Translated from the Russian by Antonina W. Bouis
Introduction by Theodore Sturgeon
MACMILLAN PUBLISHING CO., INC. NEW YORK
COLLIER MACMILLAN PUBLISHERS LONDON
Copyright (c) 1979 by Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.
Translation of Otkrytie sebia.
OCR: Tuocs
Contents
INTRODUCTION
PART ONE: Footsteps from Behind
PART TWO: Self-Discovery
PART THREE: Awakening
Are you one self or many selves?
Robert Anton Wilson, in his Cosmic Trigger, describes his reactions to
various events as those of The Author, The Skeptic, The Sage, The
Neurologician, The Shaman, and other personae - all Wilson himself, of
course, and by no means the "multiple personality" image first made popular
by Dr. Morton Prince in the early years of this century; facets, rather, of
any whole human being, and not a host of separate entities.
Who, inside yourself, calmly watches you flying into a rage or drifting
in ecstasy or capturing an audience? Do you, as so many do, refer to "a
little person who watches" or "the part of myself that always observes,
never participates"?
(And why do so many of us describe the watcher as a little person?
Sometimes I suspect that mine is big-maybe bigger than I.)
These are the questions-the kinds of questions, of provocations -evoked
by Vladimir Savchenko and his astonishing novel, for at the heart of his
story is the problem of self and personal identity. Krivoshein, the
brilliant young experimenter in cybernetics who is the hero of the novel,
discovers a way to duplicate human beings and, working secretly, brings into
the world many versions of himself.
So you will encounter many Krivosheins here; but in no way are they
identical. This is not cloning, nor is it the kind of duplication described
by Eric Temple Bell in The Four-sided Triangle, nor the rather unbelievable
one I used in When You Care, When You Love. This is something quite
different and, as far as I know, unique. It's a computer-controlled
biological matrix, an intelligent fluid, if you like, capable of organizing,
balancing, integrating organic substances. Add such new concepts as a
holographic model as applied to brain function-wherein each cell of a
section seems to contain all functions of that section, just as each segment
of a holograph contains all parts of its picture-and you come close to an
understanding of Krivoshein's scientific accomplishment. Fascinating, and
described with such realism that one is tempted to apply for a grant, build
it, check it out.
Apply for a grant. . . Savchenko has woven into his narrative a
devastating and delicious analysis of the internal politics of a great
research center doing erudite science which politicians cannot hope to
comprehend, but to whom the scientific community must turn for funding. Then
follows the same dreadful situation so brilliantly described-decried? - by
Leo Szilard, which takes the best scientists out of the laboratory and puts
them in administration, where they must work shoulder to shoulder with
administrators who would be hopeless in a lab. Millions of words have been
written about the differences in customs, cultures, political systems,
philosophies; how amazing it is to see how very similar are the symptoms of
this plague wherever it strikes! Ignorance is ignorance, pomposity is
pomposity, and self-aggrandizement is the same in any language, common as
frustration. Whoever reads this and does not recognize the administrator
Harry Hilobok, for example, or the outwardly grumpy, inwardly sensitive
Androsiashvili, has never been exposed to the internal workings of large
research centers anywhere.
It has been observed that a writer says, basically, one thing, and says
it over and over, no matter how wide his spectrum or in how many different
ways he may say it. I am, regretfully, unfamiliar with Savchenko's other
works, but his thrust is clear here. Let me give you some of it by quoting:
"Man is the most complex and most highly organized system known. I want
to figure it out completely-how things are constructed in the human
organism, what influences it....
"You see ... it wasn't always like this. Once man was up against heat
and frost; exertion from a hunt or from running away from danger; hunger, or
rough, unsanitary food like raw meat; heavy mechanical overloads in work;
fights which tested the durability of the skull with an oak staff-in a word,
once upon a time the physical environment made the same demands on man
that-well, that today's military customers make on rockets.... That
environment over the millennia formed homo sapiens-the reasoning vertebrate
mammal. But in the last two hundred years, if you start from the invention
of the steam engine, everything changed. We created an artificial
environment out of electric motors, explosives, pharmaceuticals, conveyors,
communal service systems, computers, immunization, transport, increased
radiation in the atmosphere, paved roads, carbon monoxide, narrow
specialization in work-you know: contemporary life. As an engineer, I with
others am furthering this artificial environment that determines ninety
percent of the life of homo sapiens and soon will determine it one hundred
percent. Nature will exist only for Sunday outings. But as a human being, I
am somewhat uneasy....
"This artificial environment frees man of many of the qualities and
functions he developed in ancient evolution. Strength, agility, and
endurance are now cultivated only in sports, while logical thought, the
pride of the Greeks, has been taken over by machines. But man is not
developing any new qualities-the environment is changing too fast and
biological organisms can't keep up. Technological progress is accompanied by
soothing, but poorly substantiated babble that man will always be on top.
Nevertheless-if you talk not about man, but about people, the many and the
varied-then that is not true even now, and it will only get worse. Many,
many do not have the inherent capabilities to be masters of contemporary
life: to know a lot, know how to do a lot, learn new things quickly, to work
creatively, and structure one's behavior optimally....
"I would like to study the question of the untapped resources of man's
organism. For example, the obsolescent functions, like our common ancestor's
ability to leap from tree to tree or to sleep in the branches. Now that is
no longer necessary, but the cells are still there. Or take the "goosebump"
phenomenon-it happens on skin that has almost no hair now. It is created by
a vast nervous network. Perhaps these old reflexes can be restructured,
re-programmed to meet new needs?"
What an astonishing, what an exciting concept! The pursuit of the
"optimum man" is certainly not original with Savchenko; it has thrived for
years in science fiction as well in what is termed the mainstream, and it
powers the current flurry of self-realization, self-actualization movements;
it exists in Shakespeare and Steinbeck, whether by exemplifications of
nobility or by stark representations of flawed and faulted people. What is
arresting in Savchenko is his idea of retrieving and reprogramming that in
mankind which is present but truly obsolete, rather than that which could be
functional but is merely inactive.
And he resists the reductio ad absurdum; witness this whimsical
interchange:
"So! You dream of modernizing and rationalizing man? Instead of homo
sapiens we'll have homo modernus rationalis, hm? Don't you think, my dear
systemology technologist, that a rational path might lead to a man who is no
more than a suitcase with a single appendage to push buttons? You could
probably manage without that appended arm, if you use brain waves."
"If you want to be truly rational, you can manage without the
suitcase," Krivoshein noted.
Krivoshein-and Savchenko-are far too enamored of humanity to go for
that.
Science fiction has been termed a medicine for future shock. Future
shock is that sense of disorientation brought about by the rush of
invention, the impact of technical events evolving infinitely faster than
the bodies and minds of the common man. One wonders if Savchenko has read
Alvin Toffler (who invented the term) while realizing that he need not have;
the phenomenon and its effects are quite evident to anyone who cares to
look. Science fiction writers and their proliferating and increasingly
addicted readers are, and have been all along, the people who care to look.
They look with practiced eyes, not only at what is and what will be, but at
that entrancing infinity of what might be: alternate worlds, alternate
cultures and mores, extrapolations of the known, be it space flight, organ
transplants, social security, ecological awareness, or any other current,
idea, or force in a perpetually moving universe: if this goes on, where will
it go? For stasis, and stasis alone, is unnatural and unachievable and has
failed every time mankind has been tempted to try it. The very nature of
science fiction is to be aware of this and to recognize that the only
security lies in dynamic equilibrium, like that of the gull in flight, the
planet in orbit, the balanced churning of the galaxies themselves ... and of
course, the demonstrable fact that the cells of your body and the molecules
which compose them are not at all what they were when you picked up this
book. The future can shock only those who are wedded to stasis.
(Parenthetically, science fiction writers are not immune to future
shock, though it may take the form of an overpowering urge to kick
themselves. Example: up until very recently there was-as far as I know-not
one single science fiction story which included a device like the wristwatch
my wife wears, which delivers the time, day, date, adjusts itself for months
of varying lengths, is a stopwatch and elapsed-time recorder, and has a
solar panel which gulps down any available light and recharges its battery.
The development of these microelectronic devices, now quite common and
inexpensive, was simply unthought of by science fiction professionals, and
is by no means the only example of technological quantum leaps which season
our arrogance. It is beneficial to all concerned when our dignitaries are
observed, from time to time, to slip and sit down in mud puddles.)
Mud puddles, or their narrative equivalent, are far from absent in this
book, for Savchenko has a delicious sense of humor and a lovely appreciation
of the outrageous. Let us posit, for example, that you are a brilliant but
not particularly attractive man with little concern for the more gracious
amenities, who happens to be loved by a beautiful and forgiving lady. In the
course of your work you produce a living, breathing version of yourself who
is a physical Adonis and who, further, has a clear recollection of every
word, every intimacy, that has ever passed between you and the woman.
And they meet, and she likes him.
How do you feel?
Why?
And then there's Onisimov-poor, devoted, duty-bound Onisimov-a
detective in whose veins runs the essence of the Keystone Kop, up against a
case with a perfectly rational solution which he is utterly unequipped to
solve-not at all because he is unable to understand it, but because he
simply cannot believe it.
