not only produce something new founded on the old: more
often they do it by using utterly unlooked-for associations. I had even
expressed my admiration of this type in an article I wrote. Now 'reporters'
luck' had thrown us together. Only romantics can so bravely and recklessly
sin against reason. And, apparently, I was very anxious to continue my part
in this sinning.
Such were my thoughts as I went to keep my appointment, arriving not
earlier but even later than my new friends. They already awaited me at the
entrance: Zargaryan all in smiles and Nikodimov, dressed in an old-fashioned
stiff jacket, modestly effacing himself in the rear. The stand-up starched
collar, popular around the turn of the century, would have suited him
perfectly - he looked as severe as a prophet out of the Old Testament. The
irresistible Zargaryan more than made up for it. Wearing a strict dark suit,
with just enough of his tie showing to display a gold pin linked to a
rounded shirt-collar, he so impressed the stout, bald maitre d'hotel that
Nikodimov and I went unnoticed. We walked behind, half-smiling at the waiter
bustling ahead of our tall Ruben and captiously selecting the secluded table
we ordered.
When dinner was served, Zargaryan poured the cognac.
"The first toast is mine ... to chance meetings."
"Why 'chance'?"
"You can't possibly imagine how great a role chance plays in my life.
By chance I met Zoya and through her, by chance, you. I even met Pavel
Nikodimov by chance. Five years ago I read his article on the concentration
of the sub-quantum biofield in the Bulletin of the Academy of Sciences. I
went to him at once. It turned out that we were approaching one and the same
problem along different paths."
He was silent. I remembered Klenov telling me that they worked in
absolutely different fields of science, but before I could utter my question
Zargaryan read my mind.
"A strange union, eh? Physics and neurophysiology," he laughed.
"What are you, a mind-reader?"
"And why not? I must be according to my staff position. After all I'm a
telepathist. I'm engaged in many things in this field, but most of all I'm
interested in dreams. Why do we so often dream of what we never saw in our
conscious lives? How is this connected with Pavlov's teaching that the
essence of dreams is a reflection of reality. What stimulations, in such
cases, act on the brain cells? Perhaps things one is accustomed to - light,
sounds, contacts, smells? But if not? Then there must be certain new
stimulations we are not aware of...."
I remembered why my dreams drew his attention: they were not
reflections of reality. But, apparently, many people have seen such dreams.
Only these dreams weren't stable, as Zargaryan had explained. They were
easily forgotten, hazy in the conscious mind, but the main thing was they
did not repeat themselves.
"I figured it this way," he continued. "If, according to Pavlov, dreams
reflect what is seen in our waking hours, yet the one experiencing them
never actually saw the things he dreamed of, then it means somebody else
did. But who? And how can what he sees be imprinted on the conscious mind of
another?"
I interrupted him.
"Then my department store, street scene, the road to the lake or pond -
they are some stranger's dreams?"
"Without any doubt."
"But whose?"
"I still didn't know at the time. There arose a supposition that it was
hypnotic transmission. But suggestion does not occur by chance, suggestion
out of nowhere. It is always sent from the hypnotizer to the hypnotized. Not
one of the cases I observed showed any evidence of suggestion. I put forward
the idea of mental telepathy. In parapsychology, we call the brain sending
the signal the inductor, and the brain receiving it the percipient. And
again, not in one case investigated did we manage to discover the inductor.
Characteristic examples are your more stable dreams. Who transmits them to
you? From where? You wore lost in conjectures. I was, too, though I inclined
to the supposition that it is some other living person existing in another
form and perhaps in another world. However, that would he almost
mysticism.... I stood before a closed door. It was Pavel Nikodimov who
opened it for me, or rather his paper did. Then I said: 'Open, Sesame!'
Isn't that the way it was, Pavel?"
"Just about," affirmed Nikodimov good-heartedly. "But you skipped the
most picturesque details: Sesame did not open so easily. You see, I'm a
crabby fellow ... get along rather badly with people. My assistant ... well,
he ran away when they began to put pressure on us. Took you for a lunatic,
Ruben. I can even remember the district psychiatrist he phoned to. But even
that didn't stop you. But you're right, our collaboration began from a
chance meeting. So I back your toast. Let's drink to it."
"And afterwards?" I asked. "It's a big jump from an idea to
experimental tests."
"We didn't jump, we crawled. The mathematical idea led to the physical
state of the field. We started off with biocurrents. You see, the
biocurrents of the brain are actually electro-magnetic fields originating in
its nerve cells. Through their radiation they generate a sort of single
energy-field - the so-called conscious and subconscious of a person's mind.
Take your analogy. The fields of Jekyll and Hyde are only similar: they are
incompatible or, as we say, antipathetic.
While you are awake, while your brain is active, the antipathy of the
fields is constant and invariable. But when you fall asleep, the picture
changes. The antipathy is now weakened, so the fields of the 'doubles' are
superposed, so to say, and your dreams automatically repeat what the other
has seen. But for Jekyll to become Hyde a complete compatibility of fields
is necessary, which is possible only during exceptional activity on the part
of the inductor's field. And we've discovered that you possess this
exceptional gift of activity."
