the men as they entered, but didn't turn his head.
"You should get up, like you're supposed to," Gayevoy said in reproach.
"I don't consider myself a convict!"
"And you aren't, comrade Victor Vitalyevich Kravets," Onisimov said
calmly. "You were detained for questioning. Now the situation is becoming
clear, and I don't feel it is necessary to keep you under guard any longer.
We'll call you if we need you. So, you're free."
Kravets stood up, giving the investigator a suspicious look. Onisimov's
thin lips jerked into a short smile.
"A high forehead, granite jaw, well-shaped nose . . . dark curls framed
his handsome, round, melon-shaped head. Krivoshein the Original had very
provincial ideas of male handsomeness. But, that's understandable.
(Kravets's eyes bulged.) Where's the motorcycle?"
"Wh-what motorcycle?"
"License plate number 21-11 DNA. Being repaired?"
"In ... in the shed."
"All right. By the way," Onisimov's eyes narrowed angrily, "you should
have sent the telegram before the experiment. Before, not after!"
Kravets didn't know whether he was alive or not.
"All right. We will return your documents to you in a little while,"
the investigator continued in an official voice. "Good day, citizen Kravets.
Don't forget us. See him out, comrade Gayevoy."
Matvei Apollonovich showed up at work with a headache after his
difficult night. He was sitting at his desk, making out his plan for the
day.
"1. Send the liquid for further analysis to see if there are any
undissolved human tissues in it;
2. Inform the security organs (through Aleksei Ignatievich);
3.-"
"May I come in?" a voice asked softly, making Onisimov's skin crawl.
"Good morning."
Krivoshein was in his doorway.
"Did the man on duty send me to the right place? You are the
investigator Onisimov, who's in charge of the incident in my lab? How do you
do. May I?" He sat down, took out a handkerchief, and wiped his face. "It's
only morning, but the heat is unbearable!"
The investigator sat in stunned silence.
"Well, I'm Valentin Vasilyevich Krivoshein, head of the New Systems
Laboratory at the Institute of Systemology," the visitor explained. "I only
found out today, you see... that you're... that the police are interested in
this sad affair, and I hurried right over. Naturally, I would have given you
a thorough explanation yesterday or even the day before, but... [shrugs] it
never even occurred to me that an unsuccessful experiment would lead to such
a to-do, involving the police! I was resting in my apartment, rather unwell
after the experiment. You see, comrade Onisimov... excuse me, what's your
name and patronymic?"
"Apollon Matvei ... I mean, Matvei Apollonovich," Onisimov muttered
hoarsely and coughed to clear his throat.
"You see, Matvei Apollonovich, it was like this: in the process of the
experiment I had to immerse myself in the tank with the biological
informational medium. Unfortunately, the tank was unsteady and turned over.
I fell with it, hitting my head on the floor, and lost consciousness. I'm
afraid that the tank must have hit my assistant too-I remember he tried to
hold it up at the last second. I came to under an oilcloth on the floor. I
heard voices in the lab...." Krivoshein gave a charming smile. "You'll
admit, Matvei Apollonovich, that it would have been very embarrassing for me
to stand up in my own laboratory in my birthday suit with a bashed-in head.
And that liquid, it stings terribly, worse than soap suds! So I sneaked out
from under the oilcloth and scurried into the shower room to wash up and
change. I must admit that I don't know how long I was in the shower; my head
was spinning and my mind was fuzzy. I probably didn't even know what I was
doing. Anyway, when I came out there was no one in the lab. And I went home
to rest up. That's it in a nutshell. If you like, I can give you a written
explanation, and we can end all this-
"I see." Onisimov was gathering his wits about him gradually. "And what
experiments were you doing in the laboratory?"
"You see ... I'm researching the biochemsitry of higher combinations in
a systemological aspect with the addition of polymorphous anthropologism,"
Krivoshein explained blandly. "Or the systemology of higher forms in a
biochemical aspect with the addition of anthropological polymorphism, if you
will."
"I see. And where did the skeleton come from?" Matvei Apollonovich
squinted at the box on the corner of his desk. "You just wait!" he thought.
"Skeleton? Oh, the skeleton!" Krivoshein smiled. "You see, we keep the
skeleton in the lab for educational purposes. It's always in the same corner
that I was put in when I was unconscious."
"And what do you say to this?" Matvei Apollonovich removed the box that
covered the sculpted head of Krivoshein. The pale-gray plastic eyes stared
at the visitor who grew pale himself. "Do you recognize it?"
Graduate student Krivoshein lowered his head. Only now was he certain
of what he had suspected, and what he didn't want to believe: Val had
perished in the experiment.
"Your story doesn't make sense, citizen! I don't know your name or who
you are." Onisimov, controlling his feeling of triumph, leaned back in his
chair. "Yesterday you managed to mystify me but you won't get away with it
today. I'm going to arrange for a little meeting between you and your
co-conspirator Kravets, and then what will you say?"
He reached for the phone. But Krivoshein put his hand on the receiver.
"Hey! What are you-" Onisimov looked up angrily and saw himself... a
broad face with narrow lips and a sharp chin, a thin nose, fine wrinkles
around the mouth and small close-set eyes. Only now did Matvei Apollonovich
notice the blue suit, just like his, and the Ukrainian shirt.
"Don't fool around, Onisimov! It won't be what you expect. You'll only
succeed in making yourself look foolish. No more than twenty minutes ago
investigator Onisimov released Kravets for lack of evidence."
"So...." Onisimov stared as Krivoshein's face relaxed and took on its
former features: blood drained from his cheeks. He lost his breath. Matvei
Apollonovich had been in quite a few fixes in the line of duty: he had been
shot at and he had done some shooting-but he had never been this scared in
his life. "Then you're... you?"
"That is it: I'm me." Krivoshein stood up and walked over to the desk.
Onisimov squirmed under his angry gaze. "Listen; end this nonsense!
Everyone's alive, everything is in place. What more do you want? No
sculpture or skeleton is going to prove that Krivoshein died. Here he is,
Krivoshein, standing before you! Nothing happened, do you understand? It's
just the project."
"But . . . how?" Matvei Apollonovich muttered. "Couldn't you explain?"
Krivoshein frowned sadly.
"Ah, Matvei Apollonovich, what could I explain to you? You used all of
detection's technology: televideophones, Gerasimov's system of
reconstructing the face... and still... you couldn't even figure out a type
like Hilobok. And that's a clear-cut case with him. There was no crime, you
can be sure of that."
"But... I'll have to report. I have to tell them something. What do I
do?"
"Now we're talking business." Krivoshein sat down again. "I'll give you
an explanation. Remember this part about the skeleton resembling me. It's a
family heirloom. My maternal grandfather, Andrei Stepanovich Kotlyar, a
famous biologist in his day, willed that he not be buried but embalmed and
his skeleton left to his descendants who went into science. An old
scientist's eccentricity, understand? And apparently you discovered broken
right ribs in the skeleton, which naturally raised some suspicion. Well,
grandfather died in a road accident. The old man loved zooming around on a
motorcycle over the speed limit. Understand?" "I see." Onisimov nodded
rapidly
"That's better. I hope that this... family heirloom will be returned to
its owner after the case is closed. As well as the other 'clues' taken from
the laboratory. The time will come," Krivoshein's voice resounded dreamily,
"the time will come, Matvei Apollonovich, when that head will grace not your
desk but a memorial. Well, I'm off. I hope I've explained everything. Please
give me Kravets's papers. Thank you. Oh yes, the guard you were so kind to
leave at the lab has requested relief. Please let him go. Thanks."
Krivoshein stuffed the papers in his pocket and headed for the door.
But a thought struck him on the way. "Listen, Matvei Apollonovich," he said,
coming back to the desk, "please don't be hurt by my proposal, but would you
like to be a little smarter? You'll grasp things quickly. You'll think
broadly and profoundly. You'll see clues and delve into the essence of
things and phenomena. You'll understand the human soul! And your mind will
be visited by marvelous ideas-things that will make your cheeks cold with
amazement. You see, life is complicated, and it will get more so. The only
way to remain at a human being's top position in it is to understand
everything. There is no other way. And that's possible, Matvei Apollonovich!
Would you like it? I can arrange it!"
Onisimov's face, contorted in insult and injury, filled with blood.
"You're mocking me," he said. "It's not enough that you've . .. you're
mocking me too. Go on, citizen, out."
Krivoshein shrugged and turned to the door.
"Wait!"
"What now?"
"Just a second, citizen... Krivoshein. All right, I don't understand.
Perhaps you really have the science for this. I'll accept your version of
the story-I have no choice. And you can think what you want of me...."
Matvei Apollonovich couldn't get over the insult. Krivoshein frowned: what
is he leading up to? "But if we accept your version, a man perished. Who's
guilty?"
The graduate student looked at him carefully.
"Everyone a little, Matvei Apollonovich. Himself, and me, and Azarov,
and others ... and even you are mixed up in it a little, even though you
didn't know him, because, without really knowing, you suspected people. But
according to the criminal code, no one. That happens."
"I think that's taken care of," the student said to himself as he got
into the bus.
Tomorrow is the experiment. Actually, not even tomorrow, but tonight,
in seven or eight hours. I'm never sleepy before I have an important thing
to do, but I need the sleep. That's why I walked and rode around town for
over four hours, to get worn out and distract myself.
I was everywhere: midtown, suburbs, by the train station. I looked at
people, houses, trees, animals. I watched the parade of Life.
A desiccated old man hobbled toward me with a yellowed mustache and a
red, wrinkly face. He had three Saint George crosses and a medal on a
striped ribbon dangling from his gray sateen shirt. The old man stopped in
the short shadows of the lindens to catch his breath.
Yes, gramps, you had your day too! You've lived through a lot and
obviously you want more: you've come out to preen, you cavalier of Saint
George! If we filled up your muscles with strength, cleared up your corneas,
wiped the sclerosis and fog from your brain, freshened up your nerves-you'd
show the young punks a thing or two!
Some boys wandering along, talking about the movies:
"And then he gives it to him-pow-pow-with an atomic gun!"
"And they go: bam-bam-bam!"
"Why an atomic one?"
"What other kind? On Venus-and with a regular gun?"
A cat looks at me with anxious eyes. Why do cats have such anxious
eyes? Do they know something? They know, but they won't tell. "Shoo, you
cat!" It skulked into a doorway.
A man with a low forehead and gray crewcut walked past: his pants
hugged his powerful calves and thighs and his tee shirt barely covered his
well-developed chest. His face made it clear that the fellow could handle
any of life's problems with a quick uppercut to the jaw or by tossing you
over his shoulder.
And we'll make muscles like that for everyone-everyone will know about
boxing and judo-and then how will he feel about his ready answer?
In Shevchenko Park a boy and girl walked past me, noticing no one,
holding hands.
