e or less like your aggressor. The same profession, the same circle of acquaintances, the same family situation. But I've already told you of the possibility of an almost complete, and even utterly complete, identity...." "To put it more vividly," interrupted Zargaryan, "we have visited worlds whose borders fit into the borders of ours, touching the interior. We call them adjacent worlds, conditionally of course. And there are even more interesting worlds intersecting ours or, shall we say, perhaps in general not having points of contact with ours. There, time is either in advance of our time, or it lags behind. And who knows by how much?" He was silent, then added almost dreamily: Far beyond a certain birch-tree, So long, so very dear to me, In sudden silence is revealed The unknown - strange and most unreal. "You didn't finish," I laughed, remembering the same verses. "It's different farther on!" To reach an unknown world we strive, 'It's sad, not all who go arrive. The desk telephone rang. "Not all who go," repeated Nikodimov thoughtfully. "Our chief wouldn't arrive." The telephone kept ringing. "Talk of the devil, and.... Don't answer." "All the same, he'll find us." The trip into the unknown was put off till the evening when we were to meet in the Sofia Restaurant, where freedom from the top brass was fully guaranteed. NOSCE TE IPSUM (KNOW THYSELF) I did not see Olga until supper time: she was delayed at the polyclinic. There was nobody to talk with, about what had happened. Galya didn't ring up, and I was careful to avoid Klenov because of his insufferable instructive manner; because of it I even slipped away from an editorial meeting. I wandered the streets for about an hour, so as not to arrive at the restaurant too early and have to hang around the entrance looking foolish. Trying to collect my thoughts, I sat by Pushkin's monument, but everything I'd heard that morning was so new and surprising that I couldn't even think it all out. Finally, all the flow of my thoughts led to the question of how to evaluate my meeting the two scientists. As an unusual success, 'reporters' luck', or as a menace that always lies hidden in something the mind cannot grasp. I was inclined to think it was 'reporters' luck'. If a lab guinea-pig could reason, it would probably be proud of its association with scientists. And I was proud of mine. Another sign of reporters' luck was the type of scientists my friends belonged to. I read somewhere that scientists are divided into classic and romantic types. The classic typo is he who develops something new on the basis of the old, on what is firmly established in science. But the romanticists are dreamers. They are interested in fields of knowledge close to their own or remotely connected with them. They not only produce something new founded on the old: more often they do it by using utterly unlooked-for associations. I had even expressed my admiration of this type in an article I wrote. Now 'reporters' luck' had thrown us together. Only romantics can so bravely and recklessly sin against reason. And, apparently, I was very anxious to continue my part in this sinning. Such were my thoughts as I went to keep my appointment, arriving not earlier but even later than my new friends. They already awaited me at the entrance: Zargaryan all in smiles and Nikodimov, dressed in an old-fashioned stiff jacket, modestly effacing himself in the rear. The stand-up starched collar, popular around the turn of the century, would have suited him perfectly - he looked as severe as a prophet out of the Old Testament. The irresistible Zargaryan more than made up for it. Wearing a strict dark suit, with just enough of his tie showing to display a gold pin linked to a rounded shirt-collar, he so impressed the stout, bald maitre d'hotel that Nikodimov and I went unnoticed. We walked behind, half-smiling at the waiter bustling ahead of our tall Ruben and captiously selecting the secluded table we ordered. When dinner was served, Zargaryan poured the cognac. "The first toast is mine ... to chance meetings." "Why 'chance'?" "You can't possibly imagine how great a role chance plays in my life. By chance I met Zoya and through her, by chance, you. I even met Pavel Nikodimov by chance. Five years ago I read his article on the concentration of the sub-quantum biofield in the Bulletin of the Academy of Sciences. I went to him at once. It turned out that we were approaching one and the same problem along different paths." He was silent. I remembered Klenov telling me that they worked in absolutely different fields of science, but before I could utter my question Zargaryan read my mind. "A strange union, eh? Physics and neurophysiology," he laughed. "What are you, a mind-reader?" "And why not? I must be according to my staff position. After