The problem came down to changing "knowledge in sensation" into a tertiary
signal system of controlling internal secretions with the aid of sensations.
The funniest part was that he didn't need lab apparatus or control
circuits. All he had to do was lie in a darkened room, eyes closed and ears
plugged, and listen to himself in a half-dreaming state. Strange sensations
came from within: the spleen, changing the blood, itched, and intestines
tickled when they contracted; the salivary glands felt cold under his chin;
the adrenals reacted to nerve signals with a delicious shudder, and the part
of the blood enriched with adrenalin and glucose spread warmth through the
body like a sip of wine. The sick cells in the muscles made themselves known
with a gentle prickling.
Using engineering terminology, he was checking out his body with nerves
the way an assembler checks out a circuit with a tester.
By this time he had a clear understanding of the binary arithmetic of
sensation: painful-pleasant. And it occurred to him that the simplest way of
subjugating the cellular processes to his consciousness was to make them
hurt. It was quite possible that the incident with the icicle prompted this
discovery; the idea came to him right after it.
Of course, the cells that were deteriorating and dying from various
causes let themselves be known very palpably. The organism itself, without
any orders from "above" sent leucocytes, feverish tissue, enzymes, and
hormones to help. All he had to do was either speed up or slow down these
microscopic struggles for life.
He injected and cut muscles everywhere he could reach with a needle or
a scalpel. He injected fatal doses of typhus and cholera bacteria cultures.
He inhaled mercury vapor, drank mixtures of corrosive sublimate and wood
alcohol. (He didn't have the nerve to try faster-acting poisons, however.)
And the more he tried the better his organism handled all the dangers he was
aware of.
And then he caused cancer in himself. Cause cancer! Any doctor would
spit in his eye for an announcement like that. To cause cancer you have to
know what causes cancer. To be perfectly honest, he wouldn't maintain that
he knew the causes of cancer, but this was simply because he couldn't
translate into words all the feelings that accompanied the changes in the
skin on his right side. He began with questioning the patients who were
undertaking gamma therapy at the lab. What did they feel? This was not
kind-asking terrified, exhausted people, contorted by pain, about their
experiences and not promising anything in return-but that was how he
understood the image of a cancer patient.
The growth was getting bigger and harder. Smaller growths began
branching off from it-strange greenish purple ones, like cauliflower. Pain
chewed up his side and shoulder. At the university clinic, where he went for
a diagnosis, they suggested an immediate operation, without even letting him
leave the place. He got out of it by lying and saying that he wanted to
undergo radiation therapy first.
Graduate student Krivoshein, crumpling a cigarette, stepped out onto
the balcony. It was a warm night. A car, waving its headlights, raced down a
side road. Two little lights, a red one and a green one, traveled from
Cygnus to Lyra. Behind them followed the roar of a jet engine. Like a match
across a cover, a meteor struck the sky.
Back in his room, standing in front of the mirror, he concentrated his
will and feelings, and the growth melted away in fifteen minutes. Twenty
minutes later there was nothing but a purple spot the size of a saucer.
Another ten minutes later there was just his usual skin, in goose bumps-it
was chilly in the room.
But he couldn't express his knowledge about stopping cancer in either
prescriptions or medical advice. What he could describe in words wouldn't
heal anyone, except maybe other doubles like himself. So all his knowledge
applied only to them.
With time, probably, he would learn to overcome the barrier between the
doubles of the computer-womb and regular people. After all, biologically
they were not too different. And the knowledge was there. Even if he
couldn't express it verbally, they could record the fluctuations of his
biopotentials, graph his temperatures, develop numbers of analysis in
computers-medicine was a precise science now. And finally they would come
around to recording and transmitting precise sensations. Words were not
necessary. The important thing for a sick person was to get well, and not to
write a dissertation on his recovery. That wasn't the point.
The student's attention was riveted by a light exploding below. He
looked closely: leaning against a lamp post, the fellow in the cape from
yesterday, the detective, was lighting a cigarette. He tossed the match and
walked away slowly.
"So he found me, the damn creep! He's stuck on me like a burr!"
Krivoshein's mood was ruined. He went back inside and sat down to read the
diary.
Life is short. There is barely enough time to make an adequate
number of mistakes. Repeating them, that's an unforgivable
luxury.
-K. Prutkov-enzhener, Thought 22
Now the student was reading the notations with envious curiosity. Well,
what had he achieved, when all he wanted was to twirl knobs?
June I. Phew... finished! The information chamber is ready. I begin the
experiments with the rabbits tomorrow. If I follow tradition, I should begin
with frogs . . . but I would never pick the disgusting things up! No, let my
double play with toads. He's a brilliant student, quite industrious.
I wonder how he's doing.
June 2.1 equipped the rabbits with electrodes and sensors and put them
all in the chamber. Let them overload it with information.
June 7. The rabbits lived in the chamber for four days. They munched
carrots and cabbage leaves, wriggled their noses, fought, copulated, and
napped. I did my first tests today. I put on Monomakh's Crown, mentally
ordered "Proceed!"-and the computer-womb worked. Four rabbit doubles in an
hour and a half.
What a relief-the machine worked.
An interesting detail: the visual appearance of the rabbits (what
happens before that, I don't know) begins with the circulatory system; the
blue red vessels show up in the golden fluid just as they do in the yolk of
a fertilized chicken egg.
As they came to life, the rabbits floated up. I pulled them out by the
ears, bathed them in a tub, all warm and trembling, and then put them in
with the regular ones. The encounter between the natural and artificial
doubles had an even more banal character than my meeting with my double.
They stared at each other in disbelief, sniffed each other, and (since they
don't have a secondary signal system, to explain) fought. Then they got
tired, sniffed some more and went on with the normal rabbit routine.
The important thing is that the computer works on my command, without
any additions. You put on the crown, remember (preferably with a mental
image) which rabbit you want copied, give permission mentally-and in
twenty-five to thirty minutes it's flopping around in the tank. The reverse
operation-dissolving an appearing rabbit with the command "No!"-the
computer-womb also does without reproach.
For its success and hard work I feed it salts, acids, glycerine,
vitamins, and reagents. Just like giving fish to a trained seal.
June 20. When it works, it works. And when it doesn't you could just
beat your head on the wall. All this time I've been trying to stop the
synthesis of a rabbit at some stage. No matter what command I've tried:
"Stop!" "Halt!" "Enough!" "Cut it out!"-both mentally and verbally-nothing
helps. Either the synthesis goes on to the end, or there is dissolution.
It looks like the computer-womb works like a flip-flop circuit in a
computer, that is, either open or closed, and has no in-between positions.
But you would expect a complex machine to be more flexible than that silly
circuit.
I'll keep trying....
July 6. Life cannot be stopped. That must be it. Any interruption of
life is death. But death is only an instant, after which begins the process
of decay or in this case, dissolution. And I'm synthesizing living systems.
And the computer-womb itself is a living organism. That's why nothing can
freeze in it. Too bad, it would have been very convenient.... The first
offspring of an artificial male and regular female appeared today-eight
white bunnies. That must be an important fact. But I have plenty of rabbits
without that.
Damn it, but the machine must obey orders more complex than "You may!"
and "No!" I must control the synthesis process, otherwise all my ideas fly
out the window.
July 7. So that's how you work, computer-womb! And it's so simple.
Today I ordered the machine to re-create Albino Vaska one more time.
When it appeared as a translucent apparition in the middle of the vat, I
concentrated on its tail and imagine that it was no longer. No changes
followed. That wasn't it. And I thought sadly, "That's not it.. ."-and
everything began changing in the rabbit. The body's contour wavered in a
slow rhythm: the body, ears, and feet and tail either grew longer and fatter
or shorter and thinner; the internal organs pulsed in the same rhythm. Even
the color of the blood changed color from dark cherry to light red and back
again.
I jumped up from my chair. The rabbit was still being "shaken!" Its
shape kept changing, being distorted and caricatured; the trembling became
more frequent and wild. Finally the albino dissolved into a purplish gray
cloud and dissolved.
At first I was scared: the picture reminded me of the computer's old
delirium. Except for the rhythm. All the fluctuations of size and shade were
amazingly coordinated.
And then I understood. I figured it out myself, I might add, damn it!
The computer's original information on the rabbit was concrete and
definite. It combined all the informational details, searching for the
precise variation; but search or not, you can only re-create what's
recorded. You can't make a vacuum cleaner from motorcycle parts.
And then the computer receives the signal "That's not it"-neither
confirming nor negating-a signal of doubt. It disrupts the informational
stability of the synthesis of the rabbit; to put it bluntly, it throws the
computer off the track. And it begins searching-what is "it"-through the
simple method of trial and error (a little more, a little less so as not to
destroy the system.... But the computer doesn't know what "it" is, and it
doesn't get confirmation from me. Complete disruption of the system and
dissolution follow.
And then (this is what's good about a researcher's job: if you hit the
right vein you can do in a day, with the aid of one or two ideas, what would
ordinarily take years and years!) I put on Monomakh's Crown and told the
computer "You may!" Now I knew what I would do with the rabbit double. It
appeared. I concentrated on the tail (the connection chain: the bioimpulses
from my retinas with the image of the rabbit tail went into the brain, into
the crown, into the computer, and there-comparison and selection of
information-the computer fixed my attention) and I even frowned, to make it
more expressive: "That's not it." A powerful unbalancing impulse went into
the computer. The tail got shorter. A tiny bit.... "That's not it!"