You lovers don't need our discovery. You're good for each other just
the way you are. But... anything can happen in life. And danger threatens
your love: life, misunderstandings, good sense, relatives, boredom-lots of
things! If you manage on your own, more power to you. But if not, know this:
we can repair your love, fix it better than a TV set. It'll be like new-like
the day when you first saw each other in the movie ticket line.
And the woman I ran into in front of the department store on the
prospect! Her body was squeezed into a brocade dress, a gold brooch, fake
amber necklace, with sweat spots the size of plates under her arms and on
her back! The blue brocade glistened with all the colors of a stormy sea.
Fie on you, madame! How can you stuff yourself into brocade in this
heat. It's not a Saint George Cross, you know! Your husband doesn't love
you, does he, madame? He stares in horror at your arms, as thick as his
legs, at that fatty hump on your back. You are miserable madame. I don't
feel sorry for you, but I understand. Your husband doesn't love you; the
children don't appreciate you; the doctors don't sympathize; and the
neighbors-oof, the neighbors! All right, madame, we'll figure out something
for you as well. After all, you too have the right to an additional portion
of happiness in the human line. But, speaking of happiness, madame, your
taste worries me. No, no, I understand: you stuffed yourself into the
brocade, put on the horrible earrings and necklace that do nothing for you,
and decorated your fingers with rings to prove that you are no worse than
anyone else, that you have everything. But, forgive me, madame, you don't
have a damn thing. And I'm afraid that we'll have to improve your taste
along with your body, as well as you mind and feelings. For the same money,
madame, don't worry. Otherwise it's not worth it: you'll just waste your new
beauty and freshness in restaurants and parties and on lovers. In that case,
why should we bother? The true beauty, madame, lies in the harmony of the
body, mind, and spirit.
Two pretty girls walked past without giving me a glance. Why should
they? The sky is clear. The sun is high. Exams are behind them. And this bus
takes them to the beach.
A little kid, who wasn't allowed outside, pressed his nose to the
windowpane. He caught my eye and made a face. I made a face at him. Then he
did a whole act for me.
I love life, oh, how I love life! I don't need it to be any better. Let
it stay just as it is, as long as ... as long as what? What? Oh, you!
That's the whole point, it has to be better. There's too much wrong
with the world.
And I'll go. I haven't sold you out, people. We'll be able to do so
many things with this method: give people looks and wisdom, introduce new
abilities, even new qualities in them. Let's say, we could make a man have
radio feelings, so that he could see in the dark, hear ultrasounds, sense
magnetic waves, count time to the fraction of a second without a
chronometer, and even read people's thoughts at a distance-would you like
that? Though I suppose, all this is not the important part.
The important part is that I'll go. And then someone else will, if
things go wrong now. And then... that's how it will be!
"No one died, damn it!" graduate student Krivoshein muttered to himself
in the bus. "No one died!..."
I'm going, Life! Thank you, fate, or whoever you are, for everything
that's happened to me so far. It's scary to think that I could have stopped
and ended up as a petty coupon-clipping mediocrity! Let the rest of my life
be difficult, frightening, confusing, and tormenting-but don't let it be
petty. Don't ever let me sink to struggling for security, success, and for
worrying about my hide when things get serious!
It's almost night, but I'm not sleepy. What a waste, sleeping. We could
probably do away with it, too. They say there's an eccentric in Yugoslavia
who hasn't slept in thirty years-and he feels fine.
"Midnight in Madrid. Sleep soundly! Respect the king and queen! And may
the devil never cross your path!" In those days they would have burned me at
the stake.
Don't sleep soundly, people! Don't respect the king or the queen! And
let the devil cross your path; there's nothing too terrible about that.
As a youth I dreamed (about so many things) that when the time would
come to undertake something frightening and serious, I would first have a
talk with my father. But I didn't have anything serious to talk about and my
father couldn't wait forever. Well, I'll give it a try now.
"Well, father, tomorrow I stand on the parapet. Were you scared?"
"What can I say? It was scary, of course. It was only four hundred
yards to the German trenches, and I'm highly visible. Fraternization hadn't
come into full force; they were still shooting. And they shot at me a couple
of times-the Germans had all kinds, too. Maybe they were only trying to
scare me."
"But why that kind of punishment-standing on the parapet?"
"The temporary government had introduced it specially for those who
were agitating for an end to the imperialist war. 'Oh, so they're your
brother workers and brother peasants? Let's see how they'll shoot at you!'
And you stood there for two hours. And some for four."
"Clever-you can't say anything about it. (Father, did you know that...
I didn't believe you?)"
"I knew, son. It's all right. It was the times. I didn't always believe
myself. What are you planning to do?"
"An experiment in controlling information in my own organism.
Eventually I should develop a method of analyzing and synthesizing one's own
body, soul, and memory. Understand?"
"You always spoke like a book, Val. I don't know all this science
stuff. Once I was able to take apart and reassemble a machine gun
blindfolded. But this I don't follow... what will it give you?"
"Well, you fought for equality, right? The first stage of this idea is
coming true: the inequality between the rich and the poor, between the
strong and the weak, is disappearing. Society offers equal opportunity for
everyone. But besides the inequality built into society, there is the
inequality built into people. A stupid person is no equal to a smart one, an
ugly one to a handsome one, a sick or crippled one to a healthy one. But
this method will let everyone make himself just the way he wants to be:
smart, handsome, young, honest-"
"Young, smart and handsome-that's for sure. Everyone will want that.
But as for honest-I don't know. That's harder than anything else, being
honest."
"But if a man definitely knows that this information will make him
viler and sneakier and this will make him honest and direct, he wouldn't
vacillate over which to pick, would he?"
"What can I say? There are people for whom it is important to appear
honest in front of others, but they would steal or do anything else as long
as they're not caught. And those would pick cleverness and sneakiness."
"I know. Don't talk about them now. The experiment is tomorrow,
father."
"And you must go? Watch out for yourself, son."
"Who else, if not for me? Listen, you could have jumped down from the
parapet into the trench?"
"There were two officers guarding me. They would have shot me."
"Couldn't you have gotten out of it?"
"Sure! I could have told them that I wouldn't agitate any more, that I
was leaving the Bolsheviks-and they would have let me go at once."
"Why didn't you tell them that?"
"I should tell them that? I never even thought about it. I was thinking
that if I was killed, it would be the end of fraternization in our unit."
"Why were you thinking that? You loved people so much, is that it? But
you had killed people before-both before and after that."
"I killed and they tried to kill me-it was the times."
"Then why?"
"I was proud, I guess that's why. I was very proud in those days. I
thought I was fighting the whole war."
"And father, that's how proud I am now."
"Of course, if you go on the parapet you have to stand proud. That's
true. But don't you equate your work with the parapet, son. I didn't stand
the whole two hours. The soldiers' committee raised the battalion; they
bumped off the officers, and that was it. Do you have anyone to raise an
alarm over you?"
I had no answer for that question-and the imagined conversation ended.
Well, enough of this-bedtime! Cuckoo, cuckoo, how long will I live?
"People from Earth, your excellency."
"From Earth? Earth, Earth ... hmm..."
"That's the planet where Fledermaus was composed, Excellency."
"Ah! Tum-tiri-tiri, tum-tiri-tiri, tum-pam-pam-pam! Mar-velous piece.
We//, give them a third-level reception."
-A conversation in the Universe
Graduate student Krivoshein went up to the fifth floor and entered the
apartment. Victor Kravets and Adam were smoking out on the balcony; when
they saw him, they came inside. Krivoshein gave them a glum look.
"Three from one pea pod. And there used to be four...." He looked at
the clock. There was still time. He sat down. "Tell me, Victor Kravets, what
happened there?"
Kravets lit up another cigarette and began the story in a hollow voice.
The plan of the experiment was for Krivoshein the Original to immerse
himself up to the neck in the liquid-control the sensations-put on
Monomakh's Crown-control the sensations once more-give the command of
dissatisfaction ("Not it!")-come into mutual contact with the liquid
circuit-reach the stage of controllable transparency-fix his broken ribs-use
the "impulse of satisfaction" for the command "That's it"-return to
nontransparency-break contact with the liquid circuit-and leave the tank.
They had gone over the methodology of the experiment dozens of times by
immersing their extremities. The mutual permeation of the liquid and the
body could be controlled and regulated easily.
"You see, friends, it turns out that inside our bodies there are always
less healthy spots, tiny flaws, well, like your skin, no matter how healthy,
always had a pimple or a scratch or chafing or a local irritation. I don't
know what kind of inner 'scratches' there are, but after working in the
liquid your arm or leg always feels better than it did before. The liquid
circuit corrects these minor flaws. And you can recognize these corrections
as they are going on: there is a tingling sensation that increases and then
decreases. And if after the decrease you give the command 'That's it' the
computer breaks contact and the arm or leg stops being transparent. I'm only
telling you this to show you that we had no questions on the methodology of
entering and breaking contact with the liquid circuit."
"While you were immersing no more than ten or fifteen percent of the
body," Krivoshein added.
"Yes. We were also sure that the human body maintains muscle tone in
the transparent stage in liquid. We used to 'struggle' in the liquid: his
hand [transparent] and mine [not], or right against left when both were
transparent. In other words, the liquid circuit fully supports the viability
of the body."
"Of parts of the body," Krivoshein interrupted again. "Yes. Perhaps
that was the whole problem," Kravets sighed. Of course, it was frightening.
It was one thing to dip your hand or foot into the liquid-you can pull it
out if you sense danger. At worst, you'll lose an arm. But it's completely
different to immerse yourself in the tank, giving yourself up to the whim of
a complex and mysterious medium that you can't fight off or run away from.
They hid the fear from each other. Krivoshein, because he feared for
himself. Kravets, because he didn't want to scare him unnecessarily.
But everything had been prepared assiduously, conscientiously. They
regulated the level of liquid in the tank so that it would come up to
Krivoshein's neck when he got in and stood in it. They placed a large mirror
opposite the tank. (They had to shell out for it; there wasn't one at the
warehouse.) Krivoshein could observe and control the changes he saw in the
mirror.
In order to lessen the possibility of any fluctuations in current and
electromagnetic field, they decided to run the experiment at night, after
2:00 A.M., when all the other labs were turned off and the buses and
trolleys were in the depot.
Krivoshein stripped, climbed up the steps, and holding on to the edge
with his left hand (his right was weak after the motorcycle accident), sank
into the tank. The liquid gurgled. He stood up to his neck in it-his head
looked separate from his body. Kravets was ready with Monomakh's Crown.
Krivoshein licked his lips.
"Salty." His voice was hoarse.
"What?"
"The liquid. Like sea water."
They waited a minute.
"It seems in order. No sensations, as to be expected. Give me the
crown."
Kravets put Monomakh's Crown firmly on his head, clicked the dials, and
climbed back down. Now his job was to observe Krivoshein, give advice, if
needed, and help him out of the tank in case of some unexpected emergency.
Krivoshein spent another minute getting used to his new position.