Then there's the offensive Hilobok, unfortunately (as mentioned above)
not quite a parody, but the object of not a few instances of
Krivoshein/Savchenko's irrepressible puckishness, and a gatekeeper who is
certainly Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern rolled into one, and a fine
sprinkling of smiles amid the cascades of heavy ideation.
Over and above everything else, however-the mind-bending ideation, the
unexpected narrative turns, the wide spectrum of characterization, the
humor, the suspense-shines the author's love for and faith in the species.
As he says through his protagonist, he talks not about man, but about
people. And at the end, the very last words of the novel bespeak this faith
and this optimism.
There's no point in looking at those last words now, by the way. They
will carry no freight until you put it there by reading the novel.
-THEODORE STURGEON
Los Angeles.
"When checking the wiring, disconnect power.'
-A poster on industrial safety
The brief short circuit in the line that fed the New Systems Laboratory
occurred at three A.M. The circuit breaker at the substation of the
Dneprovsk Institute of Systemology did what all automatic safety devices do
in these cases: it disconnected the line from the transformer, lit up a
blinking red light on the board in the office, and turned on the alarm.
Zhora Prakhov, the electrician on duty, turned off the alarm signal
immediately so as not to be distracted from his study of The Beginning
Motorcyclist (Zhora was about to take the driver's test) and he glanced at
the blinking light with hostility and expectancy. Usually localized short
circuits in the lab were taken care of at the site.
Realizing after an hour that there was no getting around it, the
electrician shut his book, picked up his instrument case and his gloves, set
the pointer on the door at "New Syst. Lab." and left the office. The dark
trees of the institute grounds were waist-deep in fog. The transformers of
the substation stood with their oil-cooling pipes akimbo, looking like
shapeless old women. The old institute building hovered in the distance like
a washed-out snowbank against the graying sky. It had heavy balconies and
ornate towers. To the left, the parallelepiped of the new research
department tried vainly to block out the early June dawn.
Zhora glanced at his watch (it was 4:10), lit a cigarette, and
scattering the fog with his bag, headed right, into the far corner of the
park where the New Systems Lab was located, housed in a small lodge. At
4:30, in answer to electrician Prakhov's call, two cars appeared on the
scene: an ambulance and a squad car of the Dneprovsk City Police.
The tall, thin man in the light suit strode through the park,
disregarding the paved paths. His shoes left dark prints on the dew-gray
grass. A light breeze ruffled his thinning gray hair. A blindingly pink and
yellow sunrise filled the space between the old and new buildings; birds
chattered in the trees. But Arkady Arkadievich Azarov had no time for all
that.
"Something happened in the New Systems Lab, comrade director," a dry
voice had informed him over the phone a few minutes earlier. "There were
victims. Please come."
Being wakened too early gave Azarov neurasthenia; his body seemed
stuffed with cotton, his head empty, and life terrible. "Something happened
in the lab.... Please come.... It must have been a cop." This ran through
his mind instead of thoughts." 'There were victims....' What a ridiculous
word! Who were the victims? And of what? Killed, wounded, trousers burned?
What? Looks serious. Again! There was that student who got under the gamma
rays to speed up the experiment, and then there was ... the second incident
in six months. But Krivoshein is not a student; he's experienced. What could
have happened? They were working at night, and got tired, and... I'll have
to put a stop to night work! Absolutely!"
When he had accepted the offer to direct the Dneprovsk Systemology
Institute, Academician Azarov hoped to create a scientific system that would
be a continuation of his own brain. In his dreams, he saw the structure of
the institute developing along the vertical branching principle: he would
give general ideas for research and system construction to the section and
laboratory directors, who would work out the details and plan specific
projects for the workers, who would try to.... Then he would draw
conclusions from the data obtained and produce new fundamental ideas and
principles. But reality intruded harshly on his dreams. A lot of it was due
to acts of God: the slow-wittedness of some scientists and excessive
independence of others; the changes in the construction plans, which was why
the storerooms and storage yards of the institute were piled high with
unopened crates of equipment; the backbiting among purchasing sections; the
arguments that erupted from time to time among the institute's members; and
the accidents and incidents.... Arkady Arkadievich thought bitterly that he
was no closer now to realizing his dream than he had been five years ago.
The one-story lodge with the tile roof shone white in its idyllic
setting among the flowering lindens, whose delicate scent filled the air.
There were two cars bruising the lawn by the concrete porch: a white
ambulance and a blue Volga with a red stripe. As soon as Arkady Arkadievich
was in sight of the lab, he slowed down and started thinking. In eighteen
months of its existence he had been in the lab only once, in the very
beginning, and only briefly for a general tour, and he really couldn't
picture what there was behind the door.
The New Systems Lab . . . actually, there was no reason yet for Azarov
to take it seriously, particularly since it had come about not as one of his
pet projects, but as the result of an unhappy series of coincidences: eighty
thousand in the budget was "burning" to be used. There was only a month and
a half until the end of the year, and it was impossible to spend the money
according to the letter of the law (Introducing New Laboratories). The
builders, who had originally promised the new building by May 1, then the
October holidays, and then Constitution Day, were now talking about May 1 of
the following year. The crates and boxes of equipment were crowding the
parking grounds. Besides, unused monies were always dangerous because they
could lead the planning organizations to cut the budget the next year. And
so, Arkady Arkadievich announced a "contest" at the institute seminar: who
could come up with the best plan for using the eighty thousand before the
year was out? Krivoshein suggested a "Lab of Random Research." Since there
were no other suggestions, he had to agree to this one.
Arkady Arkadievich did so against his better judgment and even changed
the name to the more proper "Lab for New Systems." Labs were created to suit
people, and for now, Krivoshein was a loner-a fair schematic engineering
technician but nothing more. Let him get his fill of independence and
overextend himself, and when it came down to research, he'd beg for a
director himself. Then they could look for a good candidate of sciences, or
better yet, a Ph.D., and create the lab's profile to suit him.
Of course, Arkady Arkadievich did not discount the possibility of
Krivoshein's shaping up. The idea he had proposed at the senior council last
summer on ... on what had it been? Oh, yes, the self-organization of
electronic systems through the introduction of arbitrary information ...
this idea could be the basis for a master's thesis or a doctoral
dissertation. But with his penchant for disagreeing with people and his hot
temper, Azarov doubted it. Back at that council meeting, he shouldn't have
dealt with Professor Voltampernov's remarks that way; poor Ippolit
Illarionovich had to take pills after the meeting. No, no, Krivoshein's
insubordination was completely inexcusable! There was still no data to show
that he had proved his ideas; of course, a year wasn't a very long time, but
an engineer was no Ph.D. who could get away with getting involved in
research that takes decades.
And that latest scandal-Arkady Arkadievich winced-it was so fresh and
unpleasant. Krivoshein had argued against the institute's scientific
secretary's defense of his dissertation at the nearby construction design
bureau six weeks ago. Without telling anyone ahead of time, he had gone to
an outside organization and shown up one of his own colleagues! That was a
slur on the institute, on Academician Azarov himself.... Of course, he
himself shouldn't have been so easy on the dissertation in the first place
and shouldn't have reacted so positively to it; but he rationalized it by
saying that it would have been nice to have a homegrown institute Ph.D., and
that dissertations worse than this one had been passed. But Krivoshein!
Arkady Arkadievich let him know in spades that he was not inclined to keep
him in the institute. But now was hardly the time to be bringing all this
up.
There was a lot of activity in the lodge. The thought of going in there
now to look at it, deal with it, and explain things gave Arkady Arkadievich
a sensation not unlike a toothache. "Krivoshein again!" he thought fiercely.
"If he's at fault in this incident as well...!" Arkady Arkadievich went up
the steps, quickly walked down the narrow corridor crammed with crates and
apparatus, entered the room, and looked around.
The large room with six windows only remotely resembled a laboratory
for electronic and mathematical research. The parallelepiped generators made
of metal and plastic and the oscilloscopes with ventilation slots in their
sides stood on the floor, tables, and shelves, mingling with flasks, jars,
test tubes, and bowls. There were dozens of test tubes huddled on the
shelves and cluttering up the boxes of selenium rectifiers. The middle of
the room was taken up by a shapeless apparatus overgrown with wiring,
tubing, and extension cords; a control panel was barely visible through the
spaghetti. What was that octopus?
"I can feel his pulse," a woman said to the left of the academician.
Arkady Arkadievich turned. The space between the door and the wall,
free of flasks and equipment, was in semidarkness. Two orderlies were
carefully transferring a man wearing a gray lab coat from the floor to a
stretcher; his head was tilted back and strands of his hair were damp from
the puddle of some oily liquid on the floor. A petite doctor bustled near
the man.
"He's in shock," she pronounced. "Give him an adrenalin injection and
pump him."
The academician took a step closer. It was a young man, handsome, very
pale, with chestnut hair. "No, that's not Krivoshein, but who is it? I've
seen him somewhere...." An orderly got the shot ready. Azarov took a deep
breath and almost choked. The room was filled with the acrid odors of acid
solutions, burned insulation, and some other sharp smell-the vague, heavy
smells of disasters. The floor was covered with a thick liquid through which
the doctor and orderlies kept walking.
A thin man in a blue suit entered the room in an official manner.
Everything about him but his suit was bland and inexpressive: gray hair with
a side part, small gray eyes unexpectedly close together on a bony face with
high cheekbones, and taut, poorly shaved cheeks. He nodded drily to Azarov,
who returned an equally formal bow. There was no need for introductions,
since it had been Investigator Onisimov who had handled the case of lab
assistant Gorshkov's radiation death last February.