The tail quivered, and got longer..., "That's it; that's it!"
The tail froze. "That's not it!" It got even longer. "That's it!" It
froze. "That's it! That's not it! It! Not it!"-and things got moving. The
hardest part was to catch the fluctuation in the right direction. Later I no
longer gave the computer the elemental commands "It-not it," but simple
silent approval. The tail got longer; a chain of small vertebrae grew in it,
they were covered with muscle tissue, pink skin, white fur... and in ten
minutes Vaska the double was whipping his sides with his tail like an
irritated tiger.
And I sat in a chair wearing Monomakh's Crown, and an unbelievable
swirl of "well, well, well, now we're cooking. Oh, boy! Phew!" went through
my mind, the way it does when you can't express it in words yet, but you
know that you've understood, and you're not going to lose it now! And my
face probably reflected that extreme state of bliss that is usually seen
only in drooling idiots.
That was it. No mysticism. The computer-womb was working on the same
"yes-no" system that regular computers do.
"That's right," nodded the graduate student. "But that's rather crude
control. Of course, for a machine. What am I quibbling about? That's a fine
job!"
Damn it, this is terrific! At my commands of "yes," "not it," and "no"
the computer forms cells, tissue, bone. Only living organisms can do that,
and much more slowly.
Well, baby, I'm going to squeeze everything I can out of you!
July 15. Now the machine and I are working well together. More
accurately, it's learned to receive, decipher, and execute commands from my
brain that are not broken down into "it" and "not it." The essential
feedback and content of the commands remained the same, except that it all
took place very quickly. I imagine what has to be changed in the developing
double and how. As if I were drawing or sculpting the rabbit.
The computer is now my electronic biochemical hand. It's marvelous and
luxurious to mold different kinds of rabbit freaks with my mind. With six
legs, with three tails, two heads, without ears, or with long floppy mutt
ears. Dr. Moreau with his scalpel and carbolic acid was an amateur! My only
tool was Monomakh's Crown. I didn't even have to twirl dials.
The most amusing part was that the monsters continue to live. They
scratch with four legs and stuff carrots into two mouths ...
"Easy work," muttered the graduate student with envy. "Just like in the
movies: sit back and watch. Nothing hurts, nothing to be afraid of. No
violent passions-only engineering work."
He sighed, remembering his suffering. He got used to the various
autovivisections rather quickly. When you know that the pain will pass and
the wound will heal, then pain becomes another irritant, like bright light
or loud noise-unpleasant but not terrible. When you know.... In his planned
experiments he knew it. He also began any new change on a small scale. He
checked to see how the organism put up with the changes; he always had
medicine on hand: ampules of neutralizers and antibiotics, and the phone to
call emergency. But there had been one unplanned experiment, in which he had
almost died. Actually, it wasn't even an experiment.
There was a department seminar in radiobiology. The third-year students
surrounded the uranium reactor and watched the dark cellular cylinder in its
depths respectfully. It gave off a green, calm light in the water,
illuminating the wires, the nickel-plated bars, levers, and wheels of the
control board above it.
"That beautiful light, the color of young grass, around the body of the
reactor," said Professor Valerno in his rich deep baritone, "is called the
Cherenkovsky glow. It is caused by the movement of superfast electrons in
the water, which are created, in turn, by the division of nuclei of
uranium-235."
Krivoshein assisted; that is, he sat around, bored, and waited for the
professor to ask him to run the demonstration. Actually, Valerno could have
easily done the experiment himself, or asked a student to do it, but his
scholarly rank rated a qualified assistant. "So just sit there," Krivoshein
thought gloomily. Then he got the idea that he hadn't tried out radiation
sickness on himself. He sat up and started planning how to go about it.
"Take a flask of water from the reactor and for starters give myself a
slight radiation burn. This was serious stuff!"
"The presence of intense Cherenkovsky glow in the water is evidence of
intense radiation in the body of the reactor," Valerno droned on, "which is
not surprising. It's a chain reaction. The growth in the brightness of the
light is evidence of the growth of the intensity of the radiation, and a
dimming-of the opposite. Here, please look." He turned the wheel on the
panel to the left and the right. The green light in the tank blinked.
"And if you turn it all the way to the right, there'll be an
explosion?" a red-haired, freckled boy in glasses demanded.
"No," replied the professor, barely suppressing a yawn (that question
came up every time). "There's a governor on it. And besides, the reactor can
be automatically blocked. As soon as the intensity of the chain reaction
exceeds certain limits, the automatic device throws additional graphite rods
into the reactor-those, see? They consume the neutrons and quench the
reaction. And now let's familiarize ourselves with the action of
radioactivity on a living organism. Valentin Vasilyevich, could you join
us?"
Krivoshein rolled a cart with a fish tank over to the reactor; the tank
contained a half-dead eel, with fins and sharp teeth.
"This is a freshwater eel, Anguilliformes," Valerno announced, without
even looking, "the most hardy of river fish. When Valentin Vasilyevich dumps
it into the pool, the eel, heeding its instincts, will immediately go to the
bottom... hmm... something that I wouldn't do in its place, since even the
luckiest ones come floating belly up from there in two minutes. Well, see
for yourselves. Mark the time, please. Valentin Vasilyevich, you're on."
Krivoshein tipped the fish tank over the pool and started the
stopwatch. The students leaned over the edge. A streak of black lightning
sped to the gray-tiled bottom of the pool, made a circle, another, crossed
the green light over the cylinder. Apparently blinded by that, the eel
bumped into the opposite wall and reeled back.
Suddenly the light in the pool got brighter-and in the green light
Krivoshein saw something that made his skin crawl: the eel got trapped in
the wires that held the graphite rods, the regulators of the reactor, and
was struggling among them! One rod fell out of its case and flew off like a
green stick into the water. The light got even brighter.
"Everyone back!" Quickly appraising the situation, the pale Valerno
barked a command. His baritone was flat. "Please leave at once!" He pulled
the emergency alarm. The contacts of the automatic blocking device clicked.
The light in the water blinked, as though they were doing arc welding in the
pool, and got even brighter. The students, covering their faces, raced from
the exits. There was a crush at the door.
"Please stay calm, comrades!" Valerno shouted in a real falsetto. "The
concentration of uranium-235 in the heat-generating elements is not enough
for an atomic explosion! There will only be a heat explosion, like in a
steam engine!" "Oh, God!" some exclaimed.
The doors cracked. A girl screamed. Someone cursed. The freckled
four-eyes, not losing his head, grabbed a very heavy Sl-8 synchronoscope
from the table, and threw it through the window, following it rapidly....
The room was empty in a few seconds.
In the first moment of panic Krivoshein followed the rest, but stopped
himself and went over to the reactor. Rapid, large bubbles rose from the
cylinder and the water churned. Instead of the quiet glow there was a green
bonfire in the water. The eel was quiet, but the graphite rods that it had
knocked out were crisscrossed and wedged against one another.
"When the water splashes up, there'll be a cloud of radioactive steam
all over," Krivoshein thought feverishly. "That's as bad as an atomic blast.
Can I do it? I'm scared. Well! What good are all my experiments, if I'm
scared? And what if I end up like the eel? The hell with it!"
(Even now Krivoshein couldn't believe it. How could he have done it?
Had he decided that he was invincible? Or was it the thinking of a
motorcyclist who has to pass between two oncoming trucks-the important thing
is don't think, just go forward! The intoxicating instant of danger, the
roar of the trucks, and with a beating heart you tear out into the asphalt
expanse! But this wasn't an instant-and it was quite possible he could end
up along with the dead eel on the pool bottom.)
The motorcyclist's daring hit him. Tearing off his buttons, he
undressed, put his leg over the edge, and-"Stop, Val! Think!"-went to the
counter, and put on rubber gloves and goggles ("Wish I had an Aqua-lung!").
He filled his lungs with air and plunged into the pool.
Even at a distance from the reactor the water was warm. "A thousand
one, a thousand two...." Krivoshein, instinctively turning his face away,
walked across the slippery tiles to the middle of the pool. His rubber
gloves were in contact with something, and he had to look: the eel, hanging
in a loop between the wires, was there. "A thousand ten, a thousand eleven,"
and carefully, so as not to disturb the rods, he pulled at the dead fish.
"Thousand sixteen...." His hands got hot, and he instinctively wanted to
pull away, but he controlled the impulse and slowly extracted the eel from
the jumble. The goggles weren't so hermetic, and streams of radioactive
water seeped into his eyes. He squinted. "Thousand twenty, a thousand
twenty-one"-he got it out! The green glow flickered, and the rods silently
slipped back into the cylinder. It got dark in the pool.
"A thousand twenty-five!" With a sharp push Krivoshein came up to the
wall, jumped out of the water, grabbed the edge, and climbed over. "A
thousand thirty...."
He had the presence of mind to hop around to get the excess water off
his body; he even rolled around on the floor. He wiped his face and eyes dry
with his pants. "Just don't let me get blind before I get there." He dressed
haphazardly and ran out of the room.