"The sensations are familiar: tingling, prickling," he said. "Nothing
new. Well, that's it. Wish me luck. I'm starting to plug in."
"Break a leg, Val."
"The hell with it. We're off!"
They didn't talk after that.
Krivoshein's body developed in the liquid like a color negative. The
white contours of the bones and tendons showed through the purple muscles
with their layers of yellowish fat. His ribs rose and fell rhythmically,
like a bellows. Kravets saw white swellings in two ribs on the right side.
The purplish red fist of the heart contracted and relaxed, pushing along
crimson streams of blood (it was no longer clear into where).
Krivoshein didn't take his eyes off his reflection. His face was pale
and concentrated.
Soon the muscles turned golden yellow and you could distinguish them
from the liquid only by light refraction.
"And then,..." Kravets rubbed his temples with the palms of his hands,
took a deep drag on his cigarette, "and then the automatic vacillations
began. Like it had in the very beginning with the rabbits: everything in Val
began changing size and shape synchronously. I ran up to the tank: 'Val,
what are you doing?' He looked at me, but said nothing in reply. 'The
vacillations! Unplug!' He tried to say something, opened his lips, and
suddenly went under into the liquid. He began jerking, twisting, a dancing
skeleton with a nickel-plated helmet!"
He took another deep drag.
"The only thing to do, to save him was to use Monomakh's Crown and the
'it-not it' commands to get into rhythm with the vacillations of his body
and stop them gradually, using them to return the body to the nontransparent
stage. You know, external control, the way he made you," Kravets nodded at
Adam, and me.
He stopped talking, working his jaw muscles.
"That damn Harry! We could really have used an extra SES-2 then. But of
course there was no hope of getting a second crown after his dissertation
flopped! Putting him in jail wouldn't be enough."
"He probably wouldn't even get a reprimand for not completing an order
in time. It's not like insulting a professor," Krivoshein laughed drily.
"And you can't accuse him of anything more than that."
"The only way was to remove the crown from Val's head," Victor
continued. "I jumped up on the steps, put my hands in the liquid-and I got
an electric shock through both arms. Judging by the effect, I'd say four
hundred or five hundred volts. There had never been potentials like that in
the liquid before. Well, you know, the hands jerk away involuntarily in
cases like that. I ran to the shelves, got rubber gloves, and tried again,
but Val was deep inside, and the gloves weren't long enough. The shock was
so strong that this time I fell to the floor. I had to turn over the tank. I
couldn't let him dissolve into the liquid before my very eyes like... like
you had." Kravets looked over at Adam. "I was him, Krivoshein, when he was
dissolving you. [Adam's face tensed.] And he was still alive. His face had
dissolved, too. There was only the crown on his skull, but he was jumping
about, so that meant his muscles were working. I grabbed the edge of the
tank and started shaking it. The edges are flexible and slippery but finally
I pulled it down, almost on me. I just got out in time-but the liquid
splashed on my face and neck and I got a third shock from that. I don't
remember the rest. I came to on the stretcher."
He was silent. The others said nothing. Krivoshein stood up and paced
the room in thought.
"There was nothing wrong with the way you set up the experiment. It was
thought through. No evildoing, no fatal accident, not even a gross
miscalculation... killed a man according to all the rules, as they say! If
you hadn't turned over the tank he would have dissolved, since the liquid
that had permeated him was no longer the organizing liquid circuit. It's too
bad he kept the crown on, though. Once he was plugged into the liquid he
could control it without the crown."
"So that's how it is." Kravets looked up.
"Yes. That stupid cap was only necessary to plug into the
computer-womb-and nothing else. From there the brain commands the nerves
directly, and not through wires and circuits. And when the uncontrolled
autovacillations began, it was the crown that destroyed him. A foreign body
in the living liquid-it's as irritating as a slingshot to a bear!"
"Yes, but why did the vacillations start?" Adam interrupted. He turned
to Kravets. "Tell me, did you investigate any further the process after the
rabbits and ... me?"
"No. In the last experiments we didn't touch on it. All the
transformations were going smoothly directed only by sensations. I told you
that. I can't imagine how he lost control of himself! Did he panic? That
process is sort of like confusion... but why was he confused?"
"The switch from quantity to quality," Adam said. "As long as you were
immersing only an arm or a leg into the liquid, there were only a few
'hotbeds of uncorrection' which you used to control and direct the
penetration of the body with the liquid. It was like talking to one or two
people at the same time. But once he put in his whole body, there were
naturally many more places like that in his whole body than in just parts of
it, and-"
"And instead of a decent conversation there was the incomprehensible
babble of a crowd," Krivoshein added. "And he grew confused. That's quite
possible."
"Listen, you self-taught experts!" Kravets glared at them. "There are
always a lot of people ready to explain why something went wrong, to make
themselves look bigger. 'I warned you. I told you so!' If there's nuclear
war, I'm sure there will be people who, before turning into cinders, will
have time to exclaim joyously: 'I told you so!' Are you so sure that the
experiment failed precisely for those reasons, that you would get into the
tank if the corrections were made?"
"No, Victor Kravets," Krivoshein said, "not that sure. And not one of
us will get into the tank just to prove that he's right or that someone else
is wrong-that's not our work. We will have to get in, and more than once-the
idea was sound. But we will do it with minimal risk and maximum benefit. And
there's no point in your getting so excited. You two made the experiment. An
experiment like that! And you almost ruined the lab and the whole project.
You had everything-great ideas, heroics, discoveries, meditations,
high-level effort-except one thing: reasonable caution! Of course, maybe
it's not for me to reproach you. I did pretty much the same thing in one
very serious experiment and almost killed myself. But tell me, why couldn't
you have called me back from Moscow to participate in this one?"
Kravets looked at him ironically.
"How would you have helped? You were way behind in this work."
The graduate student sighed: to hear that after all his labors!
"You're a louse, Vitya," he said with unbelievable meekness. "It's
terrible to have to say this to someone so close to you, but you are simply
a son of a bitch. I'm good enough to be used as a decoy with the police
while you get off scot-free from criminal culpability? But not good enough
to be a researcher on this project?" He turned away from the window.
"What does culpability have to do with this?" Kravets muttered in
confusion. "Someone had to save the project...."
Suddenly he jumped up in terror: Onisimov was coming toward him from
the window! Adam shuddered, too, and looked around in panic.
"You wouldn't have saved anything, suspect Kravets," Onisimov said in
an unpleasant voice, "if the head of your department hadn't learned a thing
or two in Moscow. You'd be in the defendant's chair right now, comrade
pseudo-Kravets. I've managed to put people behind bars with less evidence
than this. Do you see?"
This time Krivoshein got his own face back in ten seconds; the practice
was paying off.
"You mean, that was you? You let me out? Wait... how do you do that?"
"Using biology?" Adam asked.
"Biology and systemology." Krivoshein massaged his cheeks calmly. "You
see, unlike you two, I remember what it was like being part of the
computer-womb."
"Tell us how you do it," Kravets nagged.
"I'll tell you, don't worry, all in good time. We'll set up a seminar.
Now we're going to use this knowledge in conjunction with our work on the
computer-womb. But applying it to life will have to be done very carefully."
He looked at his watch and turned to Kravets and Adam. "It's time. Let's go
to the lab. We'll reconstruct your experiment."
"Hah .. . those crazy scientists!" the chief of police laughed and
shook his head when Matvei Apollonovich reported the final clearing up of
the events at the Institute of Systemology. "You mean, while you were
gathering evidence and talking to the academician, the 'corpse' crawled out
from under the oilcloth and went to the shower?"
"Yes, exactly. He wasn't himself after the blow to his head, comrade
colonel."
"Naturally! It can take less than that. And the skeleton right next to
him. Hah! That's what comes of not studying the scene of the incident
carefully enough, comrade Onisimov," and Aleksei Ignatyevich raised his
forefinger didactically. "You didn't take the specifics of the place into
account. This isn't going out to see a highway accident or a drowning-it's a
scientific laboratory! They've always got a hellish amount of stuff going
on. That's science. You were careless, Matvei Apollonovich!"
"Should I tell him how it really was?" Onisimov thought glumly. "No, he
wouldn't believe it."
"But how did that first-aid doctor make such a mistake, declaring a
live person dead?" thought the colonel aloud. "Oh, I have a feeling their
rate of success isn't very high. She looked at him, saw that the man was
poorly, figured he'd die in the clinic anyway, and this way their statistics
would look better if he was DO A."
"Maybe she just made a mistake, Aleksei Ignatyevich," Onisimov defended
her generously. "He was in shock, deep faint, and wounded. And so she-"
"Perhaps. Too bad that Zubato wasn't there. He always goes on the
pattern of spots and marks on the body. He's never wrong. Hm... of course,
it would have been nice to have called this a solved case-the end of the
quarter is coming up, and it would have looked good-but to hell with the
statistics. The important thing is that everyone is alive and well. Yet," he
looked at Onisimov, "there's still the discrepancy with Kravets's papers.
What about that?"
"Our expert couldn't find any evidence of tampering at all, Aleksei
Ignatyevich. They're papers like any papers. Maybe the Kharkov police made a
mistake."
"Well, that's a problem for the passport people, not us. The man didn't
commit any crimes-and the case is closed. But what about you, Matvei
Apollonovich?" Aleksei Ignatyevich wrinkled up his face merrily and leaned
back in his chair. "You wanted to turn the case over to the security
organizations. We would really have looked wonderful if we had! Didn't I
tell you: the most seemingly confused cases are always the simplest."
And his small wise eyes, set under heavy brows, were surrounded with a
sunburst of raylike wrinkles.
They were walking through Academic Town at midday: Adam on the right,
Krivoshein in the middle, Kravets on the left. The asphalt, softened by the
heat, was spongy under their feet.
"Now we'll be able to work with some knowledge," Krivoshein was saying.
"We've learned quite a bit and we'll learn a lot more. And we're getting a
sense of direction, too. Victor Kravets, did Adam tell you his idea?"
"He did."
"And why are you so indifferent to it?"
"Well, it's just one more method. So what?"
Adam glowered, but said nothing.
"Why do you say that! The computer-womb introduces information into man
firmly and for a long time, for his whole life, not just for the time of the
session. And art information could change the personality of a man, improve
it-well, the way they improved your appearance compared to mine! Of course,
this is serious business, not like going to a movie. We'll give them fair
warning: after being processed by us you will permanently lose your ability
to lie, be petty, bully, and fabricate. Not only will you be actively kept
from doing evil, but you'll even lose the ability to hold back from doing
good. We can't guarantee that you will be happy in the sense of having all
your needs and wants satisfied. Life will be clearer and harder. But you
will be Man!"
"A joke!" Kravets said. "A way of returning lost innocence!"
"Why do you say that?" Adam and Krivoshein exclaimed in unison.
