ndrovich got up and looked down at Krivoshein.
     "My  dear  comrade graduate  student, I do have a  little  knowledge of
technology-after all, I am an evening student at MEI!-and  I know  that you,
hmm,  in  systemology,  you have the concept and problem of reliability. The
reliability  of  electronic  systems  is  guaranteed by a  reserve of parts,
cells, and  even units. Then why not  assume that  nature has created in man
the same  kind of  reserve for reliability  in the  brain?  After all, nerve
cells do not regenerate."
     "It's  an awfully big reserve!"  The graduate  student shook  his head.
"The average man uses a million cells out of a possible billion."
     "And talented people use tens of millions! And geniuses . . . actually,
no one's measured their  cells  yet-maybe  they  use  hundreds  of millions.
Perhaps the brain of each  of us is reserved for genius potential? I tend to
feel that genius and not mediocrity is man's natural state."
     "Very effectively put, Vano Aleksandrovich."
     "I  see  you  are  a  cruel man  . . .  but, think what  you  will,  my
reservations have as much value as your hypothesis about Martians gone wild.
Hah,  and if you  take into account the fact that I am your  advisor and you
are my student,  then they are even more valuable!" He sat  down. "But let's
get back to the major issue: why is present-day man incapable of controlling
the autonomous  nervous  system and metabolism?  You  know  why?  Because it
hasn't come to that yet."
     "So that's it!"
     "Yes. The environment teaches man in only one way: through conditioning
drills.  You know that in order to  form a  conditioned reflex the situation
and  stimulus  must  be  repeated  frequently.  And  that's  just  how  life
experience  develops. And in order  to form an unconditioned reflex  that is
inherited the drill must be repeated for  many generations for thousands  of
years. You  were right about the  biological information in the organism; it
is  not  expressed  verbally,  but  by  the  reflexes, both conditioned  and
unconditioned. And it is man's will that controls  reflexes, of course, in a
limited way. You don't think through from beginning to end which muscle must
contract how much when you light a cigarette,  and  you  don't think through
the chemical reactions  of the muscle  contraction. The consciousness  gives
the order to light up and the reflexes take over. Both the specific one that
you acquired from practicing that filthy habit-crumple the cigarette, inhale
the smoke-as  well as the general ones passed  on  to you from your  distant
ancestors: grabbing, breathing, and so on..." Vano  Aleksandrovich-it wasn't
clear whether  it was intended to  be an illustration or not-lit a cigarette
and exhaled a stream of smoke toward the ceiling.
     "I'm leading up to  the fact that the consciousness controls when there
is something  to control. In  the operative part of the  organism, when  the
final action, as  Sechenov  noted long ago, is a muscular one ... remember?"
Androsiashvili  sat back in his chair and quoted:" 'A child  laughing  at  a
toy, Garibaldi smiling at the accusation  of excessive love for his country,
a young  girl trembling at  the  first  thoughts of  love,  Newton  creating
universal  laws and writing  them down-the final fact in all these instances
is muscular action.' Ah, how brilliantly  Ivan  Mikhailovich  wrote! So  the
operative part gives the mind something  to control and lets it choose among
its  vast store of  conditioned and  unconditioned reflexes  for each unique
situation. And in the  constructive  part, where  the body's chemistry takes
place, there is nothing for the mind to do.  Just think for a  moment  about
what conditioned reflexes are involved in metabolism?"
     "Drink or not,  give me a little  more  horseradish, can't  abide pork,
smoking,  and...."  Krivoshein  got confused.  "And well,  I guess  washing,
brushing your teeth...."
     "There's a dozen more like  that," nodded the professor, "but  they are
all minor, semichemical, semimuscular, superficial reflexes.  And  deeper in
the organism there  are  definite  reflex  processes that  are connected  so
unilaterally  that   there  is   nothing   to  control:  oxygen  leaves  the
bloodstream,  breathe;  not enough  protein for the muscles,  eat;  excreted
water, drink; poisoned yourself  with things forbidden for the organism,  be
sick or  die. And  there are no variations. You can't say that life  did not
teach people about metabolic reactions-it taught them cruelly. Epidemics-how
nice  it would  be to  figure out  through  the use  of  your  mind and your
reflexes just  which bacillus was destroying you and purge it from your body
like  fleas! Famines-just hibernate like a bear  instead of  puffing up  and
dying! Wounds and mutilations in fighting-regenerate your torn-off  limb  or
gouged  eye! And that's  not  enough.  It would all be  done  at high speed.
Muscular  reaction  happens  in tenths and hundredths of  a second,  and the
fastest  of  the  metabolic   actions-secretion  of   adrenaline   into  the
bloodstream-takes  seconds. The secretion of hormones  by the glands and the
pituitary is discovered only after years, and maybe only once in a lifetime.