"Let's begin by identifying the body," the detective said, and Arkady
Arkadievich's heart skipped a beat. "Would you please come here."
Azarov followed him to the corner by the door to something covered with
a gray oilcloth. It was full of angular bumps, and yellow, bony toes stuck
out from the ends.
"The work ID found in the clothing we saw in the laboratory gives the
name of Valentin Vasilyevich Krivoshein," the detective said in an official
voice, bending back the oilcloth. "Do you corroborate the identification?"
Life had not often placed Arkady Arkadievich face to face with death.
He felt faint and unbuttoned his collar. The raised oilcloth revealed
sticky, short hair, bulging eyes, sunken cheeks, a mouth drooping at the
corners, then a prominent Adam's apple on a sinewy neck, thin
collarbones.... "He's lost so much weight!" he thought. . "Yes."
"Thank you," the detective said and lowered the cloth. So, it was
Krivoshein. They had seen each other the day before yesterday near the old
building, walked past each other, and bowed formally as usual. Then, he had
been a heavyset, living man, albeit an unpleasant one. And now... it was as
though life had sucked out all his vital juices, dried out his flesh,
leaving only the bones covered with gray skin. "Probably Krivoshein
understood what his role was to be in establishing this lab," Azarov
suddenly thought for no reason. The detective left.
"Oh, dear. Tsk, tsk, tsk,..." Arkady Arkadievich heard. He turned. The
scientific secretary Harry Haritonovich Hilobok was in the doorway. His
sleek face was still puffy from sleep. Harry Haritonovich was considered
attractive: a good physique in a light suit, a well-shaped head, intriguing
gray at the temples, dark eyes, and a good straight nose, set off by a dark
mustache. His appearance was somewhat marred by the harsh lines at the
corners of his mouth, the kind caused by constant forced smiling, and a
weakish chin. The assistant professor's dark eyes shone with timid
curiosity.
"Good morning, Arkady Arkadievich! What's happened here at Krivoshein's
now? I was just walking by and wondered why these vehicles were outside the
lab? So I came in. By the way, have you noticed that his digital printing
machines are just lounging in the halls here, Arkady Arkadievich? In the
middle of all sorts of garbage. And Valentin Vasilyevich worked so hard at
getting them, writing endless streams of memos. I mean, he could give them
to somebody else if he has no use for them himself." Harry Haritonovich
sighed deeply and looked over to the right. "Must be another student! Tsk,
tsk, dear, dear! Another student, there's a plague on them here...." He
noticed that the detective had returned. "Oh, good day, Apollon Matveevich!
Seeing us once more, eh?"
"Matvei Apollonovich," Onisimov corrected.
He opened a yellow box marked "Material Evidence" with a black stencil,
took out a test tube, and crouched over the puddle.
"I mean Matvei Apollonovich-please forgive me. I do remember you very
well from last time. I just scrambled name and patronymic a little. Matvei
Apollonovich, of course. How could I? We talked about you for a long time
after, how organized and efficient you were, and everything...." Hilobok
went on and on.
"Comrade Director, what was the nature of the work done in this
laboratory?" the detective interrupted, catching some liquid in the test
tube.
"Research on self-organizing electronic systems with an integral input
of information," the academician replied. "Anyway, that was how Valentin
Vasilyevich had formulated his thesis at the beginning of the year."
"I see." Onisimov got up, sniffed the liquid, wiped the tube clean with
a piece of cotton, and put it away. "Was the use of poisonous chemicals
ruled out?"
"I don't know. I would think that nothing was forbidden. Research is
done by the researcher as he best sees fit."
"So what went so wrong here in Krivoshein's lab that even you, Arkady
Arkadievich, were disturbed so early in the morning?" Hilobok asked,
lowering his voice. "Precisely-what?" Onisimov was directing his questions
to the academician. "The short circuit had nothing to do with it. It was
merely an accident, and not the cause. We've determined that much. There is
no sign of electrocution, no traumas on the body... and the man is gone. And
what is this contraption? What's it for?"
He picked up an object from the floor that looked like an ancient
warrior's helmet; but this helmet was chrome-plated and covered with buttons
and bundles of thin multicolored wires. The wires extended beyond the tubes
and flasks of the clumsy apparatus into the far corner of the room, to a
computer.
"This?" The academician shrugged. "Hmm."
"Monomakh's Crown, I mean, that's what we call them around here,"
Hilobok offered. "More precisely, it's an SEP-1-System of Electronic Pickups
for Computing the Biopotentials of the Human Brain. The reason I know,
Arkady Arkadievich, is that Krivoshein kept bugging me to make him one like
it."
"All right, I understand. With your permission, I'll take it for a
while, since it was found on the victim."
Onisimov, winding the wires, disappeared into the far reaches of the
room.
"Who was the victim, Arkady Arkadievich?" Hilobok whispered.
"Krivoshein."
"Oh, dear, how can that be? His eccentricities finally led to this ...
and more troubles for you, Arkady Arkadievich."
The detective was back. He wrapped the "crown" in paper and put it into
his box. The only sound in the quiet lab was the panting of the orderlies,
who were working on the unconscious assistant.
"And why was Krivoshein naked?" Onisimov suddenly asked.
"He was naked?" The academician was stunned. "You mean it wasn't the
doctors who undressed him? I don't know! I can't even imagine."
"Hm ... I see. And what do you think they used this tank for? Perhaps
for bathing?"
The detective pointed to the rectangular plastic tank that lay on its
side on top of the shards of the flasks its fall had crushed; drips and
icicles of yellow gray stuff hung from its transparent sides. Pieces of a
large mirror lay next to the tub.
"For bathing?" The academician was getting tired of these questions.
"I'm afraid that you have a peculiar idea of what a scientific laboratory is
used for, comrade... eh, investigator!"
"And there was a mirror right next to it. A good one, full-length/'
Onisimov droned on. "What use could it have served?"
"I don't know! I can't delve into every technical detail of all hundred
sixty projects that are under way in my institute!"
"You see, Apollon Marve... I mean, Matvei Apollonovich-forgive me,"
Hilobok interrupted, "Arkady Arkadievich is in charge of the entire
institute, is a member of five interdisciplinary commissions, edits a
scholarly journal, and of course, cannot deal with every detail of every
project specifically. That's what the project directors are for. And
besides, the late-oh dear, what a pity-the late Valentin Vasilyevich
Krivoshein was a man of too much independence. He did not like to confer
with anyone, to share his thoughts or results. And he often ignored, it must
be said, many of the basic safety rules. Of course, I know that you should
not speak ill of the dead-de mortius bene aut nihil, as they say-but what
was, was. Remember, Arkady Arkadievich, how a year ago January-no, maybe it
was February-no, I think it was January, or it could even have been back in
December-anyway, remember, how he flooded the first floor, causing great
damage and stopping work on many projects, when he was working with Ivanov?"
"You are a viper, Hilobok!" A voice came from the stretcher. The
student lab assistant, clutching the edges, was trying to get up. "Oh, you
... too bad we didn't take care of you then!"
Everyone turned to him. A chill went through Azarov: the student's
voice, the hoarseness, the slurred endings, were absolutely identical with
Krivoshein's. The assistant fell back weakly, his head touching the floor.
The orderlies wiped their brows in satisfaction: he was alive! The doctor
gave an order and they picked up the stretcher and took him out. The
academician took a close look at the fellow. And his heart skipped a beat
again. The lab assistant resembled Krivoshein-he didn't know exactly how-and
not even the live Krivoshein, but the one down there under the oilcloth.
"See, he's even managed to set the lab assistant against me,"
Hilobok nodded in his direction with unbelievable meekness.
"Why was he so angry with you?" Onisimov turned to him. "Were you two
in conflict?"
"Heaven forbid!" The assistant professor shrugged innocently and
sincerely. "I've only talked to him once, when I interviewed him to work in
Krivoshein's lab at Valentin Vasilyevich's personal request, since he-"
"Victor Vitalyevich Kravets," Onisimov read from his notes.
"Yes ... well, he's a relative of Krivoshein's. He's a student from
Kharkov University, and they sent us fifteen people in the winter for a
year's practical work. And Krivoshein made him an assistant in his lab
through nepotism. But why should we object? We're all human-"
"Enough, Harry Haritonovich," Azarov cut him off.
"I see," Onisimov nodded. "Tell me, aside from Kravets, did the
deceased have any relatives?"
"What can I tell you, Matvei Apollonovich?" Hilobok sighed deeply.
"Officially, no, but unofficially, he was visited by a woman here. I don't
know if she's his fiancee, or what. Her name is Elena Ivanovna Kolomiets,
and she works in a neighboring construction design bureau, a nice woman-"
"I see. You're on top of things around here, I see." Onisimov laughed
as he headed for the door.
A minute later he was back with a camera and directed the exposure
meter at the corner.
"The laboratory will have to be sealed during the investigation. The
body will be sent to the coroner for an autopsy. The people in charge of the
funeral will have to contact him." The detective went to the corner and
picked up the cloth that was covering Krivoshein's body. "Please move away
from the window. There'll be more light. Actually, I do not need to keep you
any longer, comrades, please forgive the trouble-"
He paled and pulled up the cloth in a single move. Under it lay a
skeleton! A yellow puddle was spreading around it, retaining a blurred
caricature of a body's outline.