The radiation counter howled harshly as he went by. An automatic
barrier blocked his path. He jumped over it and ran across the freshly dug
lawn to his dorm.
"A thousand seventy; a thousand seventy-one," his brain continued to
count. It was twilight and he avoided meeting acquaintances; but someone
called after him near zone B: "Hey, Val, where's the fire? He thought it was
Nechinorov, a graduate student. "A thousand eighty, a thousand
eighty-one...." His skin ached and itched and then it was pierced by a
million needles. That was his nervous system, honed in previous experiments,
telling him that the protons and gamma-quanta from the decayed nuclei were
shooting the molecules of protein in the cells of the epithelium, in the
nerve endings of the skin, breaking through the walls of the blood vessels,
and wounding the red and white corpuscles. "A thousand hundred . . .
thousand hundred five...." Now the prickling had moved to his muscles,
stomach, and under his skull. His lungs were congested as though he had
taken a deep draw on the crudest homegrown tobacco in the world. That was
the blood carrying the exploded atoms and fractured proteins all over his
body.
"A thousand two hundred five... two hundred eight... idiot, what have
you done? Two hundred twelve...." He no longer had the idea, the impetus.
There was only fear. He wanted to live. He was getting nauseating cramps in
his stomach, and his mouth was filled with copper-tasting saliva. Bumping
into the massive front door as he ran in, Krivoshein realized that he was
dizzy. He was seeing black. "Two hundred forty-one... will I make it?" He
had to get up to the fourth floor. He slapped himself as he ran, and his
head got clearer.
Twilight rushed into the dark room with him. For the first few seconds
Krivoshein circled the room aimlessly and weakly. The fear, that biological
fear that cannot be controlled, that makes a wounded animal head for his
lair, had almost killed him: he had forgotten what to do. He felt terribly
sorry for himself. His body was filled with a ringing weakness and his
consciousness was slipping away. "Well, so go ahead and perish, you fool,"
he thought listlessly and felt a wave of extreme anger. And that's what
saved him.
His clothes, spotted with green like lichen on trees, fell on the
floor. The room got even lighter; his feet glowed, and his hair and vein
pattern were visible on his hands. Krivoshein ran into the shower and turned
it on. The cold water poured over him, sobering him up, over his head and
body, forming an irridescent pool of emerald green on the floor, and
refreshed him long enough to gather his thoughts and will power.
Now, like a strategist, he commanded the battle for survival that was
raging in his body. Blood, blood, blood, was rushing through his entire
body! The feverish pounding of his heart resounded in his temples. Myriad
capillaries washed damaged molecules and particles from every cell in his
muscles and glands and sucked them out from the lymph nodes. The white
corpuscles surrounded them, breaking them down to elemental particles, and
carried them off into the spleen, the lungs, the liver, kidneys, intestines,
tossed them into the sweat glands. "Cover the bone vessels!" he instructed
the nerves, remembering in time that radioactivity could settle in bone
marrow, which produced blood cells.
Several minutes passed. Now he was exhaling radioactive air with
faintly glowing vapors, spitting out glowing saliva that had collected the
decayed radioactive cells of the brain and muscles, washing off greenish
drops of sweat from his body, and urinating a beautiful emerald green
stream. After an hour his excretions no longer glowed, but his body still
ached.
And so he spent three hours in the shower. He swallowed water washed
himself off, and threw out all the harmful radiation from his body. He came
back to his room after midnight, unsteady on his feet from weakness and
physical emaciation. He pushed his glowing clothes into a corner and fell
onto his bed. Sleep!
The next day he was very thirsty. He dropped by the radiometrics lab,
used the Geiger counter all over his body. The apparatus crackled as usual,
noting random cosmic particles.
"My God, when did you lose all that weight?" Nechinorov asked as he ran
into him at a lecture....
"Yes, in terms of results, that was a major experiment," chuckled the
graduate student. "I conquered a fatal dose of radiation! But in terms of
performance... no, those experiments are no joke. It's better to do it his
way."
July 27. I have a great quantity of doubles and monsters. I set the
normal rabbits free on the grounds, and the monsters I take out one at a
time in a satchel and take them to the other side of the Dnieper.
That's it. The pleasure of the novelty has worn off. I'm disgusted by
this mockery of nature: it's only a rabbit, but it is alive. The ones who
squint at themselves suspiciously, two heads on the same body ... ugh! But,
what the hell! I've discovered a method of controlling biological synthesis.
I tested it and developed it. Science in the long run creates methods, not
constructions, not things, not objects, but methods-how to do it all. And no
researcher would ever pass up a chance to squeeze every possibility from his
method.
By the way, yesterday there was a new dish at the institute
cafeteria-roast rabbit with new potatoes, forty-five kopeks. Let's just call
it a coincidence. But even that's a possible application of the discovery:
breeding rabbits, as well as cows, for meat, improving the breeds. With an
industrial application this method would have to be better than standard
methods.
Tomorrow I'm going back to experiment on the synthesis of man. The
methodology is clear, there's no point in dragging it out. And the very
thought of it makes me drool. To go back to the synthesis of man ... it was
one thing when my double appeared on his own, almost by accident, the way it
happens in life; it'll be another thing to prepare a human being
consciously, like a rabbit. In essence, I won't be 'going back' to this,
I'll be beginning.
What kind of a creature is man, that I can't work with him as calmly as
I do with a rabbit?
Let's set up some perspective here. The megagalaxy, a cloud of stars,
floats in the black void. There is a lentil-shaped dust mote of stars in
it-our Milky Way. At the edge of it, our Sun, and around it, the planets. On
one of them-not the largest, and not the smallest-live people. Three and a
half billion, that's not so many. If you line them up in formation, all of
humanity can be seen from the Eiffel Tower. If you put them together, you
would get a cube with each side a kilometer long, that's all. A cubic
kilometer of living and thinking matter, a molecule in the universe.... And
so what?
What? That I'm a human being too. One of them. Not the lowest and not
the highest. Not the smartest, and not the dumbest. Not the first, and not
the last. And yet I feel that I am all of that. And I feel responsible for
everything.
In caring about your neighbor, the important thing is not to overdo it.
-K. Prutkov-enzhener, Thought 33
July 29. I'm sitting in the information chamber, surrounded by sensors,
the Monomakh's Crown on my head. I'm keeping a diary because there's
absolutely nothing else to do. I'll be sleeping here this week, too, on a
cot.
So I'm sitting around, thinking wise thoughts.
Thus, man. The highest form of living matter.
A carcass of hollow bones, flexible clumps of protein, which contain
what scientists and engineers are trying to analyze and re-create in logical
circuits and electronic models-life, a complex, constantly functioning and
constantly changing system. Millions of bits of information penetrate us
every second through the nerve endings of our eyes, ears, skin, nose, and
tongue and are turned into electrical impulses. If they are amplified, you
can hear the characteristic "Drrrr ... dr..." in their dynamics. The bionics
people played it for me once. The machine-gun volleys of impulses spread
along the nerves, increase or engulf one another, and stick in the molecular
memory cells. A huge processing unit, the brain, sorts them, compares them
with the chemical recording of the internal program that contains
everything-dreams and wishes, duty and goal, survival instinct and hunger,
love and hate, habits and knowledge, superstition and curiosity-and makes up
the commands for the executive organs. And people talk, run, kiss, write
poetry and denunciations, orbit in space, scratch their heads, shoot, push
buttons, bring up children, meditate....
What's the most important thing?
I'm getting a picture of method for the controlled synthesis of man.
You can introduce additional information and thereby alter the form and
content of man. This will come-we're moving toward it. But what information
should be introduced? What alterations should be made? Take me, for
instance. Let's say that a computer will be synthesizing me (especially
since it already has): what would I like changed?
You can't answer that off the bat. I'm used to myself. I'm much more
interested in people around me than in myself. We all know what we want from
other people: that they don't interfere with our lives. But what do we want
from ourselves?
Yesterday I had the following conversation:
"Tell me, Lena, what kind of a son would you like?"
"Why?"
"Well, I mean how would you like to see him as an adult?"
"Handsome, healthy, smart, and talented . . . honest and kind. About
your height, say... no, maybe a little taller! He could become a violinist,
and I would go to his concerts. He could look like ... oh, God, why did you
bring it up? Oh, I see. You've decided to propose! Right? How interesting!
Do it right, according to all the traditions, and I might say yes. Well!"
"Hmmmmmm ... no, I was just asking...."
"Oh, just asking! An abstract son, so to speak?"
"Precisely."
"Then you should be discussing it with an abstract woman, not with me!"
Women take things very concretely.
However, from what she said, one quality can be singled out-to be
smart. That's what I know about.
Logical thought in humans works at a much lower level than it does in
electronic systems. The speed of processing information is pathetic: fifteen
to twenty bits per second. That's why they always have to plug in "buffers."
Ask a person, unexpectedly, something very simple, like
"What time is it?" and you'll get an answer like "huh?" or "what?" This
doesn't mean he is deaf-simply that in the time that you take to repeat the
question he's thinking furiously for an answer. Sometimes that time isn't
enough, and then you get "hmmm, well... let's see ... the best way to put
it... is ... hmmmm...."
Time for a smoke break. I've been here too long. Freedom!
The morning is like a violin melody. The greenery is fresh. The sky is
blue. The air is pure.