all I'm a telepathist. I'm engaged in many things in this field, but most of all I'm interested in dreams. Why do we so often dream of what we never saw in our conscious lives? How is this connected with Pavlov's teaching that the essence of dreams is a reflection of reality. What stimulations, in such cases, act on the brain cells? Perhaps things one is accustomed to - light, sounds, contacts, smells? But if not? Then there must be certain new stimulations we are not aware of...." I remembered why my dreams drew his attention: they were not reflections of reality. But, apparently, many people have seen such dreams. Only these dreams weren't stable, as Zargaryan had explained. They were easily forgotten, hazy in the conscious mind, but the main thing was they did not repeat themselves. "I figured it this way," he continued. "If, according to Pavlov, dreams reflect what is seen in our waking hours, yet the one experiencing them never actually saw the things he dreamed of, then it means somebody else did. But who? And how can what he sees be imprinted on the conscious mind of another?" I interrupted him. "Then my department store, street scene, the road to the lake or pond - they are some stranger's dreams?" "Without any doubt." "But whose?" "I still didn't know at the time. There arose a supposition that it was hypnotic transmission. But suggestion does not occur by chance, suggestion out of nowhere. It is always sent from the hypnotizer to the hypnotized. Not one of the cases I observed showed any evidence of suggestion. I put forward the idea of mental telepathy. In parapsychology, we call the brain sending the signal the inductor, and the brain receiving it the percipient. And again, not in one case investigated did we manage to discover the inductor. Characteristic examples are your more stable dreams. Who transmits them to you? From where? You wore lost in conjectures. I was, too, though I inclined to the supposition that it is some other living person existing in another form and perhaps in another world. However, that would he almost mysticism.... I stood before a closed door. It was Pavel Nikodimov who opened it for me, or rather his paper did. Then I said: 'Open, Sesame!' Isn't that the way it was, Pavel?" "Just about," affirmed Nikodimov good-heartedly. "But you skipped the most picturesque details: Sesame did not open so easily. You see, I'm a crabby fellow ... get along rather badly with people. My assistant ... well, he ran away when they began to put pressure on us. Took you for a lunatic, Ruben. I can even remember the district psychiatrist he phoned to. But even that didn't stop you. But you're right, our collaboration began from a chance meeting. So I back your toast. Let's drink to it." "And afterwards?" I asked. "It's a big jump from an idea to experimental tests." "We didn't jump, we crawled. The mathematical idea led to the physical state of the field. We started off with biocurrents. You see, the biocurrents of the brain are actually electro-magnetic fields originating in its nerve cells. Through their radiation they generate a sort of single energy-field - the so-called conscious and subconscious of a person's mind. Take your analogy. The fields of Jekyll and Hyde are only similar: they are incompatible or, as we say, antipathetic. While you are awake, while your brain is active, the antipathy of the fields is constant and invariable. But when you fall asleep, the picture changes. The antipathy is now weakened, so the fields of the 'doubles' are superposed, so to say, and your dreams automatically repeat what the other has seen. But for Jekyll to become Hyde a complete compatibility of fields is necessary, which is possible only during exceptional activity on the part of the inductor's field. And we've discovered that you possess this exceptional gift of activity." I listened eagerly to Nikodimov, but not all of it sank in, some of it escaped me. It was as if I had spells of deafness and from time to time lost the guiding thread in this devilish labyrinth of fields, doubles, frequencies and rhythms; but with sheer force of will I would catch it again. It looked like a speech interrupted by dots to indicate omissions. "... through our experiments," Nikodimov was saying, "we came to the conclusion that under reciprocal transmission the fields activate waves with a frequency much higher than the usual alpha-rhythm. We called this new type of frequency kappa-rhythm. And the higher the frequency of the kappa waves, the more vivid are the dreams received by the sleeping receptor. Further on it wasn't so difficult to establish the regularities as well. Complete compatibility of fields is connected with a sharp rise in frequency. So we got the idea of making a concentrator, or a transformer of biocurrents. By establishing