e seaside
promenade and vanished. That was the last they saw of her.
     The two men turned oft the bustling avenue into quiet Cooper Lane.
     "Will you  come  in  for  a  while?"  Nikolai asked, stopping under  an
archway that led into a courtyard.
     "Can you lend me something to read?"
     "Of course I can."
     They crossed the  yard diagonally. It  was a yard  they  had known from
childhood, with  a glassed-in gallery running the length  of the  two-storey
house. An outside  stairway supported by iron posts, down which  it had been
so convenient and pleasant to  slide, led up to the top floor. In the cellar
the children used to hunt for buried treasure and hide from pursuit, sending
arrows flying through the air.
     Yura  and Nikolai had grown up in this  wonderful courtyard which could
be turned,  in the twinkling  of an  eye,  into a prairie  or the deck  of a
frigate. Here they  had invented  their earliest games and read their  first
books. They had raced about the  yard, shooting  arrows  from their bows and
lassoing the rubber plants set out for watering.
     One  of the ground-floor tenants  in  those days was a sailor. The boys
used to gaze respectfully at his black cap with its gold emblem and the gold
stripes on his sleeve. The sailor would be away for weeks at a lime, leaving
behind,  at home,  a  live turtle and a daughter  with freckles  and  yellow
braids.
     Although girls were  not invited to play Red  Indians, Yura and Nikolai
made an exception in the case of the sailor's daughter. Yellow Lynx, as they
named her, could run like the wind and slide down the stairway posts  like a
cat.  She did  not cry  when they  pulled  her by  her braids.  She  plunged
courageously into courtyard battles, using her fingernails  and screaming in
a high, piercing voice.
     Besides the  live  turtle there were  other  interesting things in  the
sailor's flat. A  real dirk hung on one wall  and a barometer on another. On
the desk, beside  a bronze inkwell,  lay two pieces of iron  with mysterious
letters carved on them. Yellow Lynx and the boys resolved that some day they
would discover the meaning of those mysterious letters.
     The sailor and his daughter  left for Leningrad  early in the spring of
1941.  Nikolai copied a picture  from  a volume of Pushkin's Tales showing a
ship with a huge taut sail decorated  with a drawing of the sun, approaching
a wharf  on which men in  old-fashioned long robes  were firing cannons.  He
presented it to Yellow Lynx  as a  farewell  gift. They were both about nine
years old at the time.
     Soon after, a  husky young man by  the name  of  Bugrov,  whom the boys
addressed  as Uncle  Vova, moved into the  sailor's  flat.  He  had  a  blue
motorcycle on  which he  sometimes  took the  boys riding. What  is more, he
taught them the Greco-Roman style of wrestling. A circus poster on the  wall
of  the  new tenant's  room  showed  him among the  other  performers,  very
handsome and muscular in black tights, his chest bulging.
     When the war broke out Uncle Vova locked up his flat and went into  the
army. Nikolai's  father,  who worked at a railway-carriage  repair shop, was
also drafted. Yura's  father, an  oil refinery engineer,  was  given a draft
deferment.
     Now  the  boys  played  army  scouts  and guerrillas.  Life  was  hard,
especially  for Nikolai and  his mother, who was a nurse and worked day  and
night at an army hospital.
     Nikolai's father was killed in a battle on the Dnieper River.
     After  seven years  of schooling Nikolai told his mother that he wanted
to go to work. She tried to persuade him to stay in school but  he would not
be  moved. Yura's father found a job for  Nikolai as an apprentice fitter in
the oil  refinery's  maintenance  shop and persuaded  him  to  attend  night
school.
     Soon after, Yura's family moved to another part of town and Nikolai was
left without  a playmate. But this did not matter because he had no time for
play.
     Yura felt that fate had  been unkind to him for making him sit over his
books  all through the war  instead of letting him fight the Nazis. Besides,
he  envied Nikolai's hands,  with  their traces of grease and metallic dust.
And so, after finishing the eighth grade at school Yura went to work in  the
maintenance shop, side by side with Nikolai. They went through  night school
together and then entered the evening department of a college. Shortly after
graduating with degrees  in  engineering the two young men were  assigned to
jobs  in the Oil  Transportation Research Institute, where they worked under
Boris Privalov.
     They  crossed  the  courtyard, climbed  the  stairs,  walked  down  the
glassed-in  gallery and  entered  Nikolai's  room. There,  it was pleasantly
cool.  Bookshelves  lined the  wall  above  Nikolai's  desk.  A photographic
enlarger stood on the  floor in  a corner of the  room, like a  stork on one
leg.
     Yura picked up the  underwater gun Nikolai was  making and examined it.
"The spring's a bit tight."
     "No, it's just right," said Nikolai. "Can't have it any looser."
     "If you finish it by Sunday we can do some shooting."
     "We're racing on Sunday."
     "Why, so we are. I forgot." Yura stretched out luxuriously on the sofa.
     "I want you to look at this," said Nikolai, producing several sheets of
paper covered with sketches and figures  from a drawer of the desk. "What do
you think of it?"
     Yura glanced at the sketches. "They  look like pears." He yawned. "Take
these drawings away. I'm too lazy to think."
     "But first listen. Remember that conversation about surface tension and
the interesting idea Privalov suggested?" "He told us to forget it."