"Because, basically you are planning to simplify and strictly program
man with the help of art information. Even if it's programming for good, for
honesty, for self-denial, for a beautiful soul-you won't have a man; you'll
have a robot! If a man doesn't lie or bite others because he doesn't know
how it's done, there's no merit in his behavior. He'll live, gather
additional information and he'll learn-and he'll lie. It's not hard. But if
he knows how to lie and be crafty and put the squeeze on people (and we all
know how it's done; we just don't admit it) and he knows that applying these
little procedures will make his life simpler, and he still doesn't behave
that way-not because he's afraid of being caught but because he knows that
would make life for him and others less desirable-then that's a real Man!"
"Well put," Krivoshein said, "but complicated."
"And people are complicated, and are becoming ever more complicated-and
there's no way to simplify them. Why can't you see that? There's nothing you
can do. People know that evil exists in the world and they take it into
account in their thoughts, words, and deeds. No matter what noble-minded
information you might introduce into them and no matter how you did it, it
would only make them more complex. And that's all!"
"Wait," Adam said angrily. "You don't have to simplify people to make
them better. You're right: man is no robot, and you can't limit him with a
strict program of good intentions. And it shouldn't be done. But art
information could instill a clear understanding of what's good in the long
run, not just profitable, and what's bad."
"But his goals will remain the same and everything will be subordinate
to them. And you can't inculcate goals in a person-even good ones-otherwise
you're talking about good-natured robots." Kravets looked at the doubles and
laughed. "I'm afraid sheer technology isn't the answer. Hasn't it occurred
to you that our search for an absolute method comes not from the mind but
from a fierce engineering faith in the ability of science and technology to
do everything? Yet they can't, you know, and this approach will get us
nowhere. I see a different, clear direction. A new science will develop from
our research-Experimental and Theoretical Humanology. A major and necessary
science, but not only a science, it will be a whole field of knowledge. It
will say: here's what you are, man. And humanotechnology will arise. It must
sound horrible now-a technology of synthesis and introduction of information
into man. It will include everything from medicine to mathematics and from
electronics to the arts, but it will still only be technology. It will say:
here's what you can do, man. This is how you can change yourself. And then
let each and every person think and decide on his own: what do you want,
man? what do you want from yourself?"
Victor's words had an effect. The three walked in silence for some
time-thinking. Academic Town was left far behind. They could see the grounds
and the buildings of the institute and beyond them the huge experimental
hangar of the construction design bureau, shining glass and steel.
"Hey guys, what about Lena?" Adam asked and looked at Krivoshein.
Kravets looked at him too.
"Just the way it was," he insisted. "As far as she's concerned, nothing
happened, understand?"
Adam and Kravets said nothing.
They stepped into a long, chestnut-lined alley. It was shady and
cooler.
" 'Here's what you are, man. Here's what you can do, man. What do you
want from yourself, man?'" Krivoshein repeated. "Effectively put.
Fantastically put! If I had a lot of money I'd put up an obelisk in every
city with the sign: 'People! Beware of maxims-the bearers of half-truths!
There is nothing more false and dangerous than maxims, because they are
formulated to accommodate our minds, not life as it is/"
Kravets gave him a careful look.
"What does that mean?"
"It means that your flaws, Vitya, old boy, are merely an extension of
your good qualities. I think that Krivoshein the Original overdid it with
you. Personally I could never understand why people with a well-developed
sense of logic are identified with smart people."
"Why don't you get to the point."
"I can get to the point, Vitya, boy. You began well: man is complicated
and free, and he can't be reorganized and programmed. There will be
Humanology and Humanotechnology. And you came to the conclusion that our
business is to move the science and technology and drop everything else. Let
people decide for themselves. A very convenient conclusion for us,
absolutely marvelous. But let's apply your theory to another subject. Let's
say there's a science and technology dealing with the atom. And there is
you-full of the best intentions, an opponent of atomic weapons. You are
given complete freedom to solve the problem: you have the keys to all the
atomic arsenals, all the codes and ciphers, entrance to all atomic centers.
Act!"
Adam laughed.
"How will you use this brilliant opportunity to save the world? I know
how. You'll stand in the middle of an atomic arsenal and bawl with terror."
"Why would I be bawling?"
"Because you don't know a thing about this stuff, just like other
people don't know about our work. Yes, there will be a science called
Humanology. And there'll be Humanotechnology. But we are the top specialists
in that science and technology. And a specialist, besides his general
humanitarian responsibilities, has his own as well: he's responsible for his
science and its applications! Because in the final analysis he's doing it
all, with his ideas, knowledge, and decisions. He and no one else! So,
willy-nilly, it's up to us to determine the direction of the development of
the synthesis of information in man."
"Well, let's say that's true." Kravets wasn't giving up. How will we
direct it? There is no method to apply the discovery with absolute certainty
for the benefit of mankind, as we had pledged a year ago!"
"Look, guys," Adam said softly.
They all turned their heads to the left. A girl was sitting on a bench.
A briefcase and crutches lay next to her. Her thin legs in black stockings
were extended unnaturally. Spots of sunlight, breaking through the trees,
played in her dark hair.
"Go ahead. I'll catch up." Krivoshein went up to her and sat down on
the edge of the bench. "Hello, little girl!"
She raised her big clear eyes, no longer a child's, at him in surprise.
"Hello."
"Tell me, little girl," Krivoshein smiled in his most kindly manner so
that she wouldn't take him for a drunk and get scared, "but please don't be
surprised by my question: at your school, do you spit in the ear of someone
who hasn't kept a promise?"
"No ... no," the girl answered cautiously.
"In my day, that's what we did. That was the barbaric custom. And you
know what? I give you my word: in less than a year, you will be healthy and
beautiful. You'll run and jump and ride a bike and swim in the river. It
will all come true. I promise. You can spit in my ear if it doesn't."
The girl looked at him with full attention. An uncertain smile appeared
on her lips.
"But... we don't spit. It's not like that at our school."
"I see! And you won't go to a school like that either. You'll go to a
regular school. You'll see. I promise."
He had nothing else to say. But the girl was looking at him so that he
couldn't possibly leave.
"My name is Sasha. What's yours?"
"Valya ... Valentin Vasilyevich."
"I know, you live in number thirty-three. I live in thirty-nine, two
houses down."
"Well, I have to go ... to work."
"Second shift?"
"Yes, the second shift. Good-bye, Sasha."
"Good-bye."
He got up. He smiled and threw his head back, squinting, meaning: don't
give up now; look happy! It'll be! She threw back her head in reply,
squinted, and smiled: don't worry, I won't give up. And still he left with
the feeling that he had abandoned someone who needed his help.
The alley led out into the street. Cars sped around beyond the last
chestnut trees. All three turned around: the girl was watching them. They
waved. She smiled and waved a thin arm.
"You see, Vitya, lad," Krivoshein put his arm around Kravets's
shoulder/'you see, Vitya, I still love you, you bum, even though there's no
reason to. You should be whipped with a belt, like father used to have when
we were little, but you're too big and serious for that."
"Drop it!" Kravets freed himself.
"You see, Vitya, our idea of a happiness button was an engineer's
dream. In general people turn to technology for relief from demands on
themselves. It's funny! It's easy enough to create a happiness button for
rats: you implant an electrode in the pleasure center of the cortex and let
the rat push a lever to make contact. But that kind of happiness probably
won't do for people although there is a method that is mathematical and not
with a button. And we're reaching it empirically, slowly but surely. The
fact that we're beating our brains out to make sure it benefits people, and
not just ourselves, and that we won't accept any other way-that's part of
the method. And the fact that Adam could overcome his fears and come back
with a good idea-that comes from the method, too. Of course, if the
experiment had been more thoroughly prepared he might still be alive, but
none of us is perfect or guaranteed everlasting life: that's the nature of
the work. And the fact that he chose to synthesize people and not
microelectronic machines, which would have been simpler and more
lucrative-that's part of the method, too. And the fact that we have gathered
knowledge about our discovery. We're not dilettantes or amateurs any
more-and neither work nor arguments can throw us off the track. We can throw
whomever we want off. And in an honest argument, knowledge is the best
weapon."
"How about in a dishonest one?"
"It works there, too. Harry got squeezed-with the method. We got out of
a tight fix and saved the project-also part of it. We can do a lot: work,
and fight, and politic. Of course, it would be better if we got along, but
we can manage even if we don't. Adam, give me a cigarette, will you? I'm all
out."
Krivoshein lit up and continued:
"And in the future we should be guided by this empirical method in our
work and in life. First and foremost, we work together. The most terrible
thing in our work is being alone. Look what it led to. Let's gather smart,
honest, strong, and knowledgeable men around the project. To make sure that
the hand of a bastard, fool, or banality never touches our discovery at any
point. So that there will be someone to raise the alarm! And we'll attract
Azarov, and Vano Aleksandrovich Androsiashvili-he's someone I've been
thinking about. We'll even try Valery Ivanov... and if we work this way
everything will be 'it' including the method for duplicating people,
duplicating them with alterations, and the informational transformation of
regular people."
"But this is still not an engineering solution. There is no one hundred
percent guarantee," Kravets said stubbornly. "We can try, of course. Do you
think Azarov will join us?"
"Of course, where else could he go? Yes, this isn't an engineering
solution, but an organizational one. And it's not simple; it lacks the
logical simplicity we all want. But we have no choice. We'll gather talented
researchers, builders, doctors, artists, sculptors, psychologists,
musicians, writers, and just simple people-they know about life and man too.
We'll start injecting our discovery into life with small but very necessary
things: curing disease and deformity, correcting physical appearance and the
psychological problems. And then, you'll see, we'll gradually develop
information for a universal program for the computer-womb to instill the
best that mankind has collected into the mind and body of man."
The UPPM," Victor said. "The Universal Program for Perfecting Man. I
like it! Well, well...."
"We'll try," Adam said stubbornly. "There is no hundred-percent
guarantee; it's not all in our control. Maybe it won't work. But if we don't
try, nothing will happen at all. And you know, I think that there isn't that
much work left. It's important to shift in one or two generations the
process of man's development in the right direction, and the work will go on
without computers."
"It will all go in it." Krivoshein remembered the last entry in the
diary. "The daring of talented ideas and a child's awe before the complex
magnificence of the world, the roar of a stormy sea and the wise beauty of
lab equipment, the great pain of love and the esthetics of sex, the
fierceness of getting ahead and the rapture of interesting work, the blue
sky and the aroma of sun-baked grass, the wisdom of old age and the
confidence of maturity... and even the memory of bad times and mistakes, so
that they won't be repeated! It will all go in: the knowledge of the world,
understanding one another, peace and stubbornness, dreaminess and healthy
skepticism, great thoughts and the ability to achieve them. In general the
greater part has been done for a good life-and there is less left to do!"
"Let people be whatever way they want to be. Just let them want!"
The sun was yellow and hot. Cars rustled and murmured past. Pedestrians
shuffled through the heat. A policeman directed traffic in the intersection.
They walked on, leaving imprints in the asphalt. Three engineers on
their way to work.