"Oh!" Hilobok exclaimed and backed out onto the porch.
Arkady Arkadievich felt his knees buckle and held on to the wall. The
detective was methodically folding the oilcloth and staring at the skeleton,
which was smiling a mocking thirty-toothed grin. A lock of dark red hair
silently fell from the skull into the puddle,
"I see," Onisimov muttered. Then he turned to Azarov and looked
disapprovingly into the wide eyes behind the rectangular lenses. "Fine
goings-on here, comrade director."
"What can you say in your defense?"
"Well, you see-"
"Enough! Shoot him. Next!"
-A conversation
Actually, Investigator Onisimov didn't see anything yet; the expression
was a linguistic hangover from better days. He had tried to break himself of
the habit, but couldn't. Besides that, Matvei Apollonovich was preoccupied
and very upset by such a turn of events. A half hour before the call from
the Institute of Systemology, Zubato, the medical examiner on duty with him
that night, had been called to a highway accident outside of town. Onisimov
had to go to the institute alone. And he ended up with a skeleton instead of
a warm corpse. Nothing like this had ever been encountered in criminology.
Nobody would believe that the body turned into a skeleton on its own-he'd be
a laughing stock. The ambulance had left already, and so they couldn't back
him up. And he hadn't had time to photograph the body.
In a word, what had happened seemed like nothing more than a series of
serious oversights in the investigation. That's why he made sure he had
written statements from Prakhov, the technician, and academician Azarov
before he left the institute grounds.
The electrical technician Georgii Danilovich Prakhov, twenty years old,
Russian, unmarried, draftable, and not a Party member, wrote:
"When I entered the laboratory, the overhead light was on; only the
power network was disrupted. The stench in the room was so bad that I almost
threw up-it was like a hospital. The first thing that I noticed was a naked
man lying in an overturned tank, his head and arms dangling, with a metallic
contraption on his head. Something was leaking out of the tub; it looked
like a thick ichor. The other one, a new student (I've seen him around), was
lying nearby, face up, his arms outspread. I rushed over to the one in the
tub and pulled him out. He was still warm and very slippery, so that I
couldn't get a good grip on him. I tried to awaken him, but he seemed dead.
I recognized him. It was Valentin Vasilyevich Krivoshein. I had run into him
often at the institute. We always said hello. The student was breathing, but
remained unconscious. Since there is no one at the institute except for the
outside guards, I called an ambulance and the police on the laboratory
phone.
"The temporary short circuit had occurred in the power cable that goes
to the laboratory electroshield along the wall in an aluminum pipe. The tub
broke a bottle that apparently contained acid which ate through in that spot
and the cable shorted out like a second-class conductor."
Zhora wisely left out the fact that he did not investigate the scene of
the accident until an hour after the alarm had gone off.
Arkady Arkadievich Azarov, the director of the institute, a doctor of
physics and mathematics, and an active member of the Academy of Sciences,
fifty-eight, Russian, married, not subject to the draft, and a member of the
CPSU, corroborated the fact that he recognized the features of the body
shown to him at the scene of the accident by Investigator Onisimov, M.A., as
belonging to Valentin Vasilyevich Krivoshein, acting director of the New
Systems Laboratory, and besides that, with the scientific objectivity
characteristic of an academician noted that he "had been amazed by the
abnormal emaciation of the deceased, the abnormal physical state which did
not correspond to his usual appearance."
At 10:30 in the morning Onisimov returned to headquarters and his
office on the first floor, where his windows, hatched with the vertical
bars, opened onto Marx Prospect, which was busy at almost any hour of day or
night. Matvei Apollonovich gave a brief account of the events to Major
Rabinovich, sent a test tube with the liquid to the medical examiner, and
called up the emergency room to find out the condition of the only
eyewitness. They replied that the lab assistant felt fine and asked to be
released.
"Fine, go ahead, I'll send a car for him," Onisimov said.
No sooner had he arranged for the car than Zubato, the medical
examiner, rushed into his office. He was a red-blooded, loud man with hairy
arms.
"Matvei, what did you bring me?" He sank into a chair with emphatic
disgust. "Some practical joke! How am I supposed to determine the cause of
death on a skeleton?"
"I brought you what was left," Onisimov explained, shrugging. "I'm glad
you showed up. I want to know, off the top of your head, how does a body
turn into a skeleton?"
"Off the top of my head, as a result of the deterioration of tissues,
which under normal circumstances takes weeks and even months. That's all
that the body can do about it."
"All right... then how can you turn a body into a skeleton?"
"Skin the body, cut off the soft tissues, and boil it in water until
the bones are completely exposed. It is recommended to change the water. Can
you tell me clearly what happened?"
Onisimov told him.
"That's something! I'm really sorry I missed it!" He slapped his knee.
"What happened on the highway?"
"A drunk cyclist hit a cow. Both survived. So you say your body
melted?" The expert squinted skeptically and brought his face closer to
Onisimov. "Matvei, that doesn't ring true. It just doesn't happen, I can
tell you for sure. A man is no icicle, even if he is dead. They didn't trick
you?"
"How?"
"You know, switch the body for a skeleton while you were out... and
discard the evidence."
"What are you blabbering about? You mean while an academician stood
guard for them? Come on, here's his deposition." Onisimov fretted as he
looked for Azarov's statement.
"Ahh, now they'll show you! The people there...." Zubato wriggled his
hairy fingers. "Remember, when that student was exposed to radiation, how
the head of the lab tried to blame it all on science, how he said that it
was a little-studied phenomenon, that the gamma rays destroyed the crystal
cells of the dosimeter. And when we checked, it turned out the students were
signed up to work on isotopes without reading about them! Nobody wants to
take responsibility, even academicians, if it's a fishy situation. Try to
think: did you leave them alone with the body?"
"I did," the detective's voice fell. "Twice."
"And that's when your body melted!" Zubato broke out in the hearty
laugh of a man who knows that disaster has not struck him.
The detective thought about it and then shook his head.
"Now, you're not going to throw me off the track here. I saw for
myself... but what are we going to do with this skeleton now?"
"The hell with it. Wait, here's an idea. Send it over to the city
sculpture studio. Let them reconstruct the face according to Professor
Gerasimov's method; they are familiar with it. If it's him, you'll have the
crime sensation of the century on your hands. If not-"Zubato gave Matvei
Apollonovich a sympathetic look. "I wouldn't want to be in your shoes when
you talk with Aleksei Ignatievich. All right, I'll send it over there
myself. So be it." He rose. "And while I'm at it, I'll do the death
certificate. I'll settle for a skeleton, if you can't come up with a body."
Zubato left.
"What if they did trick me?" Onisimov recalled the academician's
hostility, Assistant Professor Hilobok's flattery, and he shuddered. "I lost
the body, the most important thing. Good show there!"
He dialed the chemistry lab.
"Viktoriya Stepanovna, this is Onisimov. Did you analyze the liquid?"
"Yes, Matvei Apollonovich. The report is being typed, but I'll read you
the conclusion. "Water-85 percent, protein-13 percent, amino acids-0.5
percent, fatty acids-0.4 percent and so on. In other words, it's human blood
plasma. According to the hemoglutins, it's classified as type A, with
lowered water content."
"Yes, I see. Could it be toxic?"
"I doubt it."
"Even, if say, you bathed in it?"
"Well, you could swallow some and drown. Does that help?"
"Thank you!" Matvei Apollonovich slammed down the phone. "Wise ass! But
I guess that means accidental death is ruled out. Could the assistant have
drowned him in the tub? No, it doesn't look like a drowning."
Onisimov liked the entire business less and less with every passing
minute. He spread out the documents he got at the institute's personnel
department and at the laboratory and lost himself in their study. He was
distracted by the phone.
"Matvei, you owe me!" boomed Zubato's triumphant voice. "I've managed
to establish a few things from the skeleton. There are deep vertical cracks
in the middle of the sixth and seventh ribs on the right side. Such cracks
are the result of a blow by a heavy blunt instrument or against a blunt
object, whatever. The surface has minute cracks, fresh-"
"I see!"
"These cracks in themselves can not be the cause of death. But a
violent blow could have seriously injured the internal organs, which,
unfortunately, are missing. Well, that's about it. I hope it helps."
"And how! Did you send out the skull for identification?"
"Just now. And I called ahead. They promised to do it as fast as
possible."
"So, this is no accident. Liquid and short circuits don't break a man's
ribs. Oh, oh. It looks as if there were two accident victims there: an
injured victim and a dead victim. And it looks as though the two had a
serious fight."
Onisimov felt better. The case was taking on familiar aspects. He began
composing an urgent telegram to Kharkov.
The June day was getting hotter. The sun melted the asphalt. The heat
seeped into Onisimov's office, and he turned on the fan on his desk.
The answer from the Kharkov police came at exactly 1:00 P.M. Lab
assistant Kravets was brought in at 1:30. As he entered the office, he
looked around, and smirked as he noticed the barred windows.
"Is that to make people confess faster?"
"No-no," Matvei Apollonovich drawled gently. "This building used to be
a wholesale warehouse and so the entire first floor has reinforced windows.