Thus,"  he smiled  wanly, "this knowledge is not  lost  by the  organism; it
simply has not yet been acquired. It's too difficult for man to learn such a
lesson."
     "And  therefore mastery  of metabolism could  drag  on for  millions of
years?"
     "I'm afraid that it  could take dozens of  millions  of years,"  sighed
Vano Aleksandrovich.  "We  mammals  are very  recent  inhabitants of  earth.
Thirty million years-is that an age? Everything is still ahead of us.
     "There  will be  nothing ahead  of us, Vano Aleksandrovich!"  exclaimed
Krivoshein. "The present environment changes from year to year-what  kind of
million-year learning process  can  there  be, what  kind of  repetition  of
lessons? Man has stepped  off the path of natural evolution, and now he must
figure things out for himself."
     "And we are."
     "What? Pills,  powders, hemorrhoidal  suppositories,  enemas,  and  bed
rest? Are you sure that we are improving man's breed  this way? Maybe  we're
ruining it?"
     '  I'm not  trying to talk you into  involving yourself with pills  and
powders if  those are the  terms you choose to  use for the  antibiotics our
department  is developing," Vano Aleksandrovich  said, his face taking  on a
cold and haughty look. "If you want to study  your idea-go ahead,  dare. But
explaining  the  unrealistic  and unplanned  aspects  of  this  decision  in
graduate work and for a future dissertation is my right and my duty."
     He stood up and tossed the butts from the ashtray into the wastebasket.
     "Forgive me, Vano Aleksandrovich. I certainly didn't want to hurt  your
feelings." Krivoshein also stood, realizing that the conversation  was over,
and ending  on an unpleasant note. "But. . .  Vano Aleksandrovich, there are
very interesting facts."
     "What facts?"
     "Well  ...  in  the  last   century  in  India  there  was  a  man-god,
Ramakrishna. And,  if  someone was being beaten nearby, he had welts  on his
body. Or  take 'burns by suggestion': a sensitive  subject is touched with a
pencil  and told that it was a lit  cigarette. In these  cases metabolism is
controlled without a 'learning process,' is it not?"
     "Listen, you nagging student," Androsiashvili wheeled on him, "how many
window bolts can you eat in a sitting?"
     "Hmmmm," Krivoshein  said in confusion. "I don't think any  at all. How
about you?"
     "Me neither. But a patient I had in the  dim  past when I worked in the
Pavlov Psychiatric Clinic swallowed, without any particular harm to himself,
. . ."  the professor  leaned back, remembering,  "five window bolts, twelve
aluminum  teaspoons, three tablespoons, two pairs of surgical scissors,  240
grams of broken  glass, one fork, and 400 grams of various  nails. Now these
are not the results of an autopsy, mind you, but  the history of a disease-I
cut  him open myself.  The patient was  cured  of suicidal tendencies and is
probably still alive today."  The professor glanced down at  Krivoshein from
the heights of  his erudition. "So in scientific matters it is better not to
orient  yourself  by religious fanatics or secular psychopaths.  No, no!" He
raised  his  hand  to  stave  off  the   obvious  look  of  disagreement  in
Krivoshein's eyes. "Enough  arguing. Go ahead,  I  won't  stop you. I'm sure
that  you will  try  to  regulate metabolism  with some  kind of machine  or
electronic method."
     Vano Aleksandrovich  gave the  student  a thoughtful and tired look and
smiled.
     "Catching the Firebird with your bare hands! What could  be better? And
you  have a holy goal: man without diseases, without old age-age is a result
of a breakdown  in  metabolism, too.  Twenty years or  so  ago, I would have
allowed  myself to be fired up by this idea. But  now... now I must  do what
can definitely be done. Even if it's only a pill."


     Krivoshein   turned  down  a  cross  street  toward  the  Institute  of
Systemology and almost bumped into a man in a dark blue cloak, much too warm
for  the  season.  The  unexpectedness  of the  encounter  produced  further
problems: Krivoshein  stepped to the left to let the man past, while the man
did the same to the right. Then both of them, letting  the other  go  first,
finally  set off  in  opposite directions. The man  stared at Krivoshein  in
amazement and stopped.
     "I beg your pardon," he muttered and went on.
     The street was dark and empty. Krivoshein soon  heard  footsteps behind
him and looked back: the man in the cloak was following at a short distance.
"That Onisimov!" thought the graduate student. "He's got a detective tailing
me!" He experimented by going faster and heard the man's pace increase. "Ah,
the hell with him!  I'm certainly not going to cover  my tracks." Krivoshein
went  on  slowly,  rambling.  However,  his  back felt uncomfortable and his
thoughts returned to reality.