the directed current of radiation we apparently transfer your conscious mind, locating an identical mind for it beyond the borders of our three-dimensional world. Of course, we are still at the very beginning of the road - the movement of the field along a phase trajectory is somewhat chaotic for the time being, because we cannot yet control it. We cannot say exactly where you will regain consciousness - in the present, past or in the future, going by our time. Dozens of experiments must still be made...." "I'm ready," I interrupted him. Nikodimov did not answer. A husky, boyish voice drifted down to us from the stage where a juke-box stood that a young pop-music fan had turned on. The voice floated over the noisy dining-hall, over the short- or long-haired or bald heads, over the wine-darkened crystal goblets, floated invisibly and powerfully with a strength and purity of feeling unexpected in a restaurant almost blue with cigarette smoke. "A song with an undercurrent," said Zargaryan. I listened. "You are my destiny," sang the boy, "you are my happiness...." "And you are our destiny," Zargaryan picked up the words with a serious and even triumphant note. "And maybe our happiness. You alone." I averted my eyes, embarrassed. Whatever you say, there is something good about being somebody's destiny and happiness. Nikodimov at once caught my movements and the rather vain idea behind it. "But perhaps we are your destiny, too," he said. "You will know a lot more, and particularly about yourself. You see, you are only a particle of that living matter which is 'you' in an endlessly complicated vastness - time. In a word, as the ancient Romans said: Nosce te ipsum - know thyself." THE LAST SUPPER I was ready to know myself in all the sum total of dimensions, phases and co-ordinates, but I didn't tell Olga about it that night. I gave her a vague sketch of my talk with the scientists and promised to relate it in greater detail the following day, which was her birthday. We usually celebrated it alone, but this time I invited Galya and Klenov to be our guests. I wanted very much to include Zargaryan and Nikodimov, the guilty parties in this unexpected - I could even say wonderful - event in my life. I had mentioned it in passing when we left the restaurant, but Nikodimov either wasn't listening attentively or missed it through absent-mindedness. "Best leave it," Zargaryan had whispered confidentially. "He won't come anyway - he's a hermit, as he admitted himself. But I'll come when I can get away, perhaps a bit late though. We haven't finished our talk yet," and he slyly stressed it, "about self-knowledge, have we?" He certainly came later than the rest of our company, arriving when the table-talk had already turned into argument, so hot an argument that there was shouting, an argument stubborn to the point of rudeness when you forget all formalities in an effort to get your word in. My story of what I experienced during the test and of my later talk with the scientists had made the impression of maniacal raving. "We-ell..." Klenov muttered uncertainly, and was silent. "I don't believe it," cried out Galya excitedly, red in the face and with sparks in her eyes. "Why not?" "It's nonsense! And it's sensation-hunting, as my lab colleagues say. A shady business. They're pulling the wool over your eyes." "But why should they?" snapped Klenov. "What's their game? Nikodimov and Zargaryan aren't glory-hunters or schemers. It would be all very well if they wanted publicity, but they demand silence, d'you see. With their names, they don't want to arouse even a shadow of doubt that it's a truly scientific venture." "Everything new in science, all discoveries, are built on past experiments," said Galya heatedly. "And where can you see that in this experiment?" "The new often refutes the old." "There are different kinds of refutations." "Exactly. Einstein wasn't believed either, at first, for it was Newton he refuted!" Olga kept stubbornly silent and out of it all, until it drew Galya's attention. "W7hy don't you say something?" "I'm afraid to." "Whatever for?" "You people are only arguing about certain abstract ideas, but Sergei is taking a direct part in the experiment. And, as I understand it, it won't stop here. If everything he says is true, why, the brain of an average person can scarcely sustain it." "And are you so sure that I'm an average person?" I joked. But she did not take it as a joke, nor did she answer me. Galya and Klenov again ruled the conversation. I had to answer dozens of questions and again repeat my story of the dreams I'd had in Faust's laboratory. "If Nikodimov can prove his hypothesis," Galya finally admitted, "then it will turn physics upside down. It will be the greatest upset that ever occurred in our knowledge of the world. If he