There goes Pasha Fartkin on his way to the institute garage. He's a
lathe operator, a drunkard, and a sneak; he manfully bears the burden of his
last name on his sloping shoulders. I'll test it out on him!
"Tell me, Pasha, what do you want from life on a morning like this?"
"Valentin Vasilyevich!" He seemed to be waiting for the question,
looking at me with joy and amazement. "I'll be honest with you, like a
brother: ten rubles until payday! I swear to God I'll pay you back!"
In my confusion, I take out a ten, give it to him, and only then
realize that Pasha never pays his debts to anyone, it's never been recorded.
"Thanks, Valentin Vasilyevisch. I'll never forget you for this!"
Fartkin put away the money quickly. His puffy face expressed sadness that he
hadn't asked for more. "And what do you want from life on this beautiful
morning?"
"Well... actually... you see... well... to get the money back at
least."
"Don't you worry!" Pasha said and went on.
Hmmmmmm... what happened? Does that mean that my logical thinking is
weak, too? Strange. My nervous system processes a veritable Niagara Falls of
information, and with its help I make complex movements impossible for any
machine (writing, for instance) and yet I can't think fast enough to.... In
a word I should prepare information on how to be smart and think fast for
introduction into the computer-womb. If God didn't give it to me, the least
I can do is make sure my double has it. Let him be smarter than me.
August 3. Yes, but in order to introduce information into the computer,
you have to have it. And it doesn't exist.
I'm dividing my time now between the information chamber and the
library. I've gone through a ton of books-and nothing.
I could increase the volume of the double's brain. That wouldn't be
hard. I can watch the brain appear. But there is no correlation between
brain weight and the mind: Anatole France's brain weighed a kilogram;
Turgenev's brain, two kilos; and one cretin's brain almost made three kilos:
2 kilos 850 grams.
I could increase the surface of the cortex or the number of ridges.
That's just as easy. But there is no correlation between the number of
ridges and intellect: a woodpecker has many more ridges than our close
relative the orangutan. So much for birdbrains!
I know what man's mind is related to: the quick action of our nerve
cells. This is perfectly clear, and for electronic machines the quickness is
the most important thing. If the computer doesn't solve the problem in the
short time it takes for the fuel to burn in the launching rocket-the rocket,
instead of going into orbit, will fall on the ground.
Most mistakes we make are analogous: we don't solve the problem in the
given time; we don't have time to figure things out. The problems in life
are no simpler than bringing a rocket into orbit. And time is always
critical. It's terrifying to think how many mistakes are made in the world
just because we can only process two dozen bits of information in a second
instead of two hundred bits!
And so what? There are zillions of articles, reports, and monographs on
the perfection of logic and the speeding up of work of computers (even
though they can already do close to ten million operations a second)-and
nothing about improving the logic and speed of human thought. The dobbler
goes around without boots.
In a word, how sad that this idea will have to be left for better
times....
Graduate student Krivoshein rubbed his neck thoughtfully. "Yes, he's
right...." He hadn't thought about that; it never occurred to him. Maybe
because on a fellowship you don't go around lending money very often. The
only thing that occupied him was improving his memory, and that came about
on its own. There was too much to remember at once to transform oneself. And
when the experiment was over, unnecessary information cluttered up his mind
and interfered with the new work. So he mastered the chemistry of directed
forgetting: he erased from his cortex those little details of new knowledge
that were easier to figure out again than to remember.
But that was something else. He hadn't thought about speed of the
brain's logic. He felt funny. He was so engrossed in biology that he had
forgotten he came there as a systems engineer to probe new possibilities in
man. Did that mean that he didn't direct the work, that the work had taken
him astray? He did what fell into his hands. "Humanity could perish if
everyone did only what he could handle," Androsiashvili had said. And that
was no joke.
But it's easy to approach this problem. In humans, information is
transported by ions, and you can't make them go any faster, the way
computers can. Oh, oh, I seem to be justifying myself! Man can solve complex
problems very easily: move, work, talk, but when it comes to logic he just
doesn't have the biological experience. Animals in evolution didn't have to
think, they had to take action-bite, howl, leap, crawl-and the faster the
better. Now if animals had had to solve systems of equations, carry on
diplomatic talks, do business, and make sense of the world in order to
survive-then what wonderful logic they would have developed! I have to think
about this, look around....
August 4. The blinking lights on the control panel of the TsVM-12 have
stopped. That means that all the information about me is recorded in the
computer-womb. Where are they now, my dreams, my character flaws, the
construction of my intestines, thoughts, and average looks-in the cubes of
magnetic memory? In the cells of the crystal unit? Or are they dissolved in
the golden liquid of the tank? I don't know, and it doesn't matter.
Tomorrow, a trial re-creation. Only a trial, and nothing more.
August 5. 2:05 P.M. "You may!" A new, spectral me began appearing in
the sunny liquid of the vat. The picture is the same as a rabbit appearing,
but at the same moment as the circulatory system appears so does a fuzzy
gray mass at the top of the vat; that becomes the brain. The brain that I
can't improve upon with new information. The eye sees but the tooth can't
bite.
But by four in the afternoon the new double has reached the opaque
stage; there are intimations of underwear....
If six months ago someone had told me that questions of life and death
and morality and criminal law would enter my methodology, I doubt that I
would have been able to appreciate the depth of the wit. And now I stood in
front of the tank and thought: "He's going to come to life now, climb out of
the liquid. Why? What will I do with him?"
"I existed before I appeared in the computer," my first double said to
me. "I was you."
And he was unhappy with his situation. But we'll learn all the joys of
communal living with this one: arguments over Lena, worries that we'll be
caught, the problems of the bed versus the cot.... And most important: this
is not what I had expected from the new experiment. The experiment is a
success. The computer is re-creating me. But I have to move beyond that.
And if I dissolve him with the command "No!"-isn't that death? But,
forgive me, whose death is it? Mine? No, I'm still alive. The double's in
the vat? But he doesn't exist yet.
Is this all subject to the rule of law-my experiments? And on the other
hand, is this abuse of my work? My double was right: there is really strange
work.
And it all stems, I guess, from faintheartedness. In our modern world
people in the name of ideals and political goals go forth and send others to
kill and die. There are ideas and goals that justify it. And I have a great
idea and a great goal: to create a method that improves man and human
society. I won't spare myself, if need be. Then why am I afraid to give the
command "No!" for the sake of my work? I have to be firmer, if I'm
undertaking this work.
Especially since this isn't death. Death is the disappearance of
information about a man, but the information is not lost in the
computer-womb; it merely changes form, from electrical impulses and
potentials to man. And I can always give them another double if they
want....
I pondered until the hoses leaving the tank began contracting
rhythmically, emptying out the excess liquid. Then I put on the Crown and
gave the command.
It's not a pleasant sight: there was a man-and he dissolved. I still
feel bad.... All right, pal, don't rush. I'll make you fine and dandy. Of
course, I can't give you more brains than what I've got myself, but at least
I'll give you looks that will make you reel. After all, you have lots of
flaws, as I do: slightly bowed legs, hips too wide and fat, rounded
shoulders, a stumpy torso, masses of excess hair on the legs, chest, and
back. And protruding ears, and a jaw that makes me look like a complete
dolt. And my forehead, and my nose . . . no, let's be self-critical. It just
won't do!
August 6. Experiment number 2-things get harder by the hour! Today I
decided to improve on the looks of a new double and got so messed up that I
don't even want to think about it.
I began knowing exactly what was "not it" in my looks. (Actually, it's
all "not it," if it can be changed.) But what was "it?" In my experiments
with the rabbits the criterion for "it" was whatever I felt like. But a man
is no rabbit; even though they say one head is good, and two are better, no
one ever thought that in a biological sense.
After my command of "You may!" the image of the new double appeared and
the semitransparent lilac muscles of the stomach had started disappearing
under a layer of yellow fat, I gave the signal "That's not it!" The
computer, obeying my imagination, dissolved the fat tissue where I saw it:
on the stomach and near the neck, leaving it on the back and sides.
I hadn't noticed that right away, because I was working on the face.
Mentally I gave the double a noble brow, but when I looked at the profile, I
was aghast: the skull had been flattened! And the shape of the brow
contradicted the rest of the face.
In a word, I was lost. The computer took that for a total "not it" and
dissolved the double.
I was at dead-end. "It was obviously the beauty of the human body.
There are classical examples of it. But... turning my double into a
pleasant-looking man with classic features in the course of two hours of
synthesis was something that was beyond the powers of not only me, but of
the most qualified member of the Artists' Union of the USSR! My only hope
was that the computer was remembering all the changes made on the double.
Then I gave the order "You may!" once more. Yes, the computer-womb
remembered everything: the double retained all my clumsy changes. That was
better, I could work as many sessions as was necessary.
In that session I got rid of the excess fat from the double's body. His
pot belly disappeared. You could even see his waist. And his neck took on
definite outline. That was enough for a start. "No!" Everything disappeared
and I ran over to the city library.
I'm leafing through Professor G. Gicescusy Atlas of Plastic Anatomy (I
also have four richly illustrated books on Renaissance art), learning about
the proportions of the human body, picking out the double's looks like a
suit off the rack. The canons of Leonardo da Vinci, of Durer, the
signal system of controlling internal secretions with the aid of sensations.