     "So, I guess  Val  tried another experiment. Maybe he wasn't alone?  It
failed;  that  corpse turning  into  a  skeleton.  But why  are  the  police
involved? And where is  he?  Our Val must have  blown town on his bike until
things calmed down. Or maybe he's in the lab?"
     Krivoshein approached the monumental, cast-iron gates of the institute.
The rectangular posts of the gates  were so  large that the left  one easily
contained the pass office and the right  one the entrance way. He opened the
door. Old  man  Vakhterych, the ancient guard  of science, was  nodding  off
behind the barrier.
     "Good evening!" Krivoshein nodded at him.
     "Good evening, Valentin Vasilyevich!" replied Vakhterych, obviously not
about to  ask him for his pass;  they were used to visits by the head of the
New Systems Lab at all hours.
     Krivoshein, inside the grounds, looked back; the creep in the cloak was
stuck  outside.  There you  go, chum,"  Krivoshein thought. "The pass system
proves itself once again."
     The windows of the lodge were dark. A red cigarette light glowed by the
door.  Krivoshein crouched under the trees and made out  a uniform  cap on a
man's  head against the stars. "No,  I've had it with  the cops for one day.
I'd better go home,..." he laughed. "I mean to his house."
     He  started for the gates, but remembered the fellow  in the cloak  and
stopped.  "That's against  all  the  rules,  the  suspect  running  into the
detective's arms. Let him do some work." Krivoshein headed for the other end
of the park-where the branches of the  old oak hung over the iron pickets of
the  fence.  He  jumped from the branch onto the  sidewalk  and  started for
Academic Town.
     "But what happened with his experiment? And who was that guy who met me
at the airport? The  telegram really confused me:  I  thought he was Val! He
does  look  like him-very  much  so. Could  it be?  Val obviously didn't sit
around  all  year twiddling his  thumbs! Too bad we didn't write. What petty
fools we are: each one wanting to  prove that he could do without the other,
to astound the other a  year later with his results.  With his  own results!
The highest  form  of  possession.  And  so  we've amazed  each other. We're
destroying  a  major  project  with   pettiness.  With  pettiness,  lack  of
forethought, and fear.  We  shouldn't have scattered  every  which  way, but
tried to attract people who  were worthy and real, like Vano Aleksandrovich,
from the very beginning. Yes, but back then I didn't know him,  and it won't
help to try it now, when he storms past me and gives me dirty looks."


     It  had all  happened in the  spring, in late March when Krivoshein had
only  begun mastering  metabolism in his own  body.  Busy  with  himself, he
hadn't noticed spring until spring made him notice:  a heavy icicle  fell on
him from the roof of a five-story building. If it had fallen a half inch  to
the left,  it would have been the end of  the experiments on  metabolism  as
well as the end of his organism. But the icicle merely ripped his ear, broke
his collar bone, and knocked him down.
     "Disaster, disaster!" That's  what  he  heard professor  Androsiashvili
saying as he came to. He was leaning over him, feeling his head, unbuttoning
his coat.  "I'll  kill  that  janitor for  not clearing the  snow!" he said,
angrily shaking his fist.  "Can you walk?" He  helped Krivoshein up.  "Don't
worry,  your head is fairly whole. The clavicle will heal in a few weeks. It
could have been worse. Hold on, I'll walk you over to the infirmary."
     "Thank  you,  Vano  Aleksandrovich,  I'll  manage  myself,"  Krivoshein
replied as heartily as he could,  even squeezing out a smile. "I'll make it,
it's nearby."
     And he moved on quickly, almost at a run. He  stopped the bleeding from
his ear immediately. But his right hand was dangling loosely.
     "I'll call  them  to get  the electric stitcher  ready!" the  professor
called after him. "They'll be able to sew up the ear!"
     Back  in  his  room,  Krivoshein  taped  up  his  ear,  torn along  the
cartilage,  in  front of  the mirror and wiped  away  the  caked blood  with
cotton. That was easy. Ten minutes  later there was  only a pink scar  where
the  tear  had been,  and in a half  hour, that was  gone too.  Mending  the
clavicle  was  a  lot  harder;  he  had  to  lie  on  his  bed  all  evening
concentrating on commanding  the blood vessels, the glands, and the muscles.
The bones had much less chemical solution than soft tissue.
     He decided to go  to  Androsiashvili's class  in the morning. He got to
the  hall  early to take  an inconspicuous seat in the back and ran into the
professor,  who  was  instructing students  about  the  hanging of  posters.
Krivoshein backed off, but it was too late.
     "Why  are you here? Why aren't you in the clinic?" Vano  Aleksandrovich
went  pale, staring at the student's ear  and the right hand in which he was
clutching his notebook. "What is this?"