"You should get up, like you're supposed to," Gayevoy said in reproach.
"I don't consider myself a convict!"
"And you aren't, comrade Victor Vitalyevich Kravets," Onisimov said
calmly. "You were detained for questioning. Now the situation is becoming
clear, and I don't feel it is necessary to keep you under guard any longer.
We'll call you if we need you. So, you're free."
Kravets stood up, giving the investigator a suspicious look. Onisimov's
thin lips jerked into a short smile.
"A high forehead, granite jaw, well-shaped nose . . . dark curls framed
his handsome, round, melon-shaped head. Krivoshein the Original had very
provincial ideas of male handsomeness. But, that's understandable.
(Kravets's eyes bulged.) Where's the motorcycle?"
"Wh-what motorcycle?"
"License plate number 21-11 DNA. Being repaired?"
"In ... in the shed."
"All right. By the way," Onisimov's eyes narrowed angrily, "you should
have sent the telegram before the experiment. Before, not after!"
Kravets didn't know whether he was alive or not.
"All right. We will return your documents to you in a little while,"
the investigator continued in an official voice. "Good day, citizen Kravets.
Don't forget us. See him out, comrade Gayevoy."
Matvei Apollonovich showed up at work with a headache after his
difficult night. He was sitting at his desk, making out his plan for the
day.
"1. Send the liquid for further analysis to see if there are any
undissolved human tissues in it;
2. Inform the security organs (through Aleksei Ignatievich);
3.-"
"May I come in?" a voice asked softly, making Onisimov's skin crawl.
"Good morning."
Krivoshein was in his doorway.
"Did the man on duty send me to the right place? You are the
investigator Onisimov, who's in charge of the incident in my lab? How do you
do. May I?" He sat down, took out a handkerchief, and wiped his face. "It's
only morning, but the heat is unbearable!"
The investigator sat in stunned silence.
"Well, I'm Valentin Vasilyevich Krivoshein, head of the New Systems
Laboratory at the Institute of Systemology," the visitor explained. "I only
found out today, you see... that you're... that the police are interested in
this sad affair, and I hurried right over. Naturally, I would have given you
a thorough explanation yesterday or even the day before, but... [shrugs] it
never even occurred to me that an unsuccessful experiment would lead to such
a to-do, involving the police! I was resting in my apartment, rather unwell
after the experiment. You see, comrade Onisimov... excuse me, what's your
name and patronymic?"
"Apollon Matvei ... I mean, Matvei Apollonovich," Onisimov muttered
hoarsely and coughed to clear his throat.
"You see, Matvei Apollonovich, it was like this: in the process of the
experiment I had to immerse myself in the tank with the biological
informational medium. Unfortunately, the tank was unsteady and turned over.
I fell with it, hitting my head on the floor, and lost consciousness. I'm
afraid that the tank must have hit my assistant too-I remember he tried to
hold it up at the last second. I came to under an oilcloth on the floor. I
heard voices in the lab...." Krivoshein gave a charming smile. "You'll
admit, Matvei Apollonovich, that it would have been very embarrassing for me
to stand up in my own laboratory in my birthday suit with a bashed-in head.
And that liquid, it stings terribly, worse than soap suds! So I sneaked out
from under the oilcloth and scurried into the shower room to wash up and
change. I must admit that I don't know how long I was in the shower; my head
was spinning and my mind was fuzzy. I probably didn't even know what I was
doing. Anyway, when I came out there was no one in the lab. And I went home
to rest up. That's it in a nutshell. If you like, I can give you a written
explanation, and we can end all this-
"I see." Onisimov was gathering his wits about him gradually. "And what
experiments were you doing in the laboratory?"
"You see ... I'm researching the biochemsitry of higher combinations in
a systemological aspect with the addition of polymorphous anthropologism,"
Krivoshein explained blandly. "Or the systemology of higher forms in a
biochemical aspect with the addition of anthropological polymorphism, if you
will."
"I see. And where did the skeleton come from?" Matvei Apollonovich
squinted at the box on the corner of his desk. "You just wait!" he thought.
"Skeleton? Oh, the skeleton!" Krivoshein smiled. "You see, we keep the
skeleton in the lab for educational purposes. It's always in the same corner
that I was put in when I was unconscious."
"And what do you say to this?" Matvei Apollonovich removed the box that
covered the sculpted head of Krivoshein. The pale-gray plastic eyes stared
at the visitor who grew pale himself. "Do you recognize it?"
Graduate student Krivoshein lowered his head. Only now was he certain
of what he had suspected, and what he didn't want to believe: Val had
perished in the experiment.
"Your story doesn't make sense, citizen! I don't know your name or who
you are." Onisimov, controlling his feeling of triumph, leaned back in his
chair. "Yesterday you managed to mystify me but you won't get away with it
today. I'm going to arrange for a little meeting between you and your
co-conspirator Kravets, and then what will you say?"
He reached for the phone. But Krivoshein put his hand on the receiver.
"Hey! What are you-" Onisimov looked up angrily and saw himself... a
broad face with narrow lips and a sharp chin, a thin nose, fine wrinkles
around the mouth and small close-set eyes. Only now did Matvei Apollonovich
notice the blue suit, just like his, and the Ukrainian shirt.
"Don't fool around, Onisimov! It won't be what you expect. You'll only
succeed in making yourself look foolish. No more than twenty minutes ago
investigator Onisimov released Kravets for lack of evidence."
"So...." Onisimov stared as Krivoshein's face relaxed and took on its
former features: blood drained from his cheeks. He lost his breath. Matvei
Apollonovich had been in quite a few fixes in the line of duty: he had been
shot at and he had done some shooting-but he had never been this scared in
his life. "Then you're... you?"
"That is it: I'm me." Krivoshein stood up and walked over to the desk.
Onisimov squirmed under his angry gaze. "Listen; end this nonsense!
Everyone's alive, everything is in place. What more do you want? No
sculpture or skeleton is going to prove that Krivoshein died. Here he is,
Krivoshein, standing before you! Nothing happened, do you understand? It's
just the project."
"But . . . how?" Matvei Apollonovich muttered. "Couldn't you explain?"
Krivoshein frowned sadly.
"Ah, Matvei Apollonovich, what could I explain to you? You used all of
detection's technology: televideophones, Gerasimov's system of
reconstructing the face... and still... you couldn't even figure out a type
like Hilobok. And that's a clear-cut case with him. There was no crime, you
can be sure of that."
"But... I'll have to report. I have to tell them something. What do I
do?"
"Now we're talking business." Krivoshein sat down again. "I'll give you
an explanation. Remember this part about the skeleton resembling me. It's a
family heirloom. My maternal grandfather, Andrei Stepanovich Kotlyar, a
famous biologist in his day, willed that he not be buried but embalmed and
his skeleton left to his descendants who went into science. An old
scientist's eccentricity, understand? And apparently you discovered broken
right ribs in the skeleton, which naturally raised some suspicion. Well,
grandfather died in a road accident. The old man loved zooming around on a
motorcycle over the speed limit. Understand?" "I see." Onisimov nodded
rapidly
"That's better. I hope that this... family heirloom will be returned to
its owner after the case is closed. As well as the other 'clues' taken from
the laboratory. The time will come," Krivoshein's voice resounded dreamily,
"the time will come, Matvei Apollonovich, when that head will grace not your
desk but a memorial. Well, I'm off. I hope I've explained everything. Please
give me Kravets's papers. Thank you. Oh yes, the guard you were so kind to
leave at the lab has requested relief. Please let him go. Thanks."
Krivoshein stuffed the papers in his pocket and headed for the door.
But a thought struck him on the way. "Listen, Matvei Apollonovich," he said,
coming back to the desk, "please don't be hurt by my proposal, but would you
like to be a little smarter? You'll grasp things quickly. You'll think
broadly and profoundly. You'll see clues and delve into the essence of
things and phenomena. You'll understand the human soul! And your mind will
be visited by marvelous ideas-things that will make your cheeks cold with
amazement. You see, life is complicated, and it will get more so. The only
way to remain at a human being's top position in it is to understand
everything. There is no other way. And that's possible, Matvei Apollonovich!
Would you like it? I can arrange it!"
Onisimov's face, contorted in insult and injury, filled with blood.
"You're mocking me," he said. "It's not enough that you've . .. you're
mocking me too. Go on, citizen, out."
Krivoshein shrugged and turned to the door.
"Wait!"
"What now?"
"Just a second, citizen... Krivoshein. All right, I don't understand.
Perhaps you really have the science for this. I'll accept your version of
the story-I have no choice. And you can think what you want of me...."
Matvei Apollonovich couldn't get over the insult. Krivoshein frowned: what
is he leading up to? "But if we accept your version, a man perished. Who's
guilty?"
The graduate student looked at him carefully.
"Everyone a little, Matvei Apollonovich. Himself, and me, and Azarov,
and others ... and even you are mixed up in it a little, even though you
didn't know him, because, without really knowing, you suspected people. But
according to the criminal code, no one. That happens."
"I think that's taken care of," the student said to himself as he got
into the bus.
Tomorrow is the experiment. Actually, not even tomorrow, but tonight,
in seven or eight hours. I'm never sleepy before I have an important thing
to do, but I need the sleep. That's why I walked and rode around town for
over four hours, to get worn out and distract myself.
I was everywhere: midtown, suburbs, by the train station. I looked at
people, houses, trees, animals. I watched the parade of Life.
A desiccated old man hobbled toward me with a yellowed mustache and a
red, wrinkly face. He had three Saint George crosses and a medal on a
striped ribbon dangling from his gray sateen shirt. The old man stopped in
the short shadows of the lindens to catch his breath.
Yes, gramps, you had your day too! You've lived through a lot and
obviously you want more: you've come out to preen, you cavalier of Saint
George! If we filled up your muscles with strength, cleared up your corneas,
wiped the sclerosis and fog from your brain, freshened up your nerves-you'd
show the young punks a thing or two!
Some boys wandering along, talking about the movies:
"And then he gives it to him-pow-pow-with an atomic gun!"
"And they go: bam-bam-bam!"
"Why an atomic one?"
"What other kind? On Venus-and with a regular gun?"
A cat looks at me with anxious eyes. Why do cats have such anxious
eyes? Do they know something? They know, but they won't tell. "Shoo, you
cat!" It skulked into a doorway.
A man with a low forehead and gray crewcut walked past: his pants
hugged his powerful calves and thighs and his tee shirt barely covered his
well-developed chest. His face made it clear that the fellow could handle
any of life's problems with a quick uppercut to the jaw or by tossing you
over his shoulder.
And we'll make muscles like that for everyone-everyone will know about
boxing and judo-and then how will he feel about his ready answer?
In Shevchenko Park a boy and girl walked past me, noticing no one,
holding hands.