proves it, of course," she added stubbornly. "The experiment on Sergei is still not proof." "But I'm interested in something else," said Klenov thoughtfully. "If you accept the truth of the hypothesis a priori, another question arises that's of no less importance: how did life develop on every space phase? Why are they so similar? I'm not referring to the physical but their social aspect. Why is it that each transformed Moscow of Sergei's is a present-day, post-war Moscow which is capital of the Soviet Union and not tsarist Russia? Look, if Nikodimov's hypothesis is proved, do you realize what they will ask about in the West, before anything else? Politicians, historians, church dignitaries and journalists will ask: is it obligatory that all worlds have a similar social structure? Is it absolutely certain that their historical development has been identical?" "Nikodimov spoke of still other worlds from different currents of time, perhaps even with counter-times. In that case, one might hit on Neanderthal man or on the first of Earth's stellar flights." "That isn't my point," Klenov said impatiently. "However brilliant Nikodimov and Zargaryan's discovery may be, it does not reduce the importance of the question of social systems in every world. According to Marxism, all is clear: the physical similarity presupposes a social similarity. Everywhere the development of productive forces determines the character of production relations. But can you imagine the song that will be sung by those adherents of the cults of personality and chance? The barbarians might not have reached Rome, and the Tatars, Kalka. Washington might have lost the war of American independence, and Napoleon might have won at Waterloo. Luther might not have become head of the Reformation, and Einstein might not have discovered the theory of relativity. Bradbury carried this dependence of historical development on blind chance to the absurd. A traveller in time accidentally kills a butterfly in the Jurassic period, and it leads to a change in the American presidential election campaign: in place of a progressive and radical candidate, they elect a fascist and obscurantist as President. We know, of course, that Gold-water wouldn't have been elected any way even if all the dinosaurs of the Jurassic period had been killed. And we know that if Napoleon had won at Waterloo, he would probably have been defeated somewhere near Liege. And somebody else would have headed the Reformation instead of Luther; and if Einstein hadn't discovered the theory of relativity, someone else would have done so. Even not rising to the heights of historical materialism, Belinsky wrote more than a hundred years ago that blind chance did not rule either in nature or in history, but strict, irrevocable, inner necessity did." Klenov spoke with that professional erudition of a lecturer, which so annoyed me at editorial meetings, and I cut in purely in the spirit of contradiction. "Well, but just imagine if there had never been a Hitler in some neighbouring world? He was never born. Would there have been war or not?" "Can't you answer that yourself? And Goering, Hess, Goebbels, Rommel, and lastly Strasser? The Krupps would have passed the conductor's baton to somebody. And I visualize you as a great delegate with a mission, Sergei. Don't laugh - truly great. Not only in helping to prove Nikodimov's hypothesis, but in the fact that you will be strengthening the position of the Marxist conception of history. That everywhere and always, under similar conditions of life on our planet, no matter what changes, phases or whatever you call them take place, the class struggle always determined and still determines social development until it becomes a classless society." At this moment Zargaryan appeared with a bouquet of chrysanthemums. In ten minutes he won over Olga and Galya, and Klenov's professional erudition changed into the respectful attention of a college freshman. Zargaryan gathered up all the threads of the talk at once, spoke of the proposed Nobel prize winners, of his recent trip to London, interchanged remarks with Galya about the future of laser technology. With Olga he discussed the role of hypnosis in paediatrics. Then he praised Klenov's article in the journal Science and Life. But he purposely, or so it seemed to me, diverted the conversation from my part in the scientific experiment. However, when it struck eleven he caught my perplexed glance and said with his characteristic smile: "I know, d'you see, what you're thinking. Why is Zargaryan silent about the experiment? Am I right? Actually, old chap, I didn't want to leave right away, because further conversation will be impossible after I've said my say. Intriguing?" he laughed. "It's simple enough, really. You see, tomorrow we intend making