     "And  you  said  it  would  take  dozens  of  millions of  years,  Vano
Aleksandrovich."  Krivoshein  couldn't  resist.  "You  see,  it can  be done
without 'drilling.'"
     "You mean... it's working? How?"
     Krivoshein bit his lip.
     "Mmmm, a little later, Vano Aleksandrovich,"  he muttered awkwardly. "I
still have to figure it all out myself."
     "Yourself?"  The  professor  raised  his eyebrows.  "You  don't want to
tell?" His face grew cold and haughty.  "All right, as you wish. Pardon me!"
He went to his desk.
     From that day  on  he nodded icily to his  student  when  they met, and
never  entered  into  a discussion. Krivoshein, to keep his conscience  from
bothering him too much, lost himself  in his experiments. He really did have
a lot more to learn.


     "Don't you understand that I  wanted to demonstrate my discovery-relive
my burning interest in it, your praise,  fame, . . ." thought  Krivoshein as
he tried to justify himself before the invisible Androsiashvili. "After all,
unlike  the  psychopaths  I could  have  explained it all.  Of course,  this
doesn't work with other people yet; they don't have the constitution for it.
But the  important  thing is that I've  proved the  possibility  of  it, the
knowledge. If only the discovery had been limited to  the  fact  that I  can
heal my own wounds, breaks, and cure  myself  of diseases!  The trouble with
nature is that  it never  gives just exactly as  much  as is needed for  the
welfare of man-it's always either too much or too little. I  got too much. I
could,  probably,  turn myself into an animal,  even  into a monster. That's
possible. Everything's possible. That's the scary part." Krivoshein sighed.
     The window and glass  door that opened  onto  the balcony of  the fifth
floor  glowed softly. It  looked like  the table  lamp was on. "Is he home?"
Krivoshein ran up  the stairs,  rummaged  through  his pockets from force of
habit, remembered  that he had thrown out the key a  year ago, and swore  at
himself,  for it would have been very  effective to suddenly walk  in: "Your
documents, citizen!" There still was no doorbell, and he knocked.
     He  heard light, quick steps-they made  his  heart beat  faster-and the
lock clicked. Lena was opening the door.
     "Oh,  Val,  you're alive!" She grabbed  his  neck with  her warm hands,
looked him over,  smoothed his hair, hugged him, and began crying. "Val,  my
darling...  and  I  thought...  they've  been saying such horrible things! I
called your lab, and there was no answer. I called the institute, and when I
asked where you were, what had  happened, they hung up. I came here, and you
were gone.  And  they  told me that you were...."  She  sobbed angrily. "The
fools!"
     "All right, Lena, don't.  That's enough. What's the matter?" Krivoshein
wanted very much to hold her close and he barely controlled his arms.
     It was  as though nothing had happened:  not  discovery number one, not
the  year  of  mad, concentrated  work  in Moscow,  where he cast  away  the
past....  Krivoshein  had  tried   more  than  once-for  spiritual  peace-to
eradicate Lena's face from his memory. He  knew how  it was  done: a rush of
blood  with  an  increased  glucose  level  to  the  brain's  cortex,  small
oxidations directed at the nucleotides of a certain area-and the information
is removed from the cells  forever. But he  didn't  want to...  or couldn't.
'Wanting' and 'being able'-how do you distinguish them  in yourself? And now
the woman he loved was  weeping on his shoulder, weeping  from anxiety about
him. He had to soothe her.
     "Stop, Lena. Everything's all right, as you can see."
     She looked up at him. Her eyes were wet, happy, and guilty.
     "Val... you're not mad at me, are you? I said all those horrible things
to you then-I  don't know why myself.  I'm  just  stupid! You  were  hurt? I
thought that it was all over, too,  but  when I found out that something had
happened to you ... I couldn't. You see, I ran here. Forget it, please? It's
forgotten, all right?"
     "Yes," Krivoshein said sincerely. "Let's go inside."
     "Oh, Val, you can't imagine how terrified I was!" She was still holding
onto  his  shoulders,  afraid  to  let go.  "And  that  investigator...  the
questions!"
     "He called you in, too?"
     "Yes."
     "Aha, the old cherchez la femme!"
     They went inside.  It hadn't  changed: a gray daybed, a cheap desk, two
chairs,  a bookshelf piled with magazines up  to the ceiling, and a wardrobe
with  the usual mirrored  door. In  the  corner by the door lay crisscrossed
dumbbells.
     "I cleaned up a  little, waiting  for you. The dust... you have to keep
the balcony door shut tight, when you leave." Lena moved close to him. "Val,
what did happen?"
     "If I only  knew!" he thought  with a sigh. "Nothing terrible... just a
lot of brouhaha."
     "Why the police, then?"
     "The police? They  were called, and they  came. If they  had called the
fire department, they would have come too."