You lovers don't need our discovery. You're good for each other just
the way you are. But... anything can happen in life. And danger threatens
your love: life, misunderstandings, good sense, relatives, boredom-lots of
things! If you manage on your own, more power to you. But if not, know this:
we can repair your love, fix it better than a TV set. It'll be like new-like
the day when you first saw each other in the movie ticket line.
And the woman I ran into in front of the department store on the
prospect! Her body was squeezed into a brocade dress, a gold brooch, fake
amber necklace, with sweat spots the size of plates under her arms and on
her back! The blue brocade glistened with all the colors of a stormy sea.
Fie on you, madame! How can you stuff yourself into brocade in this
heat. It's not a Saint George Cross, you know! Your husband doesn't love
you, does he, madame? He stares in horror at your arms, as thick as his
legs, at that fatty hump on your back. You are miserable madame. I don't
feel sorry for you, but I understand. Your husband doesn't love you; the
children don't appreciate you; the doctors don't sympathize; and the
neighbors-oof, the neighbors! All right, madame, we'll figure out something
for you as well. After all, you too have the right to an additional portion
of happiness in the human line. But, speaking of happiness, madame, your
taste worries me. No, no, I understand: you stuffed yourself into the
brocade, put on the horrible earrings and necklace that do nothing for you,
and decorated your fingers with rings to prove that you are no worse than
anyone else, that you have everything. But, forgive me, madame, you don't
have a damn thing. And I'm afraid that we'll have to improve your taste
along with your body, as well as you mind and feelings. For the same money,
madame, don't worry. Otherwise it's not worth it: you'll just waste your new
beauty and freshness in restaurants and parties and on lovers. In that case,
why should we bother? The true beauty, madame, lies in the harmony of the
body, mind, and spirit.
Two pretty girls walked past without giving me a glance. Why should
they? The sky is clear. The sun is high. Exams are behind them. And this bus
takes them to the beach.
A little kid, who wasn't allowed outside, pressed his nose to the
windowpane. He caught my eye and made a face. I made a face at him. Then he
did a whole act for me.
I love life, oh, how I love life! I don't need it to be any better. Let
it stay just as it is, as long as ... as long as what? What? Oh, you!
That's the whole point, it has to be better. There's too much wrong
with the world.
And I'll go. I haven't sold you out, people. We'll be able to do so
many things with this method: give people looks and wisdom, introduce new
abilities, even new qualities in them. Let's say, we could make a man have
radio feelings, so that he could see in the dark, hear ultrasounds, sense
magnetic waves, count time to the fraction of a second without a
chronometer, and even read people's thoughts at a distance-would you like
that? Though I suppose, all this is not the important part.
The important part is that I'll go. And then someone else will, if
things go wrong now. And then... that's how it will be!
"No one died, damn it!" graduate student Krivoshein muttered to himself
in the bus. "No one died!..."
I'm going, Life! Thank you, fate, or whoever you are, for everything
that's happened to me so far. It's scary to think that I could have stopped
and ended up as a petty coupon-clipping mediocrity! Let the rest of my life
be difficult, frightening, confusing, and tormenting-but don't let it be
petty. Don't ever let me sink to struggling for security, success, and for
worrying about my hide when things get serious!
It's almost night, but I'm not sleepy. What a waste, sleeping. We could
probably do away with it, too. They say there's an eccentric in Yugoslavia
who hasn't slept in thirty years-and he feels fine.
"Midnight in Madrid. Sleep soundly! Respect the king and queen! And may
the devil never cross your path!" In those days they would have burned me at
the stake.
Don't sleep soundly, people! Don't respect the king or the queen! And
let the devil cross your path; there's nothing too terrible about that.
As a youth I dreamed (about so many things) that when the time would
come to undertake something frightening and serious, I would first have a
talk with my father. But I didn't have anything serious to talk about and my
father couldn't wait forever. Well, I'll give it a try now.
"Well, father, tomorrow I stand on the parapet. Were you scared?"
"What can I say? It was scary, of course. It was only four hundred
yards to the German trenches, and I'm highly visible. Fraternization hadn't
come into full force; they were still shooting. And they shot at me a couple
of times-the Germans had all kinds, too. Maybe they were only trying to
scare me."
"But why that kind of punishment-standing on the parapet?"
"The temporary government had introduced it specially for those who
were agitating for an end to the imperialist war. 'Oh, so they're your
brother workers and brother peasants? Let's see how they'll shoot at you!'
And you stood there for two hours. And some for four."
"Clever-you can't say anything about it. (Father, did you know that...
I didn't believe you?)"
"I knew, son. It's all right. It was the times. I didn't always believe
myself. What are you planning to do?"
"An experiment in controlling information in my own organism.
Eventually I should develop a method of analyzing and synthesizing one's own
body, soul, and memory. Understand?"
"You always spoke like a book, Val. I don't know all this science
stuff. Once I was able to take apart and reassemble a machine gun
blindfolded. But this I don't follow... what will it give you?"
"Well, you fought for equality, right? The first stage of this idea is
coming true: the inequality between the rich and the poor, between the
strong and the weak, is disappearing. Society offers equal opportunity for
everyone. But besides the inequality built into society, there is the
inequality built into people. A stupid person is no equal to a smart one, an
ugly one to a handsome one, a sick or crippled one to a healthy one. But
this method will let everyone make himself just the way he wants to be:
smart, handsome, young, honest-"
"Young, smart and handsome-that's for sure. Everyone will want that.
But as for honest-I don't know. That's harder than anything else, being
honest."
"But if a man definitely knows that this information will make him
viler and sneakier and this will make him honest and direct, he wouldn't
vacillate over which to pick, would he?"
"What can I say? There are people for whom it is important to appear
honest in front of others, but they would steal or do anything else as long
as they're not caught. And those would pick cleverness and sneakiness."
"I know. Don't talk about them now. The experiment is tomorrow,
father."
"And you must go? Watch out for yourself, son."
"Who else, if not for me? Listen, you could have jumped down from the
parapet into the trench?"
"There were two officers guarding me. They would have shot me."
"Couldn't you have gotten out of it?"
"Sure! I could have told them that I wouldn't agitate any more, that I
was leaving the Bolsheviks-and they would have let me go at once."
"Why didn't you tell them that?"
"I should tell them that? I never even thought about it. I was thinking
that if I was killed, it would be the end of fraternization in our unit."
"Why were you thinking that? You loved people so much, is that it? But
you had killed people before-both before and after that."
"I killed and they tried to kill me-it was the times."
"Then why?"
"I was proud, I guess that's why. I was very proud in those days. I
thought I was fighting the whole war."
"And father, that's how proud I am now."
"Of course, if you go on the parapet you have to stand proud. That's
true. But don't you equate your work with the parapet, son. I didn't stand
the whole two hours. The soldiers' committee raised the battalion; they
bumped off the officers, and that was it. Do you have anyone to raise an
alarm over you?"
I had no answer for that question-and the imagined conversation ended.
Well, enough of this-bedtime! Cuckoo, cuckoo, how long will I live?
"People from Earth, your excellency."
"From Earth? Earth, Earth ... hmm..."
"That's the planet where Fledermaus was composed, Excellency."
"Ah! Tum-tiri-tiri, tum-tiri-tiri, tum-pam-pam-pam! Mar-velous piece.
We//, give them a third-level reception."
-A conversation in the Universe
Graduate student Krivoshein went up to the fifth floor and entered the
apartment. Victor Kravets and Adam were smoking out on the balcony; when
they saw him, they came inside. Krivoshein gave them a glum look.
"Three from one pea pod. And there used to be four...." He looked at
the clock. There was still time. He sat down. "Tell me, Victor Kravets, what
happened there?"
Kravets lit up another cigarette and began the story in a hollow voice.
The plan of the experiment was for Krivoshein the Original to immerse
himself up to the neck in the liquid-control the sensations-put on
Monomakh's Crown-control the sensations once more-give the command of
dissatisfaction ("Not it!")-come into mutual contact with the liquid
circuit-reach the stage of controllable transparency-fix his broken ribs-use
the "impulse of satisfaction" for the command "That's it"-return to
nontransparency-break contact with the liquid circuit-and leave the tank.
They had gone over the methodology of the experiment dozens of times by
immersing their extremities. The mutual permeation of the liquid and the
body could be controlled and regulated easily.
"You see, friends, it turns out that inside our bodies there are always
less healthy spots, tiny flaws, well, like your skin, no matter how healthy,
always had a pimple or a scratch or chafing or a local irritation. I don't
know what kind of inner 'scratches' there are, but after working in the
liquid your arm or leg always feels better than it did before. The liquid
circuit corrects these minor flaws. And you can recognize these corrections
as they are going on: there is a tingling sensation that increases and then
decreases. And if after the decrease you give the command 'That's it' the
computer breaks contact and the arm or leg stops being transparent. I'm only
telling you this to show you that we had no questions on the methodology of
entering and breaking contact with the liquid circuit."
"While you were immersing no more than ten or fifteen percent of the
body," Krivoshein added.
"Yes. We were also sure that the human body maintains muscle tone in
the transparent stage in liquid. We used to 'struggle' in the liquid: his
hand [transparent] and mine [not], or right against left when both were
transparent. In other words, the liquid circuit fully supports the viability
of the body."
"Of parts of the body," Krivoshein interrupted again. "Yes. Perhaps
that was the whole problem," Kravets sighed. Of course, it was frightening.
It was one thing to dip your hand or foot into the liquid-you can pull it
out if you sense danger. At worst, you'll lose an arm. But it's completely
different to immerse yourself in the tank, giving yourself up to the whim of
a complex and mysterious medium that you can't fight off or run away from.
They hid the fear from each other. Krivoshein, because he feared for
himself. Kravets, because he didn't want to scare him unnecessarily.
But everything had been prepared assiduously, conscientiously. They
regulated the level of liquid in the tank so that it would come up to
Krivoshein's neck when he got in and stood in it. They placed a large mirror
opposite the tank. (They had to shell out for it; there wasn't one at the
warehouse.) Krivoshein could observe and control the changes he saw in the
mirror.
In order to lessen the possibility of any fluctuations in current and
electromagnetic field, they decided to run the experiment at night, after
2:00 A.M., when all the other labs were turned off and the buses and
trolleys were in the depot.
Krivoshein stripped, climbed up the steps, and holding on to the edge
with his left hand (his right was weak after the motorcycle accident), sank
into the tank. The liquid gurgled. He stood up to his neck in it-his head
looked separate from his body. Kravets was ready with Monomakh's Crown.
Krivoshein licked his lips.
"Salty." His voice was hoarse.
"What?"
"The liquid. Like sea water."
They waited a minute.
"It seems in order. No sensations, as to be expected. Give me the
crown."
Kravets put Monomakh's Crown firmly on his head, clicked the dials, and
climbed back down. Now his job was to observe Krivoshein, give advice, if
needed, and help him out of the tank in case of some unexpected emergency.
Krivoshein spent another minute getting used to his new position.