I listened eagerly to Nikodimov, but not all of it sank in, some of it
escaped me. It was as if I had spells of deafness and from time to time lost
the guiding thread in this devilish labyrinth of fields, doubles,
frequencies and rhythms; but with sheer force of will I would catch it
again. It looked like a speech interrupted by dots to indicate omissions.
"... through our experiments," Nikodimov was saying, "we came to the
conclusion that under reciprocal transmission the fields activate waves with
a frequency much higher than the usual alpha-rhythm. We called this new type
of frequency kappa-rhythm. And the higher the frequency of the kappa waves,
the more vivid are the dreams received by the sleeping receptor. Further on
it wasn't so difficult to establish the regularities as well. Complete
compatibility of fields is connected with a sharp rise in frequency. So we
got the idea of making a concentrator, or a transformer of biocurrents. By
establishing the directed current of radiation we apparently transfer your
conscious mind, locating an identical mind for it beyond the borders of our
three-dimensional world. Of course, we are still at the very beginning of
the road - the movement of the field along a phase trajectory is somewhat
chaotic for the time being, because we cannot yet control it. We cannot say
exactly where you will regain consciousness - in the present, past or in the
future, going by our time. Dozens of experiments must still be made...."
"I'm ready," I interrupted him.
Nikodimov did not answer.
A husky, boyish voice drifted down to us from the stage where a
juke-box stood that a young pop-music fan had turned on. The voice floated
over the noisy dining-hall, over the short- or long-haired or bald heads,
over the wine-darkened crystal goblets, floated invisibly and powerfully
with a strength and purity of feeling unexpected in a restaurant almost blue
with cigarette smoke.
"A song with an undercurrent," said Zargaryan.
I listened. "You are my destiny," sang the boy, "you are my
happiness...."
"And you are our destiny," Zargaryan picked up the words with a serious
and even triumphant note. "And maybe our happiness. You alone."
I averted my eyes, embarrassed. Whatever you say, there is something
good about being somebody's destiny and happiness. Nikodimov at once caught
my movements and the rather vain idea behind it.
"But perhaps we are your destiny, too," he said. "You will know a lot
more, and particularly about yourself. You see, you are only a particle of
that living matter which is 'you' in an endlessly complicated vastness -
time. In a word, as the ancient Romans said: Nosce te ipsum - know thyself."
I was ready to know myself in all the sum total of dimensions, phases
and co-ordinates, but I didn't tell Olga about it that night. I gave her a
vague sketch of my talk with the scientists and promised to relate it in
greater detail the following day, which was her birthday. We usually
celebrated it alone, but this time I invited Galya and Klenov to be our
guests. I wanted very much to include Zargaryan and Nikodimov, the guilty
parties in this unexpected - I could even say wonderful - event in my life.
I had mentioned it in passing when we left the restaurant, but Nikodimov
either wasn't listening attentively or missed it through absent-mindedness.
"Best leave it," Zargaryan had whispered confidentially. "He won't come
anyway - he's a hermit, as he admitted himself. But I'll come when I can get
away, perhaps a bit late though. We haven't finished our talk yet," and he
slyly stressed it, "about self-knowledge, have we?"
He certainly came later than the rest of our company, arriving when the
table-talk had already turned into argument, so hot an argument that there
was shouting, an argument stubborn to the point of rudeness when you forget
all formalities in an effort to get your word in.
My story of what I experienced during the test and of my later talk
with the scientists had made the impression of maniacal raving.
"We-ell..." Klenov muttered uncertainly, and was silent.
"I don't believe it," cried out Galya excitedly, red in the face and
with sparks in her eyes.
"Why not?"
"It's nonsense! And it's sensation-hunting, as my lab colleagues say. A
shady business. They're pulling the wool over your eyes."
"But why should they?" snapped Klenov. "What's their game? Nikodimov
and Zargaryan aren't glory-hunters or schemers. It would be all very well if
they wanted publicity, but they demand silence, d'you see. With their names,
they don't want to arouse even a shadow of doubt that it's a truly
scientific venture."
"Everything new in science, all discoveries, are built on past
experiments," said Galya heatedly. "And where can you see that in this
experiment?"
"The new often refutes the old."
"There are different kinds of refutations."
"Exactly. Einstein wasn't believed either, at first, for it was Newton
he refuted!"
Olga kept stubbornly silent and out of it all, until it drew Galya's
attention.
"W7hy don't you say something?"
"I'm afraid to."
"Whatever for?"
"You people are only arguing about certain abstract ideas, but Sergei
is taking a direct part in the experiment. And, as I understand it, it won't
stop here. If everything he says is true, why, the brain of an average
person can scarcely sustain it."
"And are you so sure that I'm an average person?" I joked.
But she did not take it as a joke, nor did she answer me. Galya and
Klenov again ruled the conversation. I had to answer dozens of questions and
again repeat my story of the dreams I'd had in Faust's laboratory.