     "Oh, Val,..." she placed her  arms around his neck and wrinkled up  her
nose. "Why are you like that?"
     "Like  what?"  he  asked, feeling more  stupid  by the  second.  "Well,
seemingly grown-up, but irresponsible. And when  I'm  with you I turn into a
silly schoolgirl.... Val, where's Victor. What happened to him? Listen," she
asked, her eyes growing wide, "is it true that he's a spy?"
     "Victor? What Victor?"
     "Are  you  joking?  Victor  Kravets,  your assistant and  nephew  twice
removed."
     "Nephew,  lab assistant...."  Krivoshein was momentarily  confused. "So
that's it!"
     Lena threw up her hands.
     "Val, what's the matter with you? You can tell me. What happened in the
lab?"
     "Forgive me, Lena,  I just  got confused.  Of course, old Peter, I mean
Victor Kravets, my trusty assistant and nephew ... a very nice  guy...." The
woman still regarded him wide-eyed. "Don't  be surprised, Lena, this is just
a  momentary  amnesia, that always happens after... after an electric shock.
It'll pass, it's not serious. So you say the rumor's  begun that he's a spy?
Ah, that Academy of Sciences!"
     "Then it's true that there was  a catastrophe  in the lab?  Why, why do
you keep everything from me?  You  could have been-no! I don't want to think
about it!"
     "Stop,  please  God, stop!" Krivoshein  said  irritably, sitting  down.
"Could have, couldn't have, did, wasn't.... You see, everything is fine.  (I
wish it were, he thought.) I can't  tell you anything until  I've figured it
all out myself."  He moved  into  an attack. "And what's  your  problem? So,
there's  one  Krivoshein  more or less  in the world-big deal! You're young,
beautiful, childless-you'll find someone else, someone better than an  aging
codger like me. Take Peter, I mean, Victor Kravets: he's better for you?"
     "Again?" she smiled, came up behind his chair, and  put his head on her
bosom. "Why  do you  keep harping on Victor? I don't need him.  I don't care
how good-looking he is; he's not you, understand?  That's it. And the others
aren't you either. Now I know for sure."
     "Hm?" Krivoshein untangled himself.
     "What, 'hm'? You're  jealous, silly. I didn't sit at  home every  night
like  a nun. I went out.  I was courted, even seriously by  some. And still,
they  were  all wrong!"  Her voice caressed  him. "They're  not like you-and
that's it! I came back to you anyway."
     Krivoshein felt the warmth of her  body with the back of his neck, felt
her soft hands on his eyes and experienced an  incomparable  bliss. "I could
sit  like  this forever.  I've  just come back from  work,  and nothing  has
happened . . . and I'm tired  and she's here . . . but something did happen!
Something  very  serious  happened,  and  I'm  sitting  here   stealing  her
caresses!"
     He got up.
     "All right, Lena. You'll excuse me, but I'm not going to walk you home.
I'll  just  sit a while  or go to sleep. I don't feel  very  well  after all
that."
     "I'll stay?"
     It  was half  question,  half statement. For  a  second  Krivoshein was
overwhelmed  with wild  jealousy. "I'll stay?" she  used to say and he would
agree.  Or maybe  he suggested  it  himself:  "Stay tonight,  Lena." And she
stayed.
     "No, Lena, you go home." He laughed bitterly.
     "That means  you're still  mad, right?" She looked at him and  got mad.
"You're a fool, Val, a real jerk! The hell with you!" And she turned for the
door.
     Krivoshein stood in the middle of the room, listening: the click of the
lock, Lena's heels  on the stairs, the downstairs door slamming, quick light
steps on the pavement. He ran to the balcony to call to  her-and the evening
breeze sobered him up. "So, I see  her, and  fall back  in just like that! I
wonder what she said to him? All right, the hell with last year's romances!"
He went back inside. "I have to find out  what happened here.  Wait! He must
have a diary! Of course!"
     Krivoshein pulled  open  all  the drawers  in  the  desk,  tossing  out
magazines, folders, quickly glancing through  notebooks. No, that's not  it.
On the bottom of the last drawer he found a cassette, a quarter filled,  and
for a minute he forgot about his search: he got the cassette player from the
shelf, dusted it off, put in the cassette, and turned it on playback.
     "With the rights of the discoverers," a hoarse voice began,  after some
hissing, carelessly slurring the  endings of  words, "we  are taking it upon
ourselves to research and exploit the discovery to be called-"
     "The artificial biological  synthesis  of  information," another  voice
(though remarkably like the first) added. "It's not particularly euphonious,
but it's accurate."
     "Fine.   The   artificial  biological   synthesis  of  information.  We
understand that this discovery touches  upon man's life like no other and is
capable of becoming the greatest threat or the greatest boon for mankind. We
swear to do everything in our  power to use  this discovery  for the good of
humanity."