"The sensations are familiar: tingling, prickling," he said. "Nothing
new. Well, that's it. Wish me luck. I'm starting to plug in."
"Break a leg, Val."
"The hell with it. We're off!"
They didn't talk after that.
Krivoshein's body developed in the liquid like a color negative. The
white contours of the bones and tendons showed through the purple muscles
with their layers of yellowish fat. His ribs rose and fell rhythmically,
like a bellows. Kravets saw white swellings in two ribs on the right side.
The purplish red fist of the heart contracted and relaxed, pushing along
crimson streams of blood (it was no longer clear into where).
Krivoshein didn't take his eyes off his reflection. His face was pale
and concentrated.
Soon the muscles turned golden yellow and you could distinguish them
from the liquid only by light refraction.
"And then,..." Kravets rubbed his temples with the palms of his hands,
took a deep drag on his cigarette, "and then the automatic vacillations
began. Like it had in the very beginning with the rabbits: everything in Val
began changing size and shape synchronously. I ran up to the tank: 'Val,
what are you doing?' He looked at me, but said nothing in reply. 'The
vacillations! Unplug!' He tried to say something, opened his lips, and
suddenly went under into the liquid. He began jerking, twisting, a dancing
skeleton with a nickel-plated helmet!"
He took another deep drag.
"The only thing to do, to save him was to use Monomakh's Crown and the
'it-not it' commands to get into rhythm with the vacillations of his body
and stop them gradually, using them to return the body to the nontransparent
stage. You know, external control, the way he made you," Kravets nodded at
Adam, and me.
He stopped talking, working his jaw muscles.
"That damn Harry! We could really have used an extra SES-2 then. But of
course there was no hope of getting a second crown after his dissertation
flopped! Putting him in jail wouldn't be enough."
"He probably wouldn't even get a reprimand for not completing an order
in time. It's not like insulting a professor," Krivoshein laughed drily.
"And you can't accuse him of anything more than that."
"The only way was to remove the crown from Val's head," Victor
continued. "I jumped up on the steps, put my hands in the liquid-and I got
an electric shock through both arms. Judging by the effect, I'd say four
hundred or five hundred volts. There had never been potentials like that in
the liquid before. Well, you know, the hands jerk away involuntarily in
cases like that. I ran to the shelves, got rubber gloves, and tried again,
but Val was deep inside, and the gloves weren't long enough. The shock was
so strong that this time I fell to the floor. I had to turn over the tank. I
couldn't let him dissolve into the liquid before my very eyes like... like
you had." Kravets looked over at Adam. "I was him, Krivoshein, when he was
dissolving you. [Adam's face tensed.] And he was still alive. His face had
dissolved, too. There was only the crown on his skull, but he was jumping
about, so that meant his muscles were working. I grabbed the edge of the
tank and started shaking it. The edges are flexible and slippery but finally
I pulled it down, almost on me. I just got out in time-but the liquid
splashed on my face and neck and I got a third shock from that. I don't
remember the rest. I came to on the stretcher."
He was silent. The others said nothing. Krivoshein stood up and paced
the room in thought.
"There was nothing wrong with the way you set up the experiment. It was
thought through. No evildoing, no fatal accident, not even a gross
miscalculation... killed a man according to all the rules, as they say! If
you hadn't turned over the tank he would have dissolved, since the liquid
that had permeated him was no longer the organizing liquid circuit. It's too
bad he kept the crown on, though. Once he was plugged into the liquid he
could control it without the crown."
"So that's how it is." Kravets looked up.
"Yes. That stupid cap was only necessary to plug into the
computer-womb-and nothing else. From there the brain commands the nerves
directly, and not through wires and circuits. And when the uncontrolled
autovacillations began, it was the crown that destroyed him. A foreign body
in the living liquid-it's as irritating as a slingshot to a bear!"
"Yes, but why did the vacillations start?" Adam interrupted. He turned
to Kravets. "Tell me, did you investigate any further the process after the
rabbits and ... me?"
"No. In the last experiments we didn't touch on it. All the
transformations were going smoothly directed only by sensations. I told you
that. I can't imagine how he lost control of himself! Did he panic? That
process is sort of like confusion... but why was he confused?"
"The switch from quantity to quality," Adam said. "As long as you were
immersing only an arm or a leg into the liquid, there were only a few
'hotbeds of uncorrection' which you used to control and direct the
penetration of the body with the liquid. It was like talking to one or two
people at the same time. But once he put in his whole body, there were
naturally many more places like that in his whole body than in just parts of
it, and-"
"And instead of a decent conversation there was the incomprehensible
babble of a crowd," Krivoshein added. "And he grew confused. That's quite
possible."
"Listen, you self-taught experts!" Kravets glared at them. "There are
always a lot of people ready to explain why something went wrong, to make
themselves look bigger. 'I warned you. I told you so!' If there's nuclear
war, I'm sure there will be people who, before turning into cinders, will
have time to exclaim joyously: 'I told you so!' Are you so sure that the
experiment failed precisely for those reasons, that you would get into the
tank if the corrections were made?"
"No, Victor Kravets," Krivoshein said, "not that sure. And not one of
us will get into the tank just to prove that he's right or that someone else
is wrong-that's not our work. We will have to get in, and more than once-the
idea was sound. But we will do it with minimal risk and maximum benefit. And
there's no point in your getting so excited. You two made the experiment. An
experiment like that! And you almost ruined the lab and the whole project.
You had everything-great ideas, heroics, discoveries, meditations,
high-level effort-except one thing: reasonable caution! Of course, maybe
it's not for me to reproach you. I did pretty much the same thing in one
very serious experiment and almost killed myself. But tell me, why couldn't
you have called me back from Moscow to participate in this one?"
Kravets looked at him ironically.
"How would you have helped? You were way behind in this work."
The graduate student sighed: to hear that after all his labors!
"You're a louse, Vitya," he said with unbelievable meekness. "It's
terrible to have to say this to someone so close to you, but you are simply
a son of a bitch. I'm good enough to be used as a decoy with the police
while you get off scot-free from criminal culpability? But not good enough
to be a researcher on this project?" He turned away from the window.
"What does culpability have to do with this?" Kravets muttered in
confusion. "Someone had to save the project...."
Suddenly he jumped up in terror: Onisimov was coming toward him from
the window! Adam shuddered, too, and looked around in panic.
"You wouldn't have saved anything, suspect Kravets," Onisimov said in
an unpleasant voice, "if the head of your department hadn't learned a thing
or two in Moscow. You'd be in the defendant's chair right now, comrade
pseudo-Kravets. I've managed to put people behind bars with less evidence
than this. Do you see?"
This time Krivoshein got his own face back in ten seconds; the practice
was paying off.
"You mean, that was you? You let me out? Wait... how do you do that?"
"Using biology?" Adam asked.
"Biology and systemology." Krivoshein massaged his cheeks calmly. "You
see, unlike you two, I remember what it was like being part of the
computer-womb."
"Tell us how you do it," Kravets nagged.
"I'll tell you, don't worry, all in good time. We'll set up a seminar.
Now we're going to use this knowledge in conjunction with our work on the
computer-womb. But applying it to life will have to be done very carefully."
He looked at his watch and turned to Kravets and Adam. "It's time. Let's go
to the lab. We'll reconstruct your experiment."
"Hah .. . those crazy scientists!" the chief of police laughed and
shook his head when Matvei Apollonovich reported the final clearing up of
the events at the Institute of Systemology. "You mean, while you were
gathering evidence and talking to the academician, the 'corpse' crawled out
from under the oilcloth and went to the shower?"
"Yes, exactly. He wasn't himself after the blow to his head, comrade
colonel."
"Naturally! It can take less than that. And the skeleton right next to
him. Hah! That's what comes of not studying the scene of the incident
carefully enough, comrade Onisimov," and Aleksei Ignatyevich raised his
forefinger didactically. "You didn't take the specifics of the place into
account. This isn't going out to see a highway accident or a drowning-it's a
scientific laboratory! They've always got a hellish amount of stuff going
on. That's science. You were careless, Matvei Apollonovich!"
"Should I tell him how it really was?" Onisimov thought glumly. "No, he
wouldn't believe it."
"But how did that first-aid doctor make such a mistake, declaring a
live person dead?" thought the colonel aloud. "Oh, I have a feeling their
rate of success isn't very high. She looked at him, saw that the man was
poorly, figured he'd die in the clinic anyway, and this way their statistics
would look better if he was DO A."
"Maybe she just made a mistake, Aleksei Ignatyevich," Onisimov defended
her generously. "He was in shock, deep faint, and wounded. And so she-"
"Perhaps. Too bad that Zubato wasn't there. He always goes on the
pattern of spots and marks on the body. He's never wrong. Hm... of course,
it would have been nice to have called this a solved case-the end of the
quarter is coming up, and it would have looked good-but to hell with the
statistics. The important thing is that everyone is alive and well. Yet," he
looked at Onisimov, "there's still the discrepancy with Kravets's papers.
What about that?"
"Our expert couldn't find any evidence of tampering at all, Aleksei
Ignatyevich. They're papers like any papers. Maybe the Kharkov police made a
mistake."
"Well, that's a problem for the passport people, not us. The man didn't
commit any crimes-and the case is closed. But what about you, Matvei
Apollonovich?" Aleksei Ignatyevich wrinkled up his face merrily and leaned
back in his chair. "You wanted to turn the case over to the security
organizations. We would really have looked wonderful if we had! Didn't I
tell you: the most seemingly confused cases are always the simplest."
And his small wise eyes, set under heavy brows, were surrounded with a
sunburst of raylike wrinkles.
They were walking through Academic Town at midday: Adam on the right,
Krivoshein in the middle, Kravets on the left. The asphalt, softened by the
heat, was spongy under their feet.
"Now we'll be able to work with some knowledge," Krivoshein was saying.
"We've learned quite a bit and we'll learn a lot more. And we're getting a
sense of direction, too. Victor Kravets, did Adam tell you his idea?"
"He did."
"And why are you so indifferent to it?"
"Well, it's just one more method. So what?"
Adam glowered, but said nothing.
"Why do you say that! The computer-womb introduces information into man
firmly and for a long time, for his whole life, not just for the time of the
session. And art information could change the personality of a man, improve
it-well, the way they improved your appearance compared to mine! Of course,
this is serious business, not like going to a movie. We'll give them fair
warning: after being processed by us you will permanently lose your ability
to lie, be petty, bully, and fabricate. Not only will you be actively kept
from doing evil, but you'll even lose the ability to hold back from doing
good. We can't guarantee that you will be happy in the sense of having all
your needs and wants satisfied. Life will be clearer and harder. But you
will be Man!"
"A joke!" Kravets said. "A way of returning lost innocence!"
"Why do you say that?" Adam and Krivoshein exclaimed in unison.