We'll be removing them soon; not too many robbers try breaking into a police
Introduction by Theodore Sturgeon
MACMILLAN PUBLISHING CO., INC. NEW YORK
COLLIER MACMILLAN PUBLISHERS LONDON
Copyright (c) 1979 by Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.
Translation of Otkrytie sebia.
OCR: Tuocs
Contents
INTRODUCTION
PART ONE: Footsteps from Behind
PART TWO: Self-Discovery
PART THREE: Awakening
Are you one self or many selves?
Robert Anton Wilson, in his Cosmic Trigger, describes his reactions to
various events as those of The Author, The Skeptic, The Sage, The
Neurologician, The Shaman, and other personae - all Wilson himself, of
course, and by no means the "multiple personality" image first made popular
by Dr. Morton Prince in the early years of this century; facets, rather, of
any whole human being, and not a host of separate entities.
Who, inside yourself, calmly watches you flying into a rage or drifting
in ecstasy or capturing an audience? Do you, as so many do, refer to "a
little person who watches" or "the part of myself that always observes,
never participates"?
(And why do so many of us describe the watcher as a little person?
Sometimes I suspect that mine is big-maybe bigger than I.)
These are the questions-the kinds of questions, of provocations -evoked
by Vladimir Savchenko and his astonishing novel, for at the heart of his
story is the problem of self and personal identity. Krivoshein, the
brilliant young experimenter in cybernetics who is the hero of the novel,
discovers a way to duplicate human beings and, working secretly, brings into
the world many versions of himself.
So you will encounter many Krivosheins here; but in no way are they
identical. This is not cloning, nor is it the kind of duplication described
by Eric Temple Bell in The Four-sided Triangle, nor the rather unbelievable
one I used in When You Care, When You Love. This is something quite
different and, as far as I know, unique. It's a computer-controlled
biological matrix, an intelligent fluid, if you like, capable of organizing,
balancing, integrating organic substances. Add such new concepts as a
holographic model as applied to brain function-wherein each cell of a
section seems to contain all functions of that section, just as each segment
of a holograph contains all parts of its picture-and you come close to an
understanding of Krivoshein's scientific accomplishment. Fascinating, and
described with such realism that one is tempted to apply for a grant, build
it, check it out.
Apply for a grant. . . Savchenko has woven into his narrative a
devastating and delicious analysis of the internal politics of a great
research center doing erudite science which politicians cannot hope to
comprehend, but to whom the scientific community must turn for funding. Then
follows the same dreadful situation so brilliantly described-decried? - by
Leo Szilard, which takes the best scientists out of the laboratory and puts
them in administration, where they must work shoulder to shoulder with
administrators who would be hopeless in a lab. Millions of words have been
written about the differences in customs, cultures, political systems,
philosophies; how amazing it is to see how very similar are the symptoms of
this plague wherever it strikes! Ignorance is ignorance, pomposity is
pomposity, and self-aggrandizement is the same in any language, common as
frustration. Whoever reads this and does not recognize the administrator
Harry Hilobok, for example, or the outwardly grumpy, inwardly sensitive
Androsiashvili, has never been exposed to the internal workings of large
research centers anywhere.
It has been observed that a writer says, basically, one thing, and says
it over and over, no matter how wide his spectrum or in how many different
ways he may say it. I am, regretfully, unfamiliar with Savchenko's other
works, but his thrust is clear here. Let me give you some of it by quoting:
"Man is the most complex and most highly organized system known. I want
to figure it out completely-how things are constructed in the human
organism, what influences it....
"You see ... it wasn't always like this. Once man was up against heat
and frost; exertion from a hunt or from running away from danger; hunger, or
rough, unsanitary food like raw meat; heavy mechanical overloads in work;
fights which tested the durability of the skull with an oak staff-in a word,
once upon a time the physical environment made the same demands on man
that-well, that today's military customers make on rockets.... That
environment over the millennia formed homo sapiens-the reasoning vertebrate
mammal. But in the last two hundred years, if you start from the invention
of the steam engine, everything changed. We created an artificial
environment out of electric motors, explosives, pharmaceuticals, conveyors,
communal service systems, computers, immunization, transport, increased
radiation in the atmosphere, paved roads, carbon monoxide, narrow
specialization in work-you know: contemporary life. As an engineer, I with
others am furthering this artificial environment that determines ninety
percent of the life of homo sapiens and soon will determine it one hundred
percent. Nature will exist only for Sunday outings. But as a human being, I
am somewhat uneasy....
"This artificial environment frees man of many of the qualities and
functions he developed in ancient evolution. Strength, agility, and
endurance are now cultivated only in sports, while logical thought, the
pride of the Greeks, has been taken over by machines. But man is not
developing any new qualities-the environment is changing too fast and
biological organisms can't keep up. Technological progress is accompanied by
soothing, but poorly substantiated babble that man will always be on top.
Nevertheless-if you talk not about man, but about people, the many and the
varied-then that is not true even now, and it will only get worse. Many,
many do not have the inherent capabilities to be masters of contemporary
life: to know a lot, know how to do a lot, learn new things quickly, to work
creatively, and structure one's behavior optimally....
"I would like to study the question of the untapped resources of man's
organism. For example, the obsolescent functions, like our common ancestor's
ability to leap from tree to tree or to sleep in the branches. Now that is
no longer necessary, but the cells are still there. Or take the "goosebump"
phenomenon-it happens on skin that has almost no hair now. It is created by
a vast nervous network. Perhaps these old reflexes can be restructured,
re-programmed to meet new needs?"
What an astonishing, what an exciting concept! The pursuit of the
"optimum man" is certainly not original with Savchenko; it has thrived for
years in science fiction as well in what is termed the mainstream, and it
powers the current flurry of self-realization, self-actualization movements;
it exists in Shakespeare and Steinbeck, whether by exemplifications of
nobility or by stark representations of flawed and faulted people. What is
arresting in Savchenko is his idea of retrieving and reprogramming that in
mankind which is present but truly obsolete, rather than that which could be
functional but is merely inactive.
And he resists the reductio ad absurdum; witness this whimsical
interchange:
"So! You dream of modernizing and rationalizing man? Instead of homo
sapiens we'll have homo modernus rationalis, hm? Don't you think, my dear
systemology technologist, that a rational path might lead to a man who is no
more than a suitcase with a single appendage to push buttons? You could
probably manage without that appended arm, if you use brain waves."
"If you want to be truly rational, you can manage without the
suitcase," Krivoshein noted.
Krivoshein-and Savchenko-are far too enamored of humanity to go for
that.
Science fiction has been termed a medicine for future shock. Future
shock is that sense of disorientation brought about by the rush of
invention, the impact of technical events evolving infinitely faster than
the bodies and minds of the common man. One wonders if Savchenko has read
Alvin Toffler (who invented the term) while realizing that he need not have;
the phenomenon and its effects are quite evident to anyone who cares to
look. Science fiction writers and their proliferating and increasingly
addicted readers are, and have been all along, the people who care to look.
They look with practiced eyes, not only at what is and what will be, but at
that entrancing infinity of what might be: alternate worlds, alternate
cultures and mores, extrapolations of the known, be it space flight, organ
transplants, social security, ecological awareness, or any other current,
idea, or force in a perpetually moving universe: if this goes on, where will
it go? For stasis, and stasis alone, is unnatural and unachievable and has
failed every time mankind has been tempted to try it. The very nature of
science fiction is to be aware of this and to recognize that the only
security lies in dynamic equilibrium, like that of the gull in flight, the
planet in orbit, the balanced churning of the galaxies themselves ... and of
course, the demonstrable fact that the cells of your body and the molecules
which compose them are not at all what they were when you picked up this
book. The future can shock only those who are wedded to stasis.
(Parenthetically, science fiction writers are not immune to future
shock, though it may take the form of an overpowering urge to kick
themselves. Example: up until very recently there was-as far as I know-not
one single science fiction story which included a device like the wristwatch
my wife wears, which delivers the time, day, date, adjusts itself for months
of varying lengths, is a stopwatch and elapsed-time recorder, and has a
solar panel which gulps down any available light and recharges its battery.
The development of these microelectronic devices, now quite common and
inexpensive, was simply unthought of by science fiction professionals, and
is by no means the only example of technological quantum leaps which season
our arrogance. It is beneficial to all concerned when our dignitaries are
observed, from time to time, to slip and sit down in mud puddles.)
Mud puddles, or their narrative equivalent, are far from absent in this
book, for Savchenko has a delicious sense of humor and a lovely appreciation
of the outrageous. Let us posit, for example, that you are a brilliant but
not particularly attractive man with little concern for the more gracious
amenities, who happens to be loved by a beautiful and forgiving lady. In the
course of your work you produce a living, breathing version of yourself who
is a physical Adonis and who, further, has a clear recollection of every
word, every intimacy, that has ever passed between you and the woman.
And they meet, and she likes him.
How do you feel?
Why?
And then there's Onisimov-poor, devoted, duty-bound Onisimov-a
detective in whose veins runs the essence of the Keystone Kop, up against a
case with a perfectly rational solution which he is utterly unequipped to
solve-not at all because he is unable to understand it, but because he
simply cannot believe it.
Then there's the offensive Hilobok, unfortunately (as mentioned above)
not quite a parody, but the object of not a few instances of
Krivoshein/Savchenko's irrepressible puckishness, and a gatekeeper who is
certainly Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern rolled into one, and a fine
sprinkling of smiles amid the cascades of heavy ideation.