     "We swear that  until  we  have researched all  the potentials  of this
discovery-"
     "And until it  is  clear to us how to use  it with absolute reliability
for the good of humanity-" "Not to turn it over into anyone else's hands-"
     "And not to publish anything about it."
     Krivoshein  stood with his eyes closed.  He was transported to that May
night when they made that vow.
     "We vow not to give away our discovery for our  well-being, or fame, or
immortality until we are sure that it cannot be used to harm people. We will
destroy our work rather than permit that."
     "We swear!" The two voices spoke in unison. The tape ended.
     "We were  hotheads then. So, the diary must be nearby." Krivoshein dove
into the desk once more, rummaged about, and a second later  held a notebook
with  a  yellow  cardboard  cover, as thick  and heavy as a  book. There was
nothing  written  on the cover, but Krivoshein was certain that he had found
what he  was after: a year ago, when he got to Moscow, he had bought himself
the exact same notebook in a yellow cover to keep his own diary.
     He sat  down at  the  desk, moved the lamp closer, lit a cigarette, and
opened the notebook.


        PART TWO * SELF-DISCOVERY


        Chapter 6


     The relativity of knowledge  is a  great thing. The statement "two plus
two equals thirteen"  is relatively closer  to the truth than  "two plus two
equals forty-one." You  could even say that the  move to the former from the
latter represents an expression of creative maturity, scholarly courage, and
unheard-of scientific progress-if you  didn't  know that two plus two equals
four.
     We know  that in arithmetic, but it's too soon to rejoice. For example,
in  physics, two plus two equals less than four because of a defect in mass.
And in such fine sciences as sociology or ethics, not even two plus two, but
even one plus  one can be either a future  family or a conspiracy  to rob  a
bank.
     -K. Prutkov-enzhener, Thought 5


     May 22. Today I  saw him off at the train.  In the station  restaurant,
the customers stared at two grown twins. I felt uncomfortable. He was happy.
     "Remember,  fifteen  years ago, I-no, I guess it was  you-left  for the
exams at the physics-technological  institute? It was all the same: a streak
of alienation, freedom, uncertainty...."
     I remembered. Yes, it was the  same. The same waiter with an expression
of chronic  dissatisfaction with life served  tenth-graders who had  escaped
into life. Then we  thought that everything was ahead of us;  and so it was.
And now there is  quite a bit behind us: happy things, and gray things,  and
things that make it scary to look back, and yet it still seems that the best
and most interesting is ahead.
     Then we drank the cheapest port. Now the waiter brought us fine cognac.
We each had a glass.
     It was  noisy and crowded  in the restaurant.  People were  eating  and
drinking in a rush.
     "Look,"  my  double pointed  out,  "a mother feeding twins.  Greetings,
colleagues! Look at their eyes.  How do you think  they'll turn out? For now
their mother  is taking care  of  them, and  even so they  managed  to smear
porridge all  over their faces  in the same way. But in a few years  another
bustling mother will take over-Life.  One, say, will  grab a chicken by  the
tail  and  pull  out  all  the  feathers.  The  first  in  a  collection  of
unrepeatable impressions, since there will be no feathers left for the other
to  pull. But the other  will  get  lost in  a  store with great weeping and
wailing-another personal, unique  experience. And  a  year later  his mother
will  let  him  have  it for  the jam  that his  brother  gobbled up.  Again
differences:  one  will  sense  injustice while the  other  is getting  away
without punishment. Oh, mama, watch it. If things  go  on like  that, one of
them will grow up to be a timid loser,  and the other  a sly fellow who gets
away  with  everything. You'll  cry  then,  mama. You and  I are  like those
twins."
     "Well,  at least an unfair spanking won't knock us off the track. We're
at the wrong age."
     "I'll drink to that!"
     They  announced  the train. We  went  out to the platform.  He  went on
talking.
     "You know what's interesting? What happens to that old saw about people
being born with a destiny? Let's say that it  was intended at your birth for
you to  move through space and  time at  a certain rate, to advance at work,
etc. And  suddenly-abracadabra!-there  are  two  Krivosheins! And they  lead
separate  lives in separate cities. Now what happens to the divine  plan? Or
did God write it in two variants? And what if we turn into  ten? And what if
we don't want  to, and don't?" We both made believe that something  ordinary
was happening. "Friends, check  to  see that you haven't  kept the departing
passengers' tickets by mistake!" I hadn't. The train took him to Moscow.
     We agreed to write to each other when necessary (I'll bet that he won't
feel that necessity very soon!) and to meet next July. We'll spend this year
approaching the  problem from two angles; he'll take biology, and I'll  take
systemology. We'll see....