The funniest part was that he didn't need lab apparatus or control
circuits. All he had to do was lie in a darkened room, eyes closed and ears
plugged, and listen to himself in a half-dreaming state. Strange sensations
came from within: the spleen, changing the blood, itched, and intestines
tickled when they contracted; the salivary glands felt cold under his chin;
the adrenals reacted to nerve signals with a delicious shudder, and the part
of the blood enriched with adrenalin and glucose spread warmth through the
body like a sip of wine. The sick cells in the muscles made themselves known
with a gentle prickling.
Using engineering terminology, he was checking out his body with nerves
the way an assembler checks out a circuit with a tester.
By this time he had a clear understanding of the binary arithmetic of
sensation: painful-pleasant. And it occurred to him that the simplest way of
subjugating the cellular processes to his consciousness was to make them
hurt. It was quite possible that the incident with the icicle prompted this
discovery; the idea came to him right after it.
Of course, the cells that were deteriorating and dying from various
causes let themselves be known very palpably. The organism itself, without
any orders from "above" sent leucocytes, feverish tissue, enzymes, and
hormones to help. All he had to do was either speed up or slow down these
microscopic struggles for life.
He injected and cut muscles everywhere he could reach with a needle or
a scalpel. He injected fatal doses of typhus and cholera bacteria cultures.
He inhaled mercury vapor, drank mixtures of corrosive sublimate and wood
alcohol. (He didn't have the nerve to try faster-acting poisons, however.)
And the more he tried the better his organism handled all the dangers he was
aware of.
And then he caused cancer in himself. Cause cancer! Any doctor would
spit in his eye for an announcement like that. To cause cancer you have to
know what causes cancer. To be perfectly honest, he wouldn't maintain that
he knew the causes of cancer, but this was simply because he couldn't
translate into words all the feelings that accompanied the changes in the
skin on his right side. He began with questioning the patients who were
undertaking gamma therapy at the lab. What did they feel? This was not
kind-asking terrified, exhausted people, contorted by pain, about their
experiences and not promising anything in return-but that was how he
understood the image of a cancer patient.
The growth was getting bigger and harder. Smaller growths began
branching off from it-strange greenish purple ones, like cauliflower. Pain
chewed up his side and shoulder. At the university clinic, where he went for
a diagnosis, they suggested an immediate operation, without even letting him
leave the place. He got out of it by lying and saying that he wanted to
undergo radiation therapy first.
Graduate student Krivoshein, crumpling a cigarette, stepped out onto
the balcony. It was a warm night. A car, waving its headlights, raced down a
side road. Two little lights, a red one and a green one, traveled from
Cygnus to Lyra. Behind them followed the roar of a jet engine. Like a match
across a cover, a meteor struck the sky.
Back in his room, standing in front of the mirror, he concentrated his
will and feelings, and the growth melted away in fifteen minutes. Twenty
minutes later there was nothing but a purple spot the size of a saucer.
Another ten minutes later there was just his usual skin, in goose bumps-it
was chilly in the room.
But he couldn't express his knowledge about stopping cancer in either
prescriptions or medical advice. What he could describe in words wouldn't
heal anyone, except maybe other doubles like himself. So all his knowledge
applied only to them.
With time, probably, he would learn to overcome the barrier between the
doubles of the computer-womb and regular people. After all, biologically
they were not too different. And the knowledge was there. Even if he
couldn't express it verbally, they could record the fluctuations of his
biopotentials, graph his temperatures, develop numbers of analysis in
computers-medicine was a precise science now. And finally they would come
around to recording and transmitting precise sensations. Words were not
necessary. The important thing for a sick person was to get well, and not to
write a dissertation on his recovery. That wasn't the point.
The student's attention was riveted by a light exploding below. He
looked closely: leaning against a lamp post, the fellow in the cape from
yesterday, the detective, was lighting a cigarette. He tossed the match and
walked away slowly.
"So he found me, the damn creep! He's stuck on me like a burr!"
Krivoshein's mood was ruined. He went back inside and sat down to read the
diary.
Life is short. There is barely enough time to make an adequate
number of mistakes. Repeating them, that's an unforgivable
luxury.
-K. Prutkov-enzhener, Thought 22
Now the student was reading the notations with envious curiosity. Well,
what had he achieved, when all he wanted was to twirl knobs?
June I. Phew... finished! The information chamber is ready. I begin the
experiments with the rabbits tomorrow. If I follow tradition, I should begin
with frogs . . . but I would never pick the disgusting things up! No, let my
double play with toads. He's a brilliant student, quite industrious.
I wonder how he's doing.
June 2.1 equipped the rabbits with electrodes and sensors and put them
all in the chamber. Let them overload it with information.
June 7. The rabbits lived in the chamber for four days. They munched
carrots and cabbage leaves, wriggled their noses, fought, copulated, and
napped. I did my first tests today. I put on Monomakh's Crown, mentally
ordered "Proceed!"-and the computer-womb worked. Four rabbit doubles in an
hour and a half.
What a relief-the machine worked.
An interesting detail: the visual appearance of the rabbits (what
happens before that, I don't know) begins with the circulatory system; the
blue red vessels show up in the golden fluid just as they do in the yolk of
a fertilized chicken egg.
As they came to life, the rabbits floated up. I pulled them out by the
ears, bathed them in a tub, all warm and trembling, and then put them in
with the regular ones. The encounter between the natural and artificial
doubles had an even more banal character than my meeting with my double.
They stared at each other in disbelief, sniffed each other, and (since they
don't have a secondary signal system, to explain) fought. Then they got
tired, sniffed some more and went on with the normal rabbit routine.
The important thing is that the computer works on my command, without
any additions. You put on the crown, remember (preferably with a mental
image) which rabbit you want copied, give permission mentally-and in
twenty-five to thirty minutes it's flopping around in the tank. The reverse
operation-dissolving an appearing rabbit with the command "No!"-the
computer-womb also does without reproach.
For its success and hard work I feed it salts, acids, glycerine,
vitamins, and reagents. Just like giving fish to a trained seal.
June 20. When it works, it works. And when it doesn't you could just
beat your head on the wall. All this time I've been trying to stop the
synthesis of a rabbit at some stage. No matter what command I've tried:
"Stop!" "Halt!" "Enough!" "Cut it out!"-both mentally and verbally-nothing
helps. Either the synthesis goes on to the end, or there is dissolution.
It looks like the computer-womb works like a flip-flop circuit in a
computer, that is, either open or closed, and has no in-between positions.
But you would expect a complex machine to be more flexible than that silly
circuit.
I'll keep trying....
July 6. Life cannot be stopped. That must be it. Any interruption of
life is death. But death is only an instant, after which begins the process
of decay or in this case, dissolution. And I'm synthesizing living systems.
And the computer-womb itself is a living organism. That's why nothing can
freeze in it. Too bad, it would have been very convenient.... The first
offspring of an artificial male and regular female appeared today-eight
white bunnies. That must be an important fact. But I have plenty of rabbits
without that.
Damn it, but the machine must obey orders more complex than "You may!"
and "No!" I must control the synthesis process, otherwise all my ideas fly
out the window.
July 7. So that's how you work, computer-womb! And it's so simple.
Today I ordered the machine to re-create Albino Vaska one more time.
When it appeared as a translucent apparition in the middle of the vat, I
concentrated on its tail and imagine that it was no longer. No changes
followed. That wasn't it. And I thought sadly, "That's not it.. ."-and
everything began changing in the rabbit. The body's contour wavered in a
slow rhythm: the body, ears, and feet and tail either grew longer and fatter
or shorter and thinner; the internal organs pulsed in the same rhythm. Even
the color of the blood changed color from dark cherry to light red and back
again.
I jumped up from my chair. The rabbit was still being "shaken!" Its
shape kept changing, being distorted and caricatured; the trembling became
more frequent and wild. Finally the albino dissolved into a purplish gray
cloud and dissolved.
At first I was scared: the picture reminded me of the computer's old
delirium. Except for the rhythm. All the fluctuations of size and shade were
amazingly coordinated.
And then I understood. I figured it out myself, I might add, damn it!
The computer's original information on the rabbit was concrete and
definite. It combined all the informational details, searching for the
precise variation; but search or not, you can only re-create what's
recorded. You can't make a vacuum cleaner from motorcycle parts.
And then the computer receives the signal "That's not it"-neither
confirming nor negating-a signal of doubt. It disrupts the informational
stability of the synthesis of the rabbit; to put it bluntly, it throws the
computer off the track. And it begins searching-what is "it"-through the
simple method of trial and error (a little more, a little less so as not to
destroy the system.... But the computer doesn't know what "it" is, and it
doesn't get confirmation from me. Complete disruption of the system and
dissolution follow.
And then (this is what's good about a researcher's job: if you hit the
right vein you can do in a day, with the aid of one or two ideas, what would
ordinarily take years and years!) I put on Monomakh's Crown and told the
computer "You may!" Now I knew what I would do with the rabbit double. It
appeared. I concentrated on the tail (the connection chain: the bioimpulses
from my retinas with the image of the rabbit tail went into the brain, into
the crown, into the computer, and there-comparison and selection of
information-the computer fixed my attention) and I even frowned, to make it
more expressive: "That's not it." A powerful unbalancing impulse went into
the computer. The tail got shorter. A tiny bit.... "That's not it!"