a new experiment, and we are asking you to take part." "I'm ready," I said, repeating what I had already told him in the restaurant. "Don't be in a hurry," Zargaryan stopped me, and now there was a note of seriousness in his voice which I had noticed once before, and agitation as well. "First, the new experiment is to be much longer than the previous one. Maybe it will last several hours, perhaps even twenty-four.... Second, the test will cover more remote phases. I say 'remote' only to keep it within the bounds of comprehension. The point is hardly a matter of distances, the more so that we cannot determine them; and besides, what we mean by distances is of no importance for the activities of the biocurrents. The diffusion of the radiation is practically instantaneous and does not depend either on the spatial arrangement of the phase or on the sign of the field. But I must honestly warn you that we do not know the degree of risk involved." "So it's dangerous?" asked Galya. Olga asked no questions, though the pupils of her eyes seemed a shade larger. "I cannot answer that definitely." Apparently Zargaryan had no desire to conceal anything from me. "If the aiming is not accurate enough, our converter might lose control of the superposed biofield. What the results would be to the test-subject, we don't know. Now imagine something else: in this world he is unconscious, in the other his conscious mind has been imparted to a certain person ... let's say somebody travelling by plane. What would happen to Sergei's conscious mind if there were a crash, we don't know. Would the converter manage to switch over the biofield in time, or would two people die, one in that world and one in this?" Zargaryan was answered with silence. He stood up, and resumed. "I've already told you that after my explanation the small talk would end. You are free, Sergei, to make your decision. I'll come for you in the morning and hear it with full respect even if it is a refusal." We saw him out in silence, returned to the table in silence, and the conversation was not resumed for a long time. Finally, Galya asked me point-blank: "You're waiting for my advice, I suppose?" I silently shrugged my shoulders. What did it matter whether she advised me or not? "I already started believing in this delirium," she continued. "Just imagine - I believed it. And if I were suitable for the test and had received the offer you have... I should not think twice about my answer. But as to advice.... Well, that's Olga's job." "I won't talk you out of it, Sergei," said Olga. "Decide for yourself." I still kept silent, not taking my eyes off my empty glass. I waited to hear what Klenov would say. "You know, it would be interesting to know..." he suddenly began, not speaking to anyone in particular. "That is, I wonder if Gagarin thought it over when they offered him the chance to make the first flight into space?" PART TWO. JOURNEY ACROSS THREE WORLDS It is not enough to have this globe, or a certain time - I will have thousands of globes, and all time. Walt Whitman, Poem of Joys But, looking into the future, As through a mirage-like prism, What a supreme paradise I desire- Out of one eye to glimpse communism. Ilya Selvinsky, Sonnet THE EXPERIMENT Zargaryan came for me in the morning before Olga left for work. We had both got up early, as we always do when one of us is leaving on a holiday or a business trip. But the feeling of the abnormality and strangeness of this morning, compared to other such moments in the past, cast a darkness over the window, the sky, and the spirit. We purposely didn't speak of what lay ahead but conversed as usual in little more than monosyllables. I kept looking for my missing toothbrush and Olga couldn't get the water to run at the proper temperature. "Now it's hot, now it's cold. You try the taps." I tried my hand at it, and got nowhere. "Are you nervous?" "Not a bit." "But I'm afraid." "Wasted emotion. Nothing happened before. T sat a couple of hours in the chair, and that's all there was to it. Fell asleep and woke up. Didn't even have a headache afterwards." "But you know this time it won't be for two hours. Maybe ten, maybe twenty-four. A long experiment. I can't even understand how they could permit it." "If it's permitted, then everything's okay. You needn't have any doubts." "But I do have doubts." Her voice rang a bit shrilly. "First, I doubt it as a doctor. Twenty-four hours without consciousness. Without the supervision of a doctor...." "Why without a doctor?" I interrupted. "Outside of his speciality, Zargaryan has had medical training. Besides, there's lots of pick-ups to keep everything under control - pressure, heart and breathing. What else do you want?" Her eyes shone suspiciously close to tears. "And if you don't return...." "From where?" "Do