Over and above everything else, however-the mind-bending ideation, the
unexpected narrative turns, the wide spectrum of characterization, the
humor, the suspense-shines the author's love for and faith in the species.
As he says through his protagonist, he talks not about man, but about
people. And at the end, the very last words of the novel bespeak this faith
and this optimism.
There's no point in looking at those last words now, by the way. They
will carry no freight until you put it there by reading the novel.
-THEODORE STURGEON
Los Angeles.
"When checking the wiring, disconnect power.'
-A poster on industrial safety
The brief short circuit in the line that fed the New Systems Laboratory
occurred at three A.M. The circuit breaker at the substation of the
Dneprovsk Institute of Systemology did what all automatic safety devices do
in these cases: it disconnected the line from the transformer, lit up a
blinking red light on the board in the office, and turned on the alarm.
Zhora Prakhov, the electrician on duty, turned off the alarm signal
immediately so as not to be distracted from his study of The Beginning
Motorcyclist (Zhora was about to take the driver's test) and he glanced at
the blinking light with hostility and expectancy. Usually localized short
circuits in the lab were taken care of at the site.
Realizing after an hour that there was no getting around it, the
electrician shut his book, picked up his instrument case and his gloves, set
the pointer on the door at "New Syst. Lab." and left the office. The dark
trees of the institute grounds were waist-deep in fog. The transformers of
the substation stood with their oil-cooling pipes akimbo, looking like
shapeless old women. The old institute building hovered in the distance like
a washed-out snowbank against the graying sky. It had heavy balconies and
ornate towers. To the left, the parallelepiped of the new research
department tried vainly to block out the early June dawn.
Zhora glanced at his watch (it was 4:10), lit a cigarette, and
scattering the fog with his bag, headed right, into the far corner of the
park where the New Systems Lab was located, housed in a small lodge. At
4:30, in answer to electrician Prakhov's call, two cars appeared on the
scene: an ambulance and a squad car of the Dneprovsk City Police.
The tall, thin man in the light suit strode through the park,
disregarding the paved paths. His shoes left dark prints on the dew-gray
grass. A light breeze ruffled his thinning gray hair. A blindingly pink and
yellow sunrise filled the space between the old and new buildings; birds
chattered in the trees. But Arkady Arkadievich Azarov had no time for all
that.
"Something happened in the New Systems Lab, comrade director," a dry
voice had informed him over the phone a few minutes earlier. "There were
victims. Please come."
Being wakened too early gave Azarov neurasthenia; his body seemed
stuffed with cotton, his head empty, and life terrible. "Something happened
in the lab.... Please come.... It must have been a cop." This ran through
his mind instead of thoughts." 'There were victims....' What a ridiculous
word! Who were the victims? And of what? Killed, wounded, trousers burned?
What? Looks serious. Again! There was that student who got under the gamma
rays to speed up the experiment, and then there was ... the second incident
in six months. But Krivoshein is not a student; he's experienced. What could
have happened? They were working at night, and got tired, and... I'll have
to put a stop to night work! Absolutely!"
When he had accepted the offer to direct the Dneprovsk Systemology
Institute, Academician Azarov hoped to create a scientific system that would
be a continuation of his own brain. In his dreams, he saw the structure of
the institute developing along the vertical branching principle: he would
give general ideas for research and system construction to the section and
laboratory directors, who would work out the details and plan specific
projects for the workers, who would try to.... Then he would draw
conclusions from the data obtained and produce new fundamental ideas and
principles. But reality intruded harshly on his dreams. A lot of it was due
to acts of God: the slow-wittedness of some scientists and excessive
independence of others; the changes in the construction plans, which was why
the storerooms and storage yards of the institute were piled high with
unopened crates of equipment; the backbiting among purchasing sections; the
arguments that erupted from time to time among the institute's members; and
the accidents and incidents.... Arkady Arkadievich thought bitterly that he
was no closer now to realizing his dream than he had been five years ago.
The one-story lodge with the tile roof shone white in its idyllic
setting among the flowering lindens, whose delicate scent filled the air.
There were two cars bruising the lawn by the concrete porch: a white
ambulance and a blue Volga with a red stripe. As soon as Arkady Arkadievich
was in sight of the lab, he slowed down and started thinking. In eighteen
months of its existence he had been in the lab only once, in the very
beginning, and only briefly for a general tour, and he really couldn't
picture what there was behind the door.
The New Systems Lab . . . actually, there was no reason yet for Azarov
to take it seriously, particularly since it had come about not as one of his
pet projects, but as the result of an unhappy series of coincidences: eighty
thousand in the budget was "burning" to be used. There was only a month and
a half until the end of the year, and it was impossible to spend the money
according to the letter of the law (Introducing New Laboratories). The
builders, who had originally promised the new building by May 1, then the
October holidays, and then Constitution Day, were now talking about May 1 of
the following year. The crates and boxes of equipment were crowding the
parking grounds. Besides, unused monies were always dangerous because they
could lead the planning organizations to cut the budget the next year. And
so, Arkady Arkadievich announced a "contest" at the institute seminar: who
could come up with the best plan for using the eighty thousand before the
year was out? Krivoshein suggested a "Lab of Random Research." Since there
were no other suggestions, he had to agree to this one.
Arkady Arkadievich did so against his better judgment and even changed
the name to the more proper "Lab for New Systems." Labs were created to suit
people, and for now, Krivoshein was a loner-a fair schematic engineering
technician but nothing more. Let him get his fill of independence and
overextend himself, and when it came down to research, he'd beg for a
director himself. Then they could look for a good candidate of sciences, or
better yet, a Ph.D., and create the lab's profile to suit him.
Of course, Arkady Arkadievich did not discount the possibility of
Krivoshein's shaping up. The idea he had proposed at the senior council last
summer on ... on what had it been? Oh, yes, the self-organization of
electronic systems through the introduction of arbitrary information ...
this idea could be the basis for a master's thesis or a doctoral
dissertation. But with his penchant for disagreeing with people and his hot
temper, Azarov doubted it. Back at that council meeting, he shouldn't have
dealt with Professor Voltampernov's remarks that way; poor Ippolit
Illarionovich had to take pills after the meeting. No, no, Krivoshein's
insubordination was completely inexcusable! There was still no data to show
that he had proved his ideas; of course, a year wasn't a very long time, but
an engineer was no Ph.D. who could get away with getting involved in
research that takes decades.
And that latest scandal-Arkady Arkadievich winced-it was so fresh and
unpleasant. Krivoshein had argued against the institute's scientific
secretary's defense of his dissertation at the nearby construction design
bureau six weeks ago. Without telling anyone ahead of time, he had gone to
an outside organization and shown up one of his own colleagues! That was a
slur on the institute, on Academician Azarov himself.... Of course, he
himself shouldn't have been so easy on the dissertation in the first place
and shouldn't have reacted so positively to it; but he rationalized it by
saying that it would have been nice to have a homegrown institute Ph.D., and
that dissertations worse than this one had been passed. But Krivoshein!
Arkady Arkadievich let him know in spades that he was not inclined to keep
him in the institute. But now was hardly the time to be bringing all this
up.
There was a lot of activity in the lodge. The thought of going in there
now to look at it, deal with it, and explain things gave Arkady Arkadievich
a sensation not unlike a toothache. "Krivoshein again!" he thought fiercely.
"If he's at fault in this incident as well...!" Arkady Arkadievich went up
the steps, quickly walked down the narrow corridor crammed with crates and
apparatus, entered the room, and looked around.
The large room with six windows only remotely resembled a laboratory
for electronic and mathematical research. The parallelepiped generators made
of metal and plastic and the oscilloscopes with ventilation slots in their
sides stood on the floor, tables, and shelves, mingling with flasks, jars,
test tubes, and bowls. There were dozens of test tubes huddled on the
shelves and cluttering up the boxes of selenium rectifiers. The middle of
the room was taken up by a shapeless apparatus overgrown with wiring,
tubing, and extension cords; a control panel was barely visible through the
spaghetti. What was that octopus?
"I can feel his pulse," a woman said to the left of the academician.
Arkady Arkadievich turned. The space between the door and the wall,
free of flasks and equipment, was in semidarkness. Two orderlies were
carefully transferring a man wearing a gray lab coat from the floor to a
stretcher; his head was tilted back and strands of his hair were damp from
the puddle of some oily liquid on the floor. A petite doctor bustled near
the man.
"He's in shock," she pronounced. "Give him an adrenalin injection and
pump him."
The academician took a step closer. It was a young man, handsome, very
pale, with chestnut hair. "No, that's not Krivoshein, but who is it? I've
seen him somewhere...." An orderly got the shot ready. Azarov took a deep
breath and almost choked. The room was filled with the acrid odors of acid
solutions, burned insulation, and some other sharp smell-the vague, heavy
smells of disasters. The floor was covered with a thick liquid through which
the doctor and orderlies kept walking.
A thin man in a blue suit entered the room in an official manner.
Everything about him but his suit was bland and inexpressive: gray hair with
a side part, small gray eyes unexpectedly close together on a bony face with
high cheekbones, and taut, poorly shaved cheeks. He nodded drily to Azarov,
who returned an equally formal bow. There was no need for introductions,
since it had been Investigator Onisimov who had handled the case of lab
assistant Gorshkov's radiation death last February.