The tail quivered, and got longer..., "That's it; that's it!"
The tail froze. "That's not it!" It got even longer. "That's it!" It
froze. "That's it! That's not it! It! Not it!"-and things got moving. The
hardest part was to catch the fluctuation in the right direction. Later I no
longer gave the computer the elemental commands "It-not it," but simple
silent approval. The tail got longer; a chain of small vertebrae grew in it,
they were covered with muscle tissue, pink skin, white fur... and in ten
minutes Vaska the double was whipping his sides with his tail like an
irritated tiger.
And I sat in a chair wearing Monomakh's Crown, and an unbelievable
swirl of "well, well, well, now we're cooking. Oh, boy! Phew!" went through
my mind, the way it does when you can't express it in words yet, but you
know that you've understood, and you're not going to lose it now! And my
face probably reflected that extreme state of bliss that is usually seen
only in drooling idiots.
That was it. No mysticism. The computer-womb was working on the same
"yes-no" system that regular computers do.
"That's right," nodded the graduate student. "But that's rather crude
control. Of course, for a machine. What am I quibbling about? That's a fine
job!"
Damn it, this is terrific! At my commands of "yes," "not it," and "no"
the computer forms cells, tissue, bone. Only living organisms can do that,
and much more slowly.
Well, baby, I'm going to squeeze everything I can out of you!
July 15. Now the machine and I are working well together. More
accurately, it's learned to receive, decipher, and execute commands from my
brain that are not broken down into "it" and "not it." The essential
feedback and content of the commands remained the same, except that it all
took place very quickly. I imagine what has to be changed in the developing
double and how. As if I were drawing or sculpting the rabbit.
The computer is now my electronic biochemical hand. It's marvelous and
luxurious to mold different kinds of rabbit freaks with my mind. With six
legs, with three tails, two heads, without ears, or with long floppy mutt
ears. Dr. Moreau with his scalpel and carbolic acid was an amateur! My only
tool was Monomakh's Crown. I didn't even have to twirl dials.
The most amusing part was that the monsters continue to live. They
scratch with four legs and stuff carrots into two mouths ...
"Easy work," muttered the graduate student with envy. "Just like in the
movies: sit back and watch. Nothing hurts, nothing to be afraid of. No
violent passions-only engineering work."
He sighed, remembering his suffering. He got used to the various
autovivisections rather quickly. When you know that the pain will pass and
the wound will heal, then pain becomes another irritant, like bright light
or loud noise-unpleasant but not terrible. When you know.... In his planned
experiments he knew it. He also began any new change on a small scale. He
checked to see how the organism put up with the changes; he always had
medicine on hand: ampules of neutralizers and antibiotics, and the phone to
call emergency. But there had been one unplanned experiment, in which he had
almost died. Actually, it wasn't even an experiment.
There was a department seminar in radiobiology. The third-year students
surrounded the uranium reactor and watched the dark cellular cylinder in its
depths respectfully. It gave off a green, calm light in the water,
illuminating the wires, the nickel-plated bars, levers, and wheels of the
control board above it.
"That beautiful light, the color of young grass, around the body of the
reactor," said Professor Valerno in his rich deep baritone, "is called the
Cherenkovsky glow. It is caused by the movement of superfast electrons in
the water, which are created, in turn, by the division of nuclei of
uranium-235."
Krivoshein assisted; that is, he sat around, bored, and waited for the
professor to ask him to run the demonstration. Actually, Valerno could have
easily done the experiment himself, or asked a student to do it, but his
scholarly rank rated a qualified assistant. "So just sit there," Krivoshein
thought gloomily. Then he got the idea that he hadn't tried out radiation
sickness on himself. He sat up and started planning how to go about it.
"Take a flask of water from the reactor and for starters give myself a
slight radiation burn. This was serious stuff!"
"The presence of intense Cherenkovsky glow in the water is evidence of
intense radiation in the body of the reactor," Valerno droned on, "which is
not surprising. It's a chain reaction. The growth in the brightness of the
light is evidence of the growth of the intensity of the radiation, and a
dimming-of the opposite. Here, please look." He turned the wheel on the
panel to the left and the right. The green light in the tank blinked.
"And if you turn it all the way to the right, there'll be an
explosion?" a red-haired, freckled boy in glasses demanded.
"No," replied the professor, barely suppressing a yawn (that question
came up every time). "There's a governor on it. And besides, the reactor can
be automatically blocked. As soon as the intensity of the chain reaction
exceeds certain limits, the automatic device throws additional graphite rods
into the reactor-those, see? They consume the neutrons and quench the
reaction. And now let's familiarize ourselves with the action of
radioactivity on a living organism. Valentin Vasilyevich, could you join
us?"
Krivoshein rolled a cart with a fish tank over to the reactor; the tank
contained a half-dead eel, with fins and sharp teeth.
"This is a freshwater eel, Anguilliformes," Valerno announced, without
even looking, "the most hardy of river fish. When Valentin Vasilyevich dumps
it into the pool, the eel, heeding its instincts, will immediately go to the
bottom... hmm... something that I wouldn't do in its place, since even the
luckiest ones come floating belly up from there in two minutes. Well, see
for yourselves. Mark the time, please. Valentin Vasilyevich, you're on."
Krivoshein tipped the fish tank over the pool and started the
stopwatch. The students leaned over the edge. A streak of black lightning
sped to the gray-tiled bottom of the pool, made a circle, another, crossed
the green light over the cylinder. Apparently blinded by that, the eel
bumped into the opposite wall and reeled back.
Suddenly the light in the pool got brighter-and in the green light
Krivoshein saw something that made his skin crawl: the eel got trapped in
the wires that held the graphite rods, the regulators of the reactor, and
was struggling among them! One rod fell out of its case and flew off like a
green stick into the water. The light got even brighter.
"Everyone back!" Quickly appraising the situation, the pale Valerno
barked a command. His baritone was flat. "Please leave at once!" He pulled
the emergency alarm. The contacts of the automatic blocking device clicked.
The light in the water blinked, as though they were doing arc welding in the
pool, and got even brighter. The students, covering their faces, raced from
the exits. There was a crush at the door.
"Please stay calm, comrades!" Valerno shouted in a real falsetto. "The
concentration of uranium-235 in the heat-generating elements is not enough
for an atomic explosion! There will only be a heat explosion, like in a
steam engine!" "Oh, God!" some exclaimed.
The doors cracked. A girl screamed. Someone cursed. The freckled
four-eyes, not losing his head, grabbed a very heavy Sl-8 synchronoscope
from the table, and threw it through the window, following it rapidly....
The room was empty in a few seconds.
In the first moment of panic Krivoshein followed the rest, but stopped
himself and went over to the reactor. Rapid, large bubbles rose from the
cylinder and the water churned. Instead of the quiet glow there was a green
bonfire in the water. The eel was quiet, but the graphite rods that it had
knocked out were crisscrossed and wedged against one another.
"When the water splashes up, there'll be a cloud of radioactive steam
all over," Krivoshein thought feverishly. "That's as bad as an atomic blast.
Can I do it? I'm scared. Well! What good are all my experiments, if I'm
scared? And what if I end up like the eel? The hell with it!"
(Even now Krivoshein couldn't believe it. How could he have done it?
Had he decided that he was invincible? Or was it the thinking of a
motorcyclist who has to pass between two oncoming trucks-the important thing
is don't think, just go forward! The intoxicating instant of danger, the
roar of the trucks, and with a beating heart you tear out into the asphalt
expanse! But this wasn't an instant-and it was quite possible he could end
up along with the dead eel on the pool bottom.)
The motorcyclist's daring hit him. Tearing off his buttons, he
undressed, put his leg over the edge, and-"Stop, Val! Think!"-went to the
counter, and put on rubber gloves and goggles ("Wish I had an Aqua-lung!").
He filled his lungs with air and plunged into the pool.
Even at a distance from the reactor the water was warm. "A thousand
one, a thousand two...." Krivoshein, instinctively turning his face away,
walked across the slippery tiles to the middle of the pool. His rubber
gloves were in contact with something, and he had to look: the eel, hanging
in a loop between the wires, was there. "A thousand ten, a thousand eleven,"
and carefully, so as not to disturb the rods, he pulled at the dead fish.
"Thousand sixteen...." His hands got hot, and he instinctively wanted to
pull away, but he controlled the impulse and slowly extracted the eel from
the jumble. The goggles weren't so hermetic, and streams of radioactive
water seeped into his eyes. He squinted. "Thousand twenty, a thousand
twenty-one"-he got it out! The green glow flickered, and the rods silently
slipped back into the cylinder. It got dark in the pool.
"A thousand twenty-five!" With a sharp push Krivoshein came up to the
wall, jumped out of the water, grabbed the edge, and climbed over. "A
thousand thirty...."
He had the presence of mind to hop around to get the excess water off
his body; he even rolled around on the floor. He wiped his face and eyes dry
with his pants. "Just don't let me get blind before I get there." He dressed
haphazardly and ran out of the room.