"Because, basically you are planning to simplify and strictly program
man with the help of art information. Even if it's programming for good, for
honesty, for self-denial, for a beautiful soul-you won't have a man; you'll
have a robot! If a man doesn't lie or bite others because he doesn't know
how it's done, there's no merit in his behavior. He'll live, gather
additional information and he'll learn-and he'll lie. It's not hard. But if
he knows how to lie and be crafty and put the squeeze on people (and we all
know how it's done; we just don't admit it) and he knows that applying these
little procedures will make his life simpler, and he still doesn't behave
that way-not because he's afraid of being caught but because he knows that
would make life for him and others less desirable-then that's a real Man!"
"Well put," Krivoshein said, "but complicated."
"And people are complicated, and are becoming ever more complicated-and
there's no way to simplify them. Why can't you see that? There's nothing you
can do. People know that evil exists in the world and they take it into
account in their thoughts, words, and deeds. No matter what noble-minded
information you might introduce into them and no matter how you did it, it
would only make them more complex. And that's all!"
"Wait," Adam said angrily. "You don't have to simplify people to make
them better. You're right: man is no robot, and you can't limit him with a
strict program of good intentions. And it shouldn't be done. But art
information could instill a clear understanding of what's good in the long
run, not just profitable, and what's bad."
"But his goals will remain the same and everything will be subordinate
to them. And you can't inculcate goals in a person-even good ones-otherwise
you're talking about good-natured robots." Kravets looked at the doubles and
laughed. "I'm afraid sheer technology isn't the answer. Hasn't it occurred
to you that our search for an absolute method comes not from the mind but
from a fierce engineering faith in the ability of science and technology to
do everything? Yet they can't, you know, and this approach will get us
nowhere. I see a different, clear direction. A new science will develop from
our research-Experimental and Theoretical Humanology. A major and necessary
science, but not only a science, it will be a whole field of knowledge. It
will say: here's what you are, man. And humanotechnology will arise. It must
sound horrible now-a technology of synthesis and introduction of information
into man. It will include everything from medicine to mathematics and from
electronics to the arts, but it will still only be technology. It will say:
here's what you can do, man. This is how you can change yourself. And then
let each and every person think and decide on his own: what do you want,
man? what do you want from yourself?"
Victor's words had an effect. The three walked in silence for some
time-thinking. Academic Town was left far behind. They could see the grounds
and the buildings of the institute and beyond them the huge experimental
hangar of the construction design bureau, shining glass and steel.
"Hey guys, what about Lena?" Adam asked and looked at Krivoshein.
Kravets looked at him too.
"Just the way it was," he insisted. "As far as she's concerned, nothing
happened, understand?"
Adam and Kravets said nothing.
They stepped into a long, chestnut-lined alley. It was shady and
cooler.
" 'Here's what you are, man. Here's what you can do, man. What do you
want from yourself, man?'" Krivoshein repeated. "Effectively put.
Fantastically put! If I had a lot of money I'd put up an obelisk in every
city with the sign: 'People! Beware of maxims-the bearers of half-truths!
There is nothing more false and dangerous than maxims, because they are
formulated to accommodate our minds, not life as it is/"
Kravets gave him a careful look.
"What does that mean?"
"It means that your flaws, Vitya, old boy, are merely an extension of
your good qualities. I think that Krivoshein the Original overdid it with
you. Personally I could never understand why people with a well-developed
sense of logic are identified with smart people."
"Why don't you get to the point."
"I can get to the point, Vitya, boy. You began well: man is complicated
and free, and he can't be reorganized and programmed. There will be
Humanology and Humanotechnology. And you came to the conclusion that our
business is to move the science and technology and drop everything else. Let
people decide for themselves. A very convenient conclusion for us,
absolutely marvelous. But let's apply your theory to another subject. Let's
say there's a science and technology dealing with the atom. And there is
you-full of the best intentions, an opponent of atomic weapons. You are
given complete freedom to solve the problem: you have the keys to all the
atomic arsenals, all the codes and ciphers, entrance to all atomic centers.
Act!"
Adam laughed.
"How will you use this brilliant opportunity to save the world? I know
how. You'll stand in the middle of an atomic arsenal and bawl with terror."
"Why would I be bawling?"
"Because you don't know a thing about this stuff, just like other
people don't know about our work. Yes, there will be a science called
Humanology. And there'll be Humanotechnology. But we are the top specialists
in that science and technology. And a specialist, besides his general
humanitarian responsibilities, has his own as well: he's responsible for his
science and its applications! Because in the final analysis he's doing it
all, with his ideas, knowledge, and decisions. He and no one else! So,
willy-nilly, it's up to us to determine the direction of the development of
the synthesis of information in man."
"Well, let's say that's true." Kravets wasn't giving up. How will we
direct it? There is no method to apply the discovery with absolute certainty
for the benefit of mankind, as we had pledged a year ago!"
"Look, guys," Adam said softly.
They all turned their heads to the left. A girl was sitting on a bench.
A briefcase and crutches lay next to her. Her thin legs in black stockings
were extended unnaturally. Spots of sunlight, breaking through the trees,
played in her dark hair.
"Go ahead. I'll catch up." Krivoshein went up to her and sat down on
the edge of the bench. "Hello, little girl!"
She raised her big clear eyes, no longer a child's, at him in surprise.
"Hello."
"Tell me, little girl," Krivoshein smiled in his most kindly manner so
that she wouldn't take him for a drunk and get scared, "but please don't be
surprised by my question: at your school, do you spit in the ear of someone
who hasn't kept a promise?"
"No ... no," the girl answered cautiously.
"In my day, that's what we did. That was the barbaric custom. And you
know what? I give you my word: in less than a year, you will be healthy and
beautiful. You'll run and jump and ride a bike and swim in the river. It
will all come true. I promise. You can spit in my ear if it doesn't."
The girl looked at him with full attention. An uncertain smile appeared
on her lips.
"But... we don't spit. It's not like that at our school."
"I see! And you won't go to a school like that either. You'll go to a
regular school. You'll see. I promise."
He had nothing else to say. But the girl was looking at him so that he
couldn't possibly leave.
"My name is Sasha. What's yours?"
"Valya ... Valentin Vasilyevich."
"I know, you live in number thirty-three. I live in thirty-nine, two
houses down."
"Well, I have to go ... to work."
"Second shift?"
"Yes, the second shift. Good-bye, Sasha."
"Good-bye."
He got up. He smiled and threw his head back, squinting, meaning: don't
give up now; look happy! It'll be! She threw back her head in reply,
squinted, and smiled: don't worry, I won't give up. And still he left with
the feeling that he had abandoned someone who needed his help.
The alley led out into the street. Cars sped around beyond the last
chestnut trees. All three turned around: the girl was watching them. They
waved. She smiled and waved a thin arm.
"You see, Vitya, lad," Krivoshein put his arm around Kravets's
shoulder/'you see, Vitya, I still love you, you bum, even though there's no
reason to. You should be whipped with a belt, like father used to have when
we were little, but you're too big and serious for that."
"Drop it!" Kravets freed himself.
"You see, Vitya, our idea of a happiness button was an engineer's
dream. In general people turn to technology for relief from demands on
themselves. It's funny! It's easy enough to create a happiness button for
rats: you implant an electrode in the pleasure center of the cortex and let
the rat push a lever to make contact. But that kind of happiness probably
won't do for people although there is a method that is mathematical and not
with a button. And we're reaching it empirically, slowly but surely. The
fact that we're beating our brains out to make sure it benefits people, and
not just ourselves, and that we won't accept any other way-that's part of
the method. And the fact that Adam could overcome his fears and come back
with a good idea-that comes from the method, too. Of course, if the
experiment had been more thoroughly prepared he might still be alive, but
none of us is perfect or guaranteed everlasting life: that's the nature of
the work. And the fact that he chose to synthesize people and not
microelectronic machines, which would have been simpler and more
lucrative-that's part of the method, too. And the fact that we have gathered
knowledge about our discovery. We're not dilettantes or amateurs any
more-and neither work nor arguments can throw us off the track. We can throw
whomever we want off. And in an honest argument, knowledge is the best
weapon."
"How about in a dishonest one?"
"It works there, too. Harry got squeezed-with the method. We got out of
a tight fix and saved the project-also part of it. We can do a lot: work,
and fight, and politic. Of course, it would be better if we got along, but
we can manage even if we don't. Adam, give me a cigarette, will you? I'm all
out."
Krivoshein lit up and continued:
"And in the future we should be guided by this empirical method in our
work and in life. First and foremost, we work together. The most terrible
thing in our work is being alone. Look what it led to. Let's gather smart,
honest, strong, and knowledgeable men around the project. To make sure that
the hand of a bastard, fool, or banality never touches our discovery at any
point. So that there will be someone to raise the alarm! And we'll attract
Azarov, and Vano Aleksandrovich Androsiashvili-he's someone I've been
thinking about. We'll even try Valery Ivanov... and if we work this way
everything will be 'it' including the method for duplicating people,
duplicating them with alterations, and the informational transformation of
regular people."
"But this is still not an engineering solution. There is no one hundred
percent guarantee," Kravets said stubbornly. "We can try, of course. Do you
think Azarov will join us?"
"Of course, where else could he go? Yes, this isn't an engineering
solution, but an organizational one. And it's not simple; it lacks the
logical simplicity we all want. But we have no choice. We'll gather talented
researchers, builders, doctors, artists, sculptors, psychologists,
musicians, writers, and just simple people-they know about life and man too.
We'll start injecting our discovery into life with small but very necessary
things: curing disease and deformity, correcting physical appearance and the
psychological problems. And then, you'll see, we'll gradually develop
information for a universal program for the computer-womb to instill the
best that mankind has collected into the mind and body of man."
The UPPM," Victor said. "The Universal Program for Perfecting Man. I
like it! Well, well...."
"We'll try," Adam said stubbornly. "There is no hundred-percent
guarantee; it's not all in our control. Maybe it won't work. But if we don't
try, nothing will happen at all. And you know, I think that there isn't that
much work left. It's important to shift in one or two generations the
process of man's development in the right direction, and the work will go on
without computers."
"It will all go in it." Krivoshein remembered the last entry in the
diary. "The daring of talented ideas and a child's awe before the complex
magnificence of the world, the roar of a stormy sea and the wise beauty of
lab equipment, the great pain of love and the esthetics of sex, the
fierceness of getting ahead and the rapture of interesting work, the blue
sky and the aroma of sun-baked grass, the wisdom of old age and the
confidence of maturity... and even the memory of bad times and mistakes, so
that they won't be repeated! It will all go in: the knowledge of the world,
understanding one another, peace and stubbornness, dreaminess and healthy
skepticism, great thoughts and the ability to achieve them. In general the
greater part has been done for a good life-and there is less left to do!"
"Let people be whatever way they want to be. Just let them want!"
The sun was yellow and hot. Cars rustled and murmured past. Pedestrians
shuffled through the heat. A policeman directed traffic in the intersection.
They walked on, leaving imprints in the asphalt. Three engineers on
their way to work.