you know from whore? You haven't the faintest idea. Some sort of transferred biofield. Worlds. A wandering conscious mind. It's terrifying to think of." "Then don't think of it. People fly in aeroplanes. It's also terrifying, but they do it. And nobody worries over it." Her lips trembled, the towel slipped from her hand to the floor. I was glad when the telephone rang and I could avoid a recurrence of the dangerous topic. It was Galya. She wanted lo come over, but was afraid she mightn't make it in time." "Zargaryan isn't there yet?" "Not so far. We're waiting." "How's your mood?" "Not bad. Olga's crying." "How silly. In her place I'd be glad - her man off on a feat of glory." "Let's not overdo it, Galya." "Why not? That's how they'll see it when it's all over. No other way. A leap into the future. The very thought of such a chance is enough to make your head swim." "Why into the future?" I laughed, wanting to tease her. "What if it's into some Jurassic period? With pterodactyls!" "Don't talk nonsense," interrupted Galya. Doubting Thomas has now turned fanatic. "Don't you dare even think it." "Man proposes, God disposes. Well, let's say chance rather than God." "What did you learn in the faculty of journalism? A fine Marxist I've found!" "Look, baby," I prayed. "Don't force me to repent of my political mistakes right now. I'll do that when I come back." She laughed, as if we were talking about a trip to the cottage. "Well, good luck, you hear? And bring me back a souvenir." "It would be interesting to know what souvenir I could bring her," I told Klenov who had joined Olga and I for morning coffee. "A pterodactyl-claw or a dinosaur-tooth?" I was touched. He hadn't been too lazy to come to see me off on my rather unusual journey, and had even managed to calm Olga down. The tears had gone from her eyes. "To get a gander at dinosaurs wouldn't be bad," observed Klenov philosophically. "You could organize some kind of safari in time. That would make a big noise." I sighed. "There'll be no noise, Klenov. And no safari. I'll meet you somewhere in an adjacent bit of life. We'll go to the cinema and see Child of Montparnasse. We'll drink palinka again. Or Hungarian tsuika." "You have no imagination," said Klenov angrily. "They won't send you into an adjacent little world. Remember what Zargaryan said? It's quite possible there are worlds moving in some other course of time. Let's suppose their time is behind ours. But not by a million years! What if it's a half century behind? You look around and on the streets it's October 1917." "And if it's a hundred years ago?" "That wouldn't be bad either. You'll go to work at the Sovremennik magazine ( The Contemporary.-Tr.) Maybe they put out a Sovremennik with the same trend? Probably. And there you 'll see Chernyshevsky sitting at a desk. Interesting, right? You're not drooling at the mouth?" "Drooling." We both laughed, and loudly enough to upset Olga. "I want to cry, and they laugh!" "We have a shortage of sodium chloride in our bodies," said Klenov. "So our tear ducts have dried up. And, by the way, Olga, tears from a hero's wife are contra-indicated. Better have a drink of cognac. What if you wake up in the future and find there's a dry law?" I had to refuse the cognac, because Zargaryan was already ringing at the front door. He looked severe and official, and never dropped a word all the way to the institute. I was silent, too. Only when he had parked his Volga car alongside its twins in the institute's parking lot, and we were going up the granite steps to the door, did bespeak. There was no smile, no funny accent, none of the usual whimsy that accompanied his sly remarks or a laugh. "Don't think I'm afraid or disturbed. It's Nikodimov who figures it is possible that a certain per cent of risk is involved. The problem, he says, is not yet mastered, too few experiments. And I think that everything is in our hands, that it's a hundred per cent ours. I'm sure of success. Absolutely!" The last he cried so that it echoed through the near-by grove of trees. "And I'm silent because one is sparing of words before the battle. Got that, Sergei?" "Absolutely, Ruben." We shook hands on it, and were silent till we reached the laboratory. Nothing had changed since my last visit. There was the same soft-toned plastic, the golden gleaming copper, shining nickel, the smoke-coloured glass panels reminiscent of television screens only several times larger. My chair stood in its usual place in the network of coloured lead-in wires, both thick and thin, some as tiny as spider-webs. The spider was in ambush awaiting his victim. But the soft, comfortable chair, lit from the window by an unexpectedly appearing sun, did not incite alarm or suspicion. It reminded me more of a heart set in a nest of blood vessels. As yet the