     When the train left I  realized that I would miss him. I  guess because
this was the first time that I had felt as comfortable  with another  person
as I do with  ...  with  myself. There's no other  way  of putting  it. Even
between  Lena  and me there  is always something left unsaid, misunderstood,
strictly personal. But with  him... but even with him, we each developed our
own secrets over  a  month  of  living together.  Interesting, that bustling
mother life!
     I was high on cognac, and coming  back  from  the  station  I stared at
people  and at life.  Women  with concerned,  anxious faces entering stores.
Guys riding on motorcycles with girls on the back seat. Lines forming by the
newspaper kiosks, waiting for the evening papers. Human faces, how different
they all are,  how understandable and  mysterious!  I can't explain  how  it
happens, but  I seem to know about  a lot of them. The corners of the mouth,
harsh or fine wrinkles, the bearing of the head, and the eyes-especially the
eyes!-they are  all  signs of preverbal information. Probably  from the days
when we were apes.
     Just  recently  I did  not notice  such things.  I  did not notice, for
instance,  that  people  waiting   in  line  were  ugly.  The  banality  and
meaninglessness of  such an  occupation, the worry that they  will run  out,
that  someone will sneak  in ahead of  them,  leaves an ugly  imprint on the
face. And drunks are ugly, and brawlers are ugly.
     But take a look at a young girl, laughing at a joke made by the boy she
loves. Or at a  mother, nursing  a child.  At  a master craftsman doing fine
work.  At  a good man thinking about something. They are  beautiful, despite
pimples, wrinkles, and lines.
     I could never appreciate beauty  in animals.  As far  as  I'm concerned
only man is beautiful-and then only when he is human.
     A toddler stared at me  as though  I were a  miracle, tripped and fell,
insulted  by earth's pull. His  mother,  naturally, added to  his  pain. The
little guy  suffered  for nothing.  What  kind of  marvel am I? Just  a  man
getting fat, with a round back, and a common face.
     But maybe the little fellow was  right: I'm really a miracle? And every
person is a miracle?
     What do  we  know about people?  What  do I  know about myself? In  the
problem called life, people are a given that does not have to be proved. And
everyone who uses that  given  comes up with his own theory. Take my double,
for instance. He left and that was both unexpected and logical.
     But  wait! If  I'm going  to  get  into  this,  I should  start  at the
beginning.
     It's  funny  to  remember. Actually,  I  began  with  the  simplest  of
intentions. To do my dissertation.
     But  creating something secondhand and compilatory (sort  of  like  the
topic recommended  to me by my former chief professor Voltampernov, "Several
Peculiarities in Projecting Diode Memory Systems") was boring and repulsive.
I was  human  after all. I wanted an unsolved problem,  to get into its soul
and to investigate nature with the help  of reason, machines, and apparatus.
And to discover something that no one had ever known. Or to invent something
that  no  one else ever had thought of.  And to be asked  questions  at  the
defense that would be fun to answer. And  then to be told by friends, "Well,
you really let them have it! Terrific!"
     All the more because I can do that. It's not something you announce  to
people,  but I  can  say  it  in my diary:  I  can. Five inventions  and two
completed research projects are proof of that. And this discovery... ah, no,
Krivoshein, don't  be  in  a rush  to add this to your intellectual laurels.
You're mixed up by this and still can't get it straightened out.
     In a word,  my heart's  desire is what led me  into the thick  of  that
tendency of world systemology where  the  fundamental operative function  is
not the formula, or the algorithm, not even the recipe, but mere chance.
     We, with our limited minds,  love to  make juxtapositions: lyric  poets
and  physicists,  waves  and particles,  plants  and  animals,  machines and
people.... But in life and  in  nature these things are not juxtaposed; they
complement  each  other. Just as  logic and  chance complement each other in
comprehension and solution finding. You can  find much of the unproved,  the
capricious, in  mathematical and  logical  constructions  and  you  can find
logical laws at work in random events.
     For example, the ideological enemy of random  retrieval,  Voltampernov,
doctor  of  technological  sciences,  never  missed  a  chance to  parry  my
suggestion (to study modeling of random processes) with  the quip: "But that
will be  modeling  with, so to  speak,  coffee grounds!" Isn't this the best
illustration of that complementary nature?
     And it was hard to argue. There was little achieved  in this field, and
many projects  ended unsuccessfully, and ideas... ideas  didn't  have enough
effect. In our department, like in the Wild West, they believed only in bare
facts.
     I was thinking of following the example of Valery Ivanov, my friend and
former head of the lab, and to call it quits with the institute  and move on
to another  city. But-and here it was, the  random chance!-the  builders did
not complete  the new building for  perfectly  good reasons,  and the  money
allotted in the institute's budget was not spent for good reason, and Arkady
Arkadievich  announced a  "contest"  to find  the  best way  to spend eighty
thousand  rubles.  I'm sure  that the most  virulent defender of determinism
would have to be careful not to make a mistake here.