The radiation counter howled harshly as he went by. An automatic
barrier blocked his path. He jumped over it and ran across the freshly dug
lawn to his dorm.
"A thousand seventy; a thousand seventy-one," his brain continued to
count. It was twilight and he avoided meeting acquaintances; but someone
called after him near zone B: "Hey, Val, where's the fire? He thought it was
Nechinorov, a graduate student. "A thousand eighty, a thousand
eighty-one...." His skin ached and itched and then it was pierced by a
million needles. That was his nervous system, honed in previous experiments,
telling him that the protons and gamma-quanta from the decayed nuclei were
shooting the molecules of protein in the cells of the epithelium, in the
nerve endings of the skin, breaking through the walls of the blood vessels,
and wounding the red and white corpuscles. "A thousand hundred . . .
thousand hundred five...." Now the prickling had moved to his muscles,
stomach, and under his skull. His lungs were congested as though he had
taken a deep draw on the crudest homegrown tobacco in the world. That was
the blood carrying the exploded atoms and fractured proteins all over his
body.
"A thousand two hundred five... two hundred eight... idiot, what have
you done? Two hundred twelve...." He no longer had the idea, the impetus.
There was only fear. He wanted to live. He was getting nauseating cramps in
his stomach, and his mouth was filled with copper-tasting saliva. Bumping
into the massive front door as he ran in, Krivoshein realized that he was
dizzy. He was seeing black. "Two hundred forty-one... will I make it?" He
had to get up to the fourth floor. He slapped himself as he ran, and his
head got clearer.
Twilight rushed into the dark room with him. For the first few seconds
Krivoshein circled the room aimlessly and weakly. The fear, that biological
fear that cannot be controlled, that makes a wounded animal head for his
lair, had almost killed him: he had forgotten what to do. He felt terribly
sorry for himself. His body was filled with a ringing weakness and his
consciousness was slipping away. "Well, so go ahead and perish, you fool,"
he thought listlessly and felt a wave of extreme anger. And that's what
saved him.
His clothes, spotted with green like lichen on trees, fell on the
floor. The room got even lighter; his feet glowed, and his hair and vein
pattern were visible on his hands. Krivoshein ran into the shower and turned
it on. The cold water poured over him, sobering him up, over his head and
body, forming an irridescent pool of emerald green on the floor, and
refreshed him long enough to gather his thoughts and will power.
Now, like a strategist, he commanded the battle for survival that was
raging in his body. Blood, blood, blood, was rushing through his entire
body! The feverish pounding of his heart resounded in his temples. Myriad
capillaries washed damaged molecules and particles from every cell in his
muscles and glands and sucked them out from the lymph nodes. The white
corpuscles surrounded them, breaking them down to elemental particles, and
carried them off into the spleen, the lungs, the liver, kidneys, intestines,
tossed them into the sweat glands. "Cover the bone vessels!" he instructed
the nerves, remembering in time that radioactivity could settle in bone
marrow, which produced blood cells.
Several minutes passed. Now he was exhaling radioactive air with
faintly glowing vapors, spitting out glowing saliva that had collected the
decayed radioactive cells of the brain and muscles, washing off greenish
drops of sweat from his body, and urinating a beautiful emerald green
stream. After an hour his excretions no longer glowed, but his body still
ached.
And so he spent three hours in the shower. He swallowed water washed
himself off, and threw out all the harmful radiation from his body. He came
back to his room after midnight, unsteady on his feet from weakness and
physical emaciation. He pushed his glowing clothes into a corner and fell
onto his bed. Sleep!
The next day he was very thirsty. He dropped by the radiometrics lab,
used the Geiger counter all over his body. The apparatus crackled as usual,
noting random cosmic particles.
"My God, when did you lose all that weight?" Nechinorov asked as he ran
into him at a lecture....
"Yes, in terms of results, that was a major experiment," chuckled the
graduate student. "I conquered a fatal dose of radiation! But in terms of
performance... no, those experiments are no joke. It's better to do it his
way."
July 27. I have a great quantity of doubles and monsters. I set the
normal rabbits free on the grounds, and the monsters I take out one at a
time in a satchel and take them to the other side of the Dnieper.
That's it. The pleasure of the novelty has worn off. I'm disgusted by
this mockery of nature: it's only a rabbit, but it is alive. The ones who
squint at themselves suspiciously, two heads on the same body ... ugh! But,
what the hell! I've discovered a method of controlling biological synthesis.
I tested it and developed it. Science in the long run creates methods, not
constructions, not things, not objects, but methods-how to do it all. And no
researcher would ever pass up a chance to squeeze every possibility from his
method.
By the way, yesterday there was a new dish at the institute
cafeteria-roast rabbit with new potatoes, forty-five kopeks. Let's just call
it a coincidence. But even that's a possible application of the discovery:
breeding rabbits, as well as cows, for meat, improving the breeds. With an
industrial application this method would have to be better than standard
methods.
Tomorrow I'm going back to experiment on the synthesis of man. The
methodology is clear, there's no point in dragging it out. And the very
thought of it makes me drool. To go back to the synthesis of man ... it was
one thing when my double appeared on his own, almost by accident, the way it
happens in life; it'll be another thing to prepare a human being
consciously, like a rabbit. In essence, I won't be 'going back' to this,
I'll be beginning.
What kind of a creature is man, that I can't work with him as calmly as
I do with a rabbit?
Let's set up some perspective here. The megagalaxy, a cloud of stars,
floats in the black void. There is a lentil-shaped dust mote of stars in
it-our Milky Way. At the edge of it, our Sun, and around it, the planets. On
one of them-not the largest, and not the smallest-live people. Three and a
half billion, that's not so many. If you line them up in formation, all of
humanity can be seen from the Eiffel Tower. If you put them together, you
would get a cube with each side a kilometer long, that's all. A cubic
kilometer of living and thinking matter, a molecule in the universe.... And
so what?
What? That I'm a human being too. One of them. Not the lowest and not
the highest. Not the smartest, and not the dumbest. Not the first, and not
the last. And yet I feel that I am all of that. And I feel responsible for
everything.
In caring about your neighbor, the important thing is not to overdo it.
-K. Prutkov-enzhener, Thought 33
July 29. I'm sitting in the information chamber, surrounded by sensors,
the Monomakh's Crown on my head. I'm keeping a diary because there's
absolutely nothing else to do. I'll be sleeping here this week, too, on a
cot.
So I'm sitting around, thinking wise thoughts.
Thus, man. The highest form of living matter.
A carcass of hollow bones, flexible clumps of protein, which contain
what scientists and engineers are trying to analyze and re-create in logical
circuits and electronic models-life, a complex, constantly functioning and
constantly changing system. Millions of bits of information penetrate us
every second through the nerve endings of our eyes, ears, skin, nose, and
tongue and are turned into electrical impulses. If they are amplified, you
can hear the characteristic "Drrrr ... dr..." in their dynamics. The bionics
people played it for me once. The machine-gun volleys of impulses spread
along the nerves, increase or engulf one another, and stick in the molecular
memory cells. A huge processing unit, the brain, sorts them, compares them
with the chemical recording of the internal program that contains
everything-dreams and wishes, duty and goal, survival instinct and hunger,
love and hate, habits and knowledge, superstition and curiosity-and makes up
the commands for the executive organs. And people talk, run, kiss, write
poetry and denunciations, orbit in space, scratch their heads, shoot, push
buttons, bring up children, meditate....
What's the most important thing?
I'm getting a picture of method for the controlled synthesis of man.
You can introduce additional information and thereby alter the form and
content of man. This will come-we're moving toward it. But what information
should be introduced? What alterations should be made? Take me, for
instance. Let's say that a computer will be synthesizing me (especially
since it already has): what would I like changed?
You can't answer that off the bat. I'm used to myself. I'm much more
interested in people around me than in myself. We all know what we want from
other people: that they don't interfere with our lives. But what do we want
from ourselves?
Yesterday I had the following conversation:
"Tell me, Lena, what kind of a son would you like?"
"Why?"
"Well, I mean how would you like to see him as an adult?"
"Handsome, healthy, smart, and talented . . . honest and kind. About
your height, say... no, maybe a little taller! He could become a violinist,
and I would go to his concerts. He could look like ... oh, God, why did you
bring it up? Oh, I see. You've decided to propose! Right? How interesting!
Do it right, according to all the traditions, and I might say yes. Well!"
"Hmmmmmm ... no, I was just asking...."
"Oh, just asking! An abstract son, so to speak?"
"Precisely."
"Then you should be discussing it with an abstract woman, not with me!"
Women take things very concretely.
However, from what she said, one quality can be singled out-to be
smart. That's what I know about.
Logical thought in humans works at a much lower level than it does in
electronic systems. The speed of processing information is pathetic: fifteen
to twenty bits per second. That's why they always have to plug in "buffers."
Ask a person, unexpectedly, something very simple, like
"What time is it?" and you'll get an answer like "huh?" or "what?" This
doesn't mean he is deaf-simply that in the time that you take to repeat the
question he's thinking furiously for an answer. Sometimes that time isn't
enough, and then you get "hmmm, well... let's see ... the best way to put
it... is ... hmmmm...."
Time for a smoke break. I've been here too long. Freedom!
The morning is like a violin melody. The greenery is fresh. The sky is
blue. The air is pure.