heart did not beat: I was not sitting there. Nikodimov met me in his stiffly starched white gown, and with a smile that was just as stiff and starched. "I should be glad, of course, only glad that you've agreed to participate in this risky experiment," he told me after an exchange of friendly compliments. "For me, as a scientist, this may be the final and decisive step toward my goal. But I must ask you to consider your decision once more, weigh all the pros and cons before we begin this particular test." "But it's already decided," I said. "Wait. Think it over. What urges you to agree to it? Curiosity? To tell the truth, that's not a very admirable stimulus." "And scientific interest?" "You have none." "What drives journalists to go, let us say, to the Antarctic or into the jungles?" I parried. "They don't have scientific interests either." "So, it's inquisitiveness. I agree. And a love for sensation, which all reporters have in common to some degree, even in the best sense of the word. Stanley was chasing sensation when he went to Africa to search for the lost Livingston, and as a result won equal fame. Perhaps that's what is turning your head, I don't know. I can imagine how Ruben talked with you," laughed Nikodimov, continuing in Zargaryan's voice: '"Yes, d'you see, it's a daring feat - one never yet seen in the annals of science! The glory of a globetrotter in time, equal to that of the first man to fly into space!' I'm sure he called it just that, didn't he? Globetrotter in time?" I glanced sidewise at Zargaryan who was listening, not at all put out and even smiling. Nikodimov caught my glance. "Of course he said it! That's what I thought. A barrel of honey. And I will now add to it my spoonful of tar. I cannot, my dear fellow, promise you either the fame of a time-globetrotter or a ceremonial meeting on the Red Square. I don't even promise there'll be a special article in your honour. In the best case, you will return home with a fund of sharp sensations, and with the knowledge that your part in the experiment has been of some use to science." "And is that so little?" I asked. "It depends. You see, only we three will know of your valuable contribution. Your oral testimonial is still not proof where science is concerned. You will always find sceptics who might declare it a hoax, arid they probably will. The same goes for apparatus which could describe and reproduce the visual images arising in your conscious mind - to our sorrow, we have nothing like that as yet." "It's possible to obtain another form of evidence," put in Zargaryan. Nikodimov pondered. I impatiently awaited his answer. What evidence did Zargaryan have in mind? All the material evidence of my being in adjacent worlds remained there: the probe I had dropped during the operation, my note on the hospital writing pad, and Mikhail's split lip. I had brought nothing back but memories. "Now I'll explain to you what Ruben means," pronounced Nikodimov slowly, as if to stress each word he said. "He has in mind the possibility of your penetrating a world far ahead of us in time and development. If such a possibility happens and you can make use of it, then your conscious mind might take images of not merely visual objects but abstract ones - mathematical ones, let us say. For example, the formula of a physical law or an equation expressing in conventional mathematical symbols something as yet unknown to us in cognition of the surrounding world. But all this is pure supposition, only theory. No better than telling fortunes from tea-leaves.... We shall try to transmit your conscious mind somewhere farther than the immediate worlds bordering our three-dimensional one, but we cannot even tell you what this 'farther' means. Distance in these measurements is not counted in microns, or kilometres or even par-sees. Some other system of measuring distance acts here, and so far we have no knowledge of it. But most important, we don't know what you risk by undergoing this experiment. Before, we did not lose sight of your energy field, but is there any guarantee we won't lose it this time? In a word, I won't at all be offended if you say 'let's put off the test'." I smiled. Now Nikodimov awaited an answer. Not one wrinkle on his face deepened, not one hair of his long, poetical locks stirred, not one crease in his gown moved. How different he was from Zargaryan! Here was true prose and poetry, ice and flame. And the flame behind me was already flaring up - the chair fell over as Zargaryan stood up. "Well then, let's put off..." I spoke slowly, deliberately, slyly glancing at Nikodimov. "Let's put off ... all this talk about risk till the experiment's over." All that happened afterwards was condensed into a few minutes, perhaps seconds.... I don't remember. The chair, the helmet, the