     I had formed my idea by then to research what a computer would do if it
was fed not by a program that had been reduced  to a binary system, but with
ordinary-meaningful  and  random-information. Just that. Because when it  is
programmed it works with an amazing brilliance that stuns reporters. ("A new
breakthrough in  science:  a  machine  can  plan  a  shop's  work  in  three
minutes!"-because the programmers in their modesty  usually fail  to mention
the number of months they prepared for that three-minute decision.)
     Naturally, my  idea  done in  an  elementary way was  nothing more than
delirium for any intelligent systemologist: the computer would not behave in
any way at all; it would simply stop! But I  wasn't planning on doing it the
elementary way.
     To spend eighty thousand rubles to equip  a lab in  the five weeks left
in a fiscal year, even a lab that  was as flexible as one for pure research,
was  no  snap. It's no wonder  that  the equipment genius  of the institute,
Alter  Abramovich,  still  shakes  hands  respectfully   whenever  we  meet.
Actually,  he didn't realize that  an idea coupled with  a burning desire to
move into the operative expanses can work wonders.
     So,  this was  the  situation:  there was money and  nothing else. Five
thousand to the builders for the best lodge  possible. (They tried all kinds
of  manipulation,  like "Dear man!  we'll  fulfill the plan and  even win  a
prize,  you'll see!") Thirteen thousand for a TsVM-12 computer. Another nine
thousand for  all kinds of sensors and receivers: piezoelectric microphones,
flexible   strain   gauges,   germanium   phototransistors,  gas  analyzers,
thermistors, an apparatus for calculating the  electromagnetic biopotentials
of  the brain  using  the SES-1  system  with four thousand microelectrodes,
pulsometers, semiconducting moisture analyzers, and photoelemental "reading"
arrays . .  . basically, everything that turns sounds, images, smells, small
pressures, temperatures,  weather changes,  and even spiritual impulses into
electrical  impulses.  With   four  thousand  I   bought  various  reagents,
laboratory  glassware,  chemical equipment-in  case I ever  wanted to employ
chemotronics,  about  which I  had heard a little. (And if  I'm  going to be
completely honest, because it was easy to buy this  stuff by requisition.  I
don't have to mention the fact  that I didn't use any of the eighty thousand
for personal effects.)
     All this was fine, but the core of  the experiment was still missing. I
knew what  I wanted:  a  commutator  that  could switch  and  combine random
signals from  the sensors in order to send  them to a "reasoning" computer-a
piece of an electronic brain with  a free  circuit of connections of several
thousand switching  cells. You can't get something like that even by written
order-it  doesn't exist. Buy  the  parts that make  up  the usual  computers
(diodes, triodes, resistors, condensers, etc.)  and order one? It would take
too long, and was completely unrealistic. I would have to supply a  detailed
blueprint for  something  like  that,  but  what I  wanted couldn't  have  a
blueprint. It was really  a  case  of not knowing where I would go or what I
would  find.  And once more my friend chance gave me my "I  don't know what"
and Lena....  Wait. Here I'm not  willing  to put it  all  down  to  chance.
Meeting Lena  was a gift of fate,  pure  and  simple. But as for the crystal
unit... if you think about  something day  and night, you'll always  come up
with it, find or notice it.
     Here  was the situation:  three weeks left  'til the  end of the  year;
fifty thousand rubles still unused; no hopes of  finding the commutator; and
I'm riding a bus.
     "They  bought fifty  thousand rubles worth  of solid-state circuits and
then  they  found  out they  don't  fit!"  a woman in  a brown  fur coat was
exclaiming in front  of me to her neighbor.  "That's disgusting!" "Madness,"
she agreed.
     "Now Pshembakov is trying to blame everything on the supply department.
But he ordered them himself!" "Just think of the gall!"
     The  words  "fifty thousand" and  "solid-state circuits" had  gotten my
attention. "Excuse me, but what kind of circuits?"
     The woman turned to  me, her  face so  beautiful and  stern  that I was
sorry I had interrupted.
     " 'Not-ors' and flip-flops!" she answered hotly.
     "What parameters?"
     "Low-voltage-excuse me, but why are you butting into our conversation?"
     And  that's  how I met Elena Ivanovna  Kolomiets, an engineer from  the
nearby construction  design  bureau. The  following day,  engineer Kolomiets
wrote a  pass for executive  engineer Krivoshein  to  visit  her department.
"Savior! Benefactor!" cried the head  of the department, Zhalbek Balbekovich
Pshembakov, when engineer Kolomi