"Let's begin by identifying the body," the detective said, and Arkady
Arkadievich's heart skipped a beat. "Would you please come here."
Azarov followed him to the corner by the door to something covered with
a gray oilcloth. It was full of angular bumps, and yellow, bony toes stuck
out from the ends.
"The work ID found in the clothing we saw in the laboratory gives the
name of Valentin Vasilyevich Krivoshein," the detective said in an official
voice, bending back the oilcloth. "Do you corroborate the identification?"
Life had not often placed Arkady Arkadievich face to face with death.
He felt faint and unbuttoned his collar. The raised oilcloth revealed
sticky, short hair, bulging eyes, sunken cheeks, a mouth drooping at the
corners, then a prominent Adam's apple on a sinewy neck, thin
collarbones.... "He's lost so much weight!" he thought. . "Yes."
"Thank you," the detective said and lowered the cloth. So, it was
Krivoshein. They had seen each other the day before yesterday near the old
building, walked past each other, and bowed formally as usual. Then, he had
been a heavyset, living man, albeit an unpleasant one. And now... it was as
though life had sucked out all his vital juices, dried out his flesh,
leaving only the bones covered with gray skin. "Probably Krivoshein
understood what his role was to be in establishing this lab," Azarov
suddenly thought for no reason. The detective left.
"Oh, dear. Tsk, tsk, tsk,..." Arkady Arkadievich heard. He turned. The
scientific secretary Harry Haritonovich Hilobok was in the doorway. His
sleek face was still puffy from sleep. Harry Haritonovich was considered
attractive: a good physique in a light suit, a well-shaped head, intriguing
gray at the temples, dark eyes, and a good straight nose, set off by a dark
mustache. His appearance was somewhat marred by the harsh lines at the
corners of his mouth, the kind caused by constant forced smiling, and a
weakish chin. The assistant professor's dark eyes shone with timid
curiosity.
"Good morning, Arkady Arkadievich! What's happened here at Krivoshein's
now? I was just walking by and wondered why these vehicles were outside the
lab? So I came in. By the way, have you noticed that his digital printing
machines are just lounging in the halls here, Arkady Arkadievich? In the
middle of all sorts of garbage. And Valentin Vasilyevich worked so hard at
getting them, writing endless streams of memos. I mean, he could give them
to somebody else if he has no use for them himself." Harry Haritonovich
sighed deeply and looked over to the right. "Must be another student! Tsk,
tsk, dear, dear! Another student, there's a plague on them here...." He
noticed that the detective had returned. "Oh, good day, Apollon Matveevich!
Seeing us once more, eh?"
"Matvei Apollonovich," Onisimov corrected.
He opened a yellow box marked "Material Evidence" with a black stencil,
took out a test tube, and crouched over the puddle.
"I mean Matvei Apollonovich-please forgive me. I do remember you very
well from last time. I just scrambled name and patronymic a little. Matvei
Apollonovich, of course. How could I? We talked about you for a long time
after, how organized and efficient you were, and everything...." Hilobok
went on and on.
"Comrade Director, what was the nature of the work done in this
laboratory?" the detective interrupted, catching some liquid in the test
tube.
"Research on self-organizing electronic systems with an integral input
of information," the academician replied. "Anyway, that was how Valentin
Vasilyevich had formulated his thesis at the beginning of the year."
"I see." Onisimov got up, sniffed the liquid, wiped the tube clean with
a piece of cotton, and put it away. "Was the use of poisonous chemicals
ruled out?"
"I don't know. I would think that nothing was forbidden. Research is
done by the researcher as he best sees fit."
"So what went so wrong here in Krivoshein's lab that even you, Arkady
Arkadievich, were disturbed so early in the morning?" Hilobok asked,
lowering his voice. "Precisely-what?" Onisimov was directing his questions
to the academician. "The short circuit had nothing to do with it. It was
merely an accident, and not the cause. We've determined that much. There is
no sign of electrocution, no traumas on the body... and the man is gone. And
what is this contraption? What's it for?"
He picked up an object from the floor that looked like an ancient
warrior's helmet; but this helmet was chrome-plated and covered with buttons
and bundles of thin multicolored wires. The wires extended beyond the tubes
and flasks of the clumsy apparatus into the far corner of the room, to a
computer.
"This?" The academician shrugged. "Hmm."
"Monomakh's Crown, I mean, that's what we call them around here,"
Hilobok offered. "More precisely, it's an SEP-1-System of Electronic Pickups
for Computing the Biopotentials of the Human Brain. The reason I know,
Arkady Arkadievich, is that Krivoshein kept bugging me to make him one like
it."
"All right, I understand. With your permission, I'll take it for a
while, since it was found on the victim."
Onisimov, winding the wires, disappeared into the far reaches of the
room.
"Who was the victim, Arkady Arkadievich?" Hilobok whispered.
"Krivoshein."
"Oh, dear, how can that be? His eccentricities finally led to this ...
and more troubles for you, Arkady Arkadievich."
The detective was back. He wrapped the "crown" in paper and put it into
his box. The only sound in the quiet lab was the panting of the orderlies,
who were working on the unconscious assistant.
"And why was Krivoshein naked?" Onisimov suddenly asked.
"He was naked?" The academician was stunned. "You mean it wasn't the
doctors who undressed him? I don't know! I can't even imagine."
"Hm ... I see. And what do you think they used this tank for? Perhaps
for bathing?"
The detective pointed to the rectangular plastic tank that lay on its
side on top of the shards of the flasks its fall had crushed; drips and
icicles of yellow gray stuff hung from its transparent sides. Pieces of a
large mirror lay next to the tub.
"For bathing?" The academician was getting tired of these questions.
"I'm afraid that you have a peculiar idea of what a scientific laboratory is
used for, comrade... eh, investigator!"
"And there was a mirror right next to it. A good one, full-length/'
Onisimov droned on. "What use could it have served?"
"I don't know! I can't delve into every technical detail of all hundred
sixty projects that are under way in my institute!"
"You see, Apollon Marve... I mean, Matvei Apollonovich-forgive me,"
Hilobok interrupted, "Arkady Arkadievich is in charge of the entire
institute, is a member of five interdisciplinary commissions, edits a
scholarly journal, and of course, cannot deal with every detail of every
project specifically. That's what the project directors are for. And
besides, the late-oh dear, what a pity-the late Valentin Vasilyevich
Krivoshein was a man of too much independence. He did not like to confer
with anyone, to share his thoughts or results. And he often ignored, it must
be said, many of the basic safety rules. Of course, I know that you should
not speak ill of the dead-de mortius bene aut nihil, as they say-but what
was, was. Remember, Arkady Arkadievich, how a year ago January-no, maybe it
was February-no, I think it was January, or it could even have been back in
December-anyway, remember, how he flooded the first floor, causing great
damage and stopping work on many projects, when he was working with Ivanov?"
"You are a viper, Hilobok!" A voice came from the stretcher. The
student lab assistant, clutching the edges, was trying to get up. "Oh, you
... too bad we didn't take care of you then!"
Everyone turned to him. A chill went through Azarov: the student's
voice, the hoarseness, the slurred endings, were absolutely identical with
Krivoshein's. The assistant fell back weakly, his head touching the floor.
The orderlies wiped their brows in satisfaction: he was alive! The doctor
gave an order and they picked up the stretcher and took him out. The
academician took a close look at the fellow. And his heart skipped a beat
again. The lab assistant resembled Krivoshein-he didn't know exactly how-and
not even the live Krivoshein, but the one down there under the oilcloth.
"See, he's even managed to set the lab assistant against me,"
Hilobok nodded in his direction with unbelievable meekness.
"Why was he so angry with you?" Onisimov turned to him. "Were you two
in conflict?"
"Heaven forbid!" The assistant professor shrugged innocently and
sincerely. "I've only talked to him once, when I interviewed him to work in
Krivoshein's lab at Valentin Vasilyevich's personal request, since he-"
"Victor Vitalyevich Kravets," Onisimov read from his notes.
"Yes ... well, he's a relative of Krivoshein's. He's a student from
Kharkov University, and they sent us fifteen people in the winter for a
year's practical work. And Krivoshein made him an assistant in his lab
through nepotism. But why should we object? We're all human-"
"Enough, Harry Haritonovich," Azarov cut him off.
"I see," Onisimov nodded. "Tell me, aside from Kravets, did the
deceased have any relatives?"
"What can I tell you, Matvei Apollonovich?" Hilobok sighed deeply.
"Officially, no, but unofficially, he was visited by a woman here. I don't
know if she's his fiancee, or what. Her name is Elena Ivanovna Kolomiets,
and she works in a neighboring construction design bureau, a nice woman-"
"I see. You're on top of things around here, I see." Onisimov laughed
as he headed for the door.
A minute later he was back with a camera and directed the exposure
meter at the corner.
"The laboratory will have to be sealed during the investigation. The
body will be sent to the coroner for an autopsy. The people in charge of the
funeral will have to contact him." The detective went to the corner and
picked up the cloth that was covering Krivoshein's body. "Please move away
from the window. There'll be more light. Actually, I do not need to keep you
any longer, comrades, please forgive the trouble-"
He paled and pulled up the cloth in a single move. Under it lay a
skeleton! A yellow puddle was spreading around it, retaining a blurred
caricature of a body's outline.