There goes Pasha Fartkin on his way to the institute garage. He's a
lathe operator, a drunkard, and a sneak; he manfully bears the burden of his
last name on his sloping shoulders. I'll test it out on him!
"Tell me, Pasha, what do you want from life on a morning like this?"
"Valentin Vasilyevich!" He seemed to be waiting for the question,
looking at me with joy and amazement. "I'll be honest with you, like a
brother: ten rubles until payday! I swear to God I'll pay you back!"
In my confusion, I take out a ten, give it to him, and only then
realize that Pasha never pays his debts to anyone, it's never been recorded.
"Thanks, Valentin Vasilyevisch. I'll never forget you for this!"
Fartkin put away the money quickly. His puffy face expressed sadness that he
hadn't asked for more. "And what do you want from life on this beautiful
morning?"
"Well... actually... you see... well... to get the money back at
least."
"Don't you worry!" Pasha said and went on.
Hmmmmmm... what happened? Does that mean that my logical thinking is
weak, too? Strange. My nervous system processes a veritable Niagara Falls of
information, and with its help I make complex movements impossible for any
machine (writing, for instance) and yet I can't think fast enough to.... In
a word I should prepare information on how to be smart and think fast for
introduction into the computer-womb. If God didn't give it to me, the least
I can do is make sure my double has it. Let him be smarter than me.
August 3. Yes, but in order to introduce information into the computer,
you have to have it. And it doesn't exist.
I'm dividing my time now between the information chamber and the
library. I've gone through a ton of books-and nothing.
I could increase the volume of the double's brain. That wouldn't be
hard. I can watch the brain appear. But there is no correlation between
brain weight and the mind: Anatole France's brain weighed a kilogram;
Turgenev's brain, two kilos; and one cretin's brain almost made three kilos:
2 kilos 850 grams.
I could increase the surface of the cortex or the number of ridges.
That's just as easy. But there is no correlation between the number of
ridges and intellect: a woodpecker has many more ridges than our close
relative the orangutan. So much for birdbrains!
I know what man's mind is related to: the quick action of our nerve
cells. This is perfectly clear, and for electronic machines the quickness is
the most important thing. If the computer doesn't solve the problem in the
short time it takes for the fuel to burn in the launching rocket-the rocket,
instead of going into orbit, will fall on the ground.
Most mistakes we make are analogous: we don't solve the problem in the
given time; we don't have time to figure things out. The problems in life
are no simpler than bringing a rocket into orbit. And time is always
critical. It's terrifying to think how many mistakes are made in the world
just because we can only process two dozen bits of information in a second
instead of two hundred bits!
And so what? There are zillions of articles, reports, and monographs on
the perfection of logic and the speeding up of work of computers (even
though they can already do close to ten million operations a second)-and
nothing about improving the logic and speed of human thought. The dobbler
goes around without boots.
In a word, how sad that this idea will have to be left for better
times....
Graduate student Krivoshein rubbed his neck thoughtfully. "Yes, he's
right...." He hadn't thought about that; it never occurred to him. Maybe
because on a fellowship you don't go around lending money very often. The
only thing that occupied him was improving his memory, and that came about
on its own. There was too much to remember at once to transform oneself. And
when the experiment was over, unnecessary information cluttered up his mind
and interfered with the new work. So he mastered the chemistry of directed
forgetting: he erased from his cortex those little details of new knowledge
that were easier to figure out again than to remember.
But that was something else. He hadn't thought about speed of the
brain's logic. He felt funny. He was so engrossed in biology that he had
forgotten he came there as a systems engineer to probe new possibilities in
man. Did that mean that he didn't direct the work, that the work had taken
him astray? He did what fell into his hands. "Humanity could perish if
everyone did only what he could handle," Androsiashvili had said. And that
was no joke.
But it's easy to approach this problem. In humans, information is
transported by ions, and you can't make them go any faster, the way
computers can. Oh, oh, I seem to be justifying myself! Man can solve complex
problems very easily: move, work, talk, but when it comes to logic he just
doesn't have the biological experience. Animals in evolution didn't have to
think, they had to take action-bite, howl, leap, crawl-and the faster the
better. Now if animals had had to solve systems of equations, carry on
diplomatic talks, do business, and make sense of the world in order to
survive-then what wonderful logic they would have developed! I have to think
about this, look around....
August 4. The blinking lights on the control panel of the TsVM-12 have
stopped. That means that all the information about me is recorded in the
computer-womb. Where are they now, my dreams, my character flaws, the
construction of my intestines, thoughts, and average looks-in the cubes of
magnetic memory? In the cells of the crystal unit? Or are they dissolved in
the golden liquid of the tank? I don't know, and it doesn't matter.
Tomorrow, a trial re-creation. Only a trial, and nothing more.
August 5. 2:05 P.M. "You may!" A new, spectral me began appearing in
the sunny liquid of the vat. The picture is the same as a rabbit appearing,
but at the same moment as the circulatory system appears so does a fuzzy
gray mass at the top of the vat; that becomes the brain. The brain that I
can't improve upon with new information. The eye sees but the tooth can't
bite.
But by four in the afternoon the new double has reached the opaque
stage; there are intimations of underwear....
If six months ago someone had told me that questions of life and death
and morality and criminal law would enter my methodology, I doubt that I
would have been able to appreciate the depth of the wit. And now I stood in
front of the tank and thought: "He's going to come to life now, climb out of
the liquid. Why? What will I do with him?"
"I existed before I appeared in the computer," my first double said to
me. "I was you."
And he was unhappy with his situation. But we'll learn all the joys of
communal living with this one: arguments over Lena, worries that we'll be
caught, the problems of the bed versus the cot.... And most important: this
is not what I had expected from the new experiment. The experiment is a
success. The computer is re-creating me. But I have to move beyond that.
And if I dissolve him with the command "No!"-isn't that death? But,
forgive me, whose death is it? Mine? No, I'm still alive. The double's in
the vat? But he doesn't exist yet.
Is this all subject to the rule of law-my experiments? And on the other
hand, is this abuse of my work? My double was right: there is really strange
work.
And it all stems, I guess, from faintheartedness. In our modern world
people in the name of ideals and political goals go forth and send others to
kill and die. There are ideas and goals that justify it. And I have a great
idea and a great goal: to create a method that improves man and human
society. I won't spare myself, if need be. Then why am I afraid to give the
command "No!" for the sake of my work? I have to be firmer, if I'm
undertaking this work.
Especially since this isn't death. Death is the disappearance of
information about a man, but the information is not lost in the
computer-womb; it merely changes form, from electrical impulses and
potentials to man. And I can always give them another double if they
want....
I pondered until the hoses leaving the tank began contracting
rhythmically, emptying out the excess liquid. Then I put on the Crown and
gave the command.
It's not a pleasant sight: there was a man-and he dissolved. I still
feel bad.... All right, pal, don't rush. I'll make you fine and dandy. Of
course, I can't give you more brains than what I've got myself, but at least
I'll give you looks that will make you reel. After all, you have lots of
flaws, as I do: slightly bowed legs, hips too wide and fat, rounded
shoulders, a stumpy torso, masses of excess hair on the legs, chest, and
back. And protruding ears, and a jaw that makes me look like a complete
dolt. And my forehead, and my nose . . . no, let's be self-critical. It just
won't do!
August 6. Experiment number 2-things get harder by the hour! Today I
decided to improve on the looks of a new double and got so messed up that I
don't even want to think about it.
I began knowing exactly what was "not it" in my looks. (Actually, it's
all "not it," if it can be changed.) But what was "it?" In my experiments
with the rabbits the criterion for "it" was whatever I felt like. But a man
is no rabbit; even though they say one head is good, and two are better, no
one ever thought that in a biological sense.
After my command of "You may!" the image of the new double appeared and
the semitransparent lilac muscles of the stomach had started disappearing
under a layer of yellow fat, I gave the signal "That's not it!" The
computer, obeying my imagination, dissolved the fat tissue where I saw it:
on the stomach and near the neck, leaving it on the back and sides.
I hadn't noticed that right away, because I was working on the face.
Mentally I gave the double a noble brow, but when I looked at the profile, I
was aghast: the skull had been flattened! And the shape of the brow
contradicted the rest of the face.
In a word, I was lost. The computer took that for a total "not it" and
dissolved the double.
I was at dead-end. "It was obviously the beauty of the human body.
There are classical examples of it. But... turning my double into a
pleasant-looking man with classic features in the course of two hours of
synthesis was something that was beyond the powers of not only me, but of
the most qualified member of the Artists' Union of the USSR! My only hope
was that the computer was remembering all the changes made on the double.
Then I gave the order "You may!" once more. Yes, the computer-womb
remembered everything: the double retained all my clumsy changes. That was
better, I could work as many sessions as was necessary.
In that session I got rid of the excess fat from the double's body. His
pot belly disappeared. You could even see his waist. And his neck took on
definite outline. That was enough for a start. "No!" Everything disappeared
and I ran over to the city library.
I'm leafing through Professor G. Gicescusy Atlas of Plastic Anatomy (I
also have four richly illustrated books on Renaissance art), learning about
the proportions of the human body, picking out the double's looks like a
suit off the rack. The canons of Leonardo da Vinci, of Durer, the