pick-ups, the darkness, the scraps of conversation about scales, visuality, the certain ciphers accompanied by familiar Greek letters - perhaps pi or psi - and finally Boundlessness, blackness, and the coloured mist swirling upward. A DAY IN THE PAST The swirling stopped, the mist acquired a transparency and dullish grey shade resembling a spring rather than a winter morning. I could see a cluttered yard all in puddles that were sheeted with bluish ice, also the dirty-red crust on the melting snow by a fence and a dark green van right beside me. The back doors were wide open. A heavy blow on the back knocked me to the ground. I fell into a puddle, the ice crackled, and the left sleeve of my quilted jacket was wet through. "Aufstehen!" came a cry from behind. I got up with difficulty, hardly keeping my legs, and before I could look behind me another blow on the spine threw me against the van. Somebody's hand reached out from its dark maw, caught me and pulled me inside. The doors were immediately clapped to, and the heavy bolts clanged. Then I heard the purr of a motor, the metallic creaking of the van, and the crunch of ice under its wheels. As it turned sharply, I fell over and hit my head on a bench. I groaned. And again the familiar hands reached for me, raised me and sat me on the bench. In the semi-darkness around us, I couldn't make out the face of the man sitting opposite. "Hold on to the bench," he warned. "The road here is God knows what." "Where are we?" I asked, in what seemed to me to be a strange voice, hollow and hoarse. "Perfectly clear where. In the death car." My neighbour sniffed the air. "No-o-o.... It seems there's no smell. So they're taking us to confession." "Where are we?" I asked again. "What town?" "Kolpinsk. Regional centre before. Look out the small window - and you'll see." I stretched up toward the little square opening, unpaned, with three iron bars across it. Past the small opening flashed by a water-pump, an entrance path to the gap in a fence, one-storey squat cottages, a sign on a second-hand store printed in black on a yellow matting, then naked poplars by the curb of a muddy pavement. The deserted little street stretched out, long and unsightly. The rare passers-by, it seemed, were in no hurry. "You'll have to excuse me," I told my companion, "apparently something's happened to my memory." "Not only the memory suffers here - they kill the soul," he replied briskly. "I can't remember a thing. What year it is, or the month, the day.... Don't be afraid, I'm not crazy." "I'm not afraid of anything now. Besides, it's easier dealing with a lunatic than a Judas. This is a hard year - forty-three. It's either the very end of January or the beginning of February. There's no use remembering what day it is, it's all one for we won't live till morning. What's your cell number?" "I don't know," I answered. "Six, probably. Yesterday they brought in a pilot that was shot down. Right from the town hospital. Patched him up and brought him in. Was that you?" I was silent. Now I remembered how it was, or rather how it might have been. In January of forty-three, I was flying home from the Skripkin pine forest in the partisan area north-west of the Dnieper. Somewhere near Kolpinsk we had run into heavy flak from a German anti-aircraft battery. The plane broke out of it almost by a miracle and made home base safely. But in this phase of space-time, we probably hadn't got through. And it was probably the wounded passenger who was taken to the town hospital and not the pilot. From the hospital to cell six, and from there to 'confession' as my companion called it. What he meant needed no exact definition. We didn't talk any more, and only when the van stopped and the bolts clattered on the doors did he whisper something in my ear, but what it was I couldn't make out and never managed to ask. He had already jumped onto the road and, pushing aside the convoy, helped me down. A blow on the back from a gun stock threw him toward the entrance. I followed him, and the German soldiers hurried along beside us screaming shrilly: "Schnell! Schnell!" We were separated on the ground floor. My companion - I never even got a look at his face - was led off somewhere down the corridor. And I was dragged upstairs to the first floor, literally dragged, because every kick was for me a knockdown. So it went on till I got to a room with blue wallpaper where a fat blond officer sat behind a desk, his boyish blue eyes matching the paper. His black SS-jacket fitted him like a schoolboy's uniform, and he himself was like the plump schoolboy pictured in German confectionery shop advertisements. "You have the right to sit down. Right here. Here," he repeated in German and pointed at a plush chair by the table. The chair must have been requisitioned from the