"Oh!" Hilobok exclaimed and backed out onto the porch.
Arkady Arkadievich felt his knees buckle and held on to the wall. The
detective was methodically folding the oilcloth and staring at the skeleton,
which was smiling a mocking thirty-toothed grin. A lock of dark red hair
silently fell from the skull into the puddle,
"I see," Onisimov muttered. Then he turned to Azarov and looked
disapprovingly into the wide eyes behind the rectangular lenses. "Fine
goings-on here, comrade director."
"What can you say in your defense?"
"Well, you see-"
"Enough! Shoot him. Next!"
-A conversation
Actually, Investigator Onisimov didn't see anything yet; the expression
was a linguistic hangover from better days. He had tried to break himself of
the habit, but couldn't. Besides that, Matvei Apollonovich was preoccupied
and very upset by such a turn of events. A half hour before the call from
the Institute of Systemology, Zubato, the medical examiner on duty with him
that night, had been called to a highway accident outside of town. Onisimov
had to go to the institute alone. And he ended up with a skeleton instead of
a warm corpse. Nothing like this had ever been encountered in criminology.
Nobody would believe that the body turned into a skeleton on its own-he'd be
a laughing stock. The ambulance had left already, and so they couldn't back
him up. And he hadn't had time to photograph the body.
In a word, what had happened seemed like nothing more than a series of
serious oversights in the investigation. That's why he made sure he had
written statements from Prakhov, the technician, and academician Azarov
before he left the institute grounds.
The electrical technician Georgii Danilovich Prakhov, twenty years old,
Russian, unmarried, draftable, and not a Party member, wrote:
"When I entered the laboratory, the overhead light was on; only the
power network was disrupted. The stench in the room was so bad that I almost
threw up-it was like a hospital. The first thing that I noticed was a naked
man lying in an overturned tank, his head and arms dangling, with a metallic
contraption on his head. Something was leaking out of the tub; it looked
like a thick ichor. The other one, a new student (I've seen him around), was
lying nearby, face up, his arms outspread. I rushed over to the one in the
tub and pulled him out. He was still warm and very slippery, so that I
couldn't get a good grip on him. I tried to awaken him, but he seemed dead.
I recognized him. It was Valentin Vasilyevich Krivoshein. I had run into him
often at the institute. We always said hello. The student was breathing, but
remained unconscious. Since there is no one at the institute except for the
outside guards, I called an ambulance and the police on the laboratory
phone.
"The temporary short circuit had occurred in the power cable that goes
to the laboratory electroshield along the wall in an aluminum pipe. The tub
broke a bottle that apparently contained acid which ate through in that spot
and the cable shorted out like a second-class conductor."
Zhora wisely left out the fact that he did not investigate the scene of
the accident until an hour after the alarm had gone off.
Arkady Arkadievich Azarov, the director of the institute, a doctor of
physics and mathematics, and an active member of the Academy of Sciences,
fifty-eight, Russian, married, not subject to the draft, and a member of the
CPSU, corroborated the fact that he recognized the features of the body
shown to him at the scene of the accident by Investigator Onisimov, M.A., as
belonging to Valentin Vasilyevich Krivoshein, acting director of the New
Systems Laboratory, and besides that, with the scientific objectivity
characteristic of an academician noted that he "had been amazed by the
abnormal emaciation of the deceased, the abnormal physical state which did
not correspond to his usual appearance."
At 10:30 in the morning Onisimov returned to headquarters and his
office on the first floor, where his windows, hatched with the vertical
bars, opened onto Marx Prospect, which was busy at almost any hour of day or
night. Matvei Apollonovich gave a brief account of the events to Major
Rabinovich, sent a test tube with the liquid to the medical examiner, and
called up the emergency room to find out the condition of the only
eyewitness. They replied that the lab assistant felt fine and asked to be
released.
"Fine, go ahead, I'll send a car for him," Onisimov said.
No sooner had he arranged for the car than Zubato, the medical
examiner, rushed into his office. He was a red-blooded, loud man with hairy
arms.
"Matvei, what did you bring me?" He sank into a chair with emphatic
disgust. "Some practical joke! How am I supposed to determine the cause of
death on a skeleton?"
"I brought you what was left," Onisimov explained, shrugging. "I'm glad
you showed up. I want to know, off the top of your head, how does a body
turn into a skeleton?"
"Off the top of my head, as a result of the deterioration of tissues,
which under normal circumstances takes weeks and even months. That's all
that the body can do about it."
"All right... then how can you turn a body into a skeleton?"
"Skin the body, cut off the soft tissues, and boil it in water until
the bones are completely exposed. It is recommended to change the water. Can
you tell me clearly what happened?"
Onisimov told him.
"That's something! I'm really sorry I missed it!" He slapped his knee.
"What happened on the highway?"
"A drunk cyclist hit a cow. Both survived. So you say your body
melted?" The expert squinted skeptically and brought his face closer to
Onisimov. "Matvei, that doesn't ring true. It just doesn't happen, I can
tell you for sure. A man is no icicle, even if he is dead. They didn't trick
you?"
"How?"
"You know, switch the body for a skeleton while you were out... and
discard the evidence."
"What are you blabbering about? You mean while an academician stood
guard for them? Come on, here's his deposition." Onisimov fretted as he
looked for Azarov's statement.
"Ahh, now they'll show you! The people there...." Zubato wriggled his
hairy fingers. "Remember, when that student was exposed to radiation, how
the head of the lab tried to blame it all on science, how he said that it
was a little-studied phenomenon, that the gamma rays destroyed the crystal
cells of the dosimeter. And when we checked, it turned out the students were
signed up to work on isotopes without reading about them! Nobody wants to
take responsibility, even academicians, if it's a fishy situation. Try to
think: did you leave them alone with the body?"
"I did," the detective's voice fell. "Twice."
"And that's when your body melted!" Zubato broke out in the hearty
laugh of a man who knows that disaster has not struck him.
The detective thought about it and then shook his head.
"Now, you're not going to throw me off the track here. I saw for
myself... but what are we going to do with this skeleton now?"
"The hell with it. Wait, here's an idea. Send it over to the city
sculpture studio. Let them reconstruct the face according to Professor
Gerasimov's method; they are familiar with it. If it's him, you'll have the
crime sensation of the century on your hands. If not-"Zubato gave Matvei
Apollonovich a sympathetic look. "I wouldn't want to be in your shoes when
you talk with Aleksei Ignatievich. All right, I'll send it over there
myself. So be it." He rose. "And while I'm at it, I'll do the death
certificate. I'll settle for a skeleton, if you can't come up with a body."
Zubato left.
"What if they did trick me?" Onisimov recalled the academician's
hostility, Assistant Professor Hilobok's flattery, and he shuddered. "I lost
the body, the most important thing. Good show there!"
He dialed the chemistry lab.
"Viktoriya Stepanovna, this is Onisimov. Did you analyze the liquid?"
"Yes, Matvei Apollonovich. The report is being typed, but I'll read you
the conclusion. "Water-85 percent, protein-13 percent, amino acids-0.5
percent, fatty acids-0.4 percent and so on. In other words, it's human blood
plasma. According to the hemoglutins, it's classified as type A, with
lowered water content."
"Yes, I see. Could it be toxic?"
"I doubt it."
"Even, if say, you bathed in it?"
"Well, you could swallow some and drown. Does that help?"
"Thank you!" Matvei Apollonovich slammed down the phone. "Wise ass! But
I guess that means accidental death is ruled out. Could the assistant have
drowned him in the tub? No, it doesn't look like a drowning."
Onisimov liked the entire business less and less with every passing
minute. He spread out the documents he got at the institute's personnel
department and at the laboratory and lost himself in their study. He was
distracted by the phone.
"Matvei, you owe me!" boomed Zubato's triumphant voice. "I've managed
to establish a few things from the skeleton. There are deep vertical cracks
in the middle of the sixth and seventh ribs on the right side. Such cracks
are the result of a blow by a heavy blunt instrument or against a blunt
object, whatever. The surface has minute cracks, fresh-"
"I see!"
"These cracks in themselves can not be the cause of death. But a
violent blow could have seriously injured the internal organs, which,
unfortunately, are missing. Well, that's about it. I hope it helps."
"And how! Did you send out the skull for identification?"
"Just now. And I called ahead. They promised to do it as fast as
possible."
"So, this is no accident. Liquid and short circuits don't break a man's
ribs. Oh, oh. It looks as if there were two accident victims there: an
injured victim and a dead victim. And it looks as though the two had a
serious fight."
Onisimov felt better. The case was taking on familiar aspects. He began
composing an urgent telegram to Kharkov.
The June day was getting hotter. The sun melted the asphalt. The heat
seeped into Onisimov's office, and he turned on the fan on his desk.
The answer from the Kharkov police came at exactly 1:00 P.M. Lab
assistant Kravets was brought in at 1:30. As he entered the office, he
looked around, and smirked as he noticed the barred windows.
"Is that to make people confess faster?"
"No-no," Matvei Apollonovich drawled gently. "This building used to be
a wholesale warehouse and so the entire first floor has reinforced windows.
We'll be removing them soon; not too many robbers try breaking into a police