     Nikolai  lost his temper.  "You're an  idiot! I can't  discuss anything
with you nowadays. All you can think of is Val."
     "You're  the  idiot," Yura replied cheerfully. "All  right, let's  have
it."
     Nikolai turned on the fan. "What shape does  a liquid  have?" he asked,
lighting a cigarette.
     Yura lifted his eyebrows. "It takes the shape of the vessel  into which
it's poured. Primitive man guessed that much."
     "Very well. Now  take a  drop of  liquid. What  keeps  the liquid  in a
droplet? Surface tension. No vessel is  needed. A sphere is the ideal  shape
of  a minimum surface. But a droplet is not spherical. The  earth's  gravity
gives it a bulge, making it pear-shaped."
     "In short, a drop-like shape." "Exactly."
     There was a knock on the door. A tall, husky man in a white singlet and
blue  jeans entered. He had a broad, heavy-jawed face, and there was a  tuft
of red hair on top of his head.
     "Caught you  in at  last, Nikolai," he  said in  a deep, hoarse  voice.
"Where've you been hiding?"
     "What can  I do for you,  Uncle Vova?" Nikolai asked. "I want to borrow
your aqualung for a couple of days."
     "My diving gear?"
     "Don't worry,  you'll  get it  back  in  perfect  condition,"  he  said
reassuringly, 'I'll refill the cylinders too."
     "All right, take it,"
     Uncle Vova picked up the aqualung and inspected it.
     "Fine workmanship," he remarked. "Thanks."
     "When did you return?" asked Nikolai.
     "Sunday. By the way,  I saw you pull that girl out of the sea. You made
a neat job of it."
     "Why, it looks as though the whole town saw it."
     "Really?" Uncle Vova pricked up his ears. "Who else?"
     "The whole ship. You were on the Uzbekistan too, weren't you?"
     "Oh,  I don't give a damn  about  the  Uzbekistan"  Uncle Vova  replied
vaguely. "Well, I'm off." He nodded and went out.
     "Now Yura, listen  to  what-" At this point Nikolai noticed  that Yura,
his long legs hanging over the  edge of the sofa,  was sound asleep. Nikolai
shook him  by  the shoulder.  Yura jerked  a leg and  pushed his friend away
without opening his eyes.
     "Wake  up this  instant or  I'll shake  the  life  out of you!" Nikolai
shouted.
     Yura  opened his  eyes. "I  must  have dozed for a moment," he remarked
with a conciliatory smile.
     "You certainly did. Get off the sofa."
     "I'm more comfortable  on it. You can  continue talking.  We stopped on
droplets being droplet-shaped. It sounds fascinating."
     "Are you trying to be funny?"
     "Not 'for the world."
     "Then listen. The size  of a  droplet depends on  the  magnitude of the
surface  tension. In the  case of water"-Nikolai glanced at his notes-  "the
surface  tension is 72.8 ergs per square centimetre. The surface tension  of
alcohol is a little more than 22 ergs."
     "What is it for mercury?"
     "Mercury? Just a minute." Nikolai took down a thick reference book from
a shelf and leafed through it. "Just listen to  this! The surface tension of
mercury is 470 ergs. That's terrific!"
     "You  can increase the tension  by passing an  electric current through
the  mercury. Don't  you  remember reading about  that  old  'mercury heart'
experiment?"
     "Why, that's right. Thanks for recalling it, Yura."
     Yura made a regal gesture. "Think nothing of it."
     "We'll set  mercury aside  for the  time  being,"  said  Nikolai.  "Now
consider  the following. Have you noticed the way water runs along telegraph
wires in the rain?"
     "An intriguing sight, isn't it?"
     "The flow has a droplet-like cross-section," Nikolai went  on. "Suppose
we use an electric ray instead of a wire. The ray creates a field. The field
increases the surface tension, and the cross-section builds up."
     "Better not tangle with  fields,  old man. You and  I  don't  know much
about them."
     "We  won't  really tangle with  them. All we need is  a  high-frequency
generator."
     "Let's have a look  at  those papers," said Yura after  a pause.  "What
does this diagram represent?"
     Nikolai sat down on the sofa beside him.
     "Look here," he said. "We'll string up an inclined wire  and send water
down it to a vessel at the bottom.  Since we know the time and the amount of
water we'll be  able to calculate the speed at which it moves. We'll measure
the cross-section of the droplets and calculate their  surface tension. Then
we'll put a spiral round the wire-"
     "I get the point-a  resonance circuit  and  superimposed  frequencies."
Yura sprang to his feet. "Give me some wire!"
     Nikolai's grey eyes wrinkled in a  smile.  Once  Yura was hooked on  an
idea his energy knew no bounds.
     Yura pulled off his shirt, tossed  his hair back  off his  forehead and
produced a screwdriver from  his pocket. It  was his  favourite screwdriver,
for which he had made  a hollow plastic  handle, with  a neon indicator lamp
inside  it, in his student days. He  carried the  screwdriver  everywhere he
went. Like Roland's sword, it had a name of its own. It was called Durandal.
     "We'll disembowel your radio set  for a start," Yura  said.  "But don't
worry,  we'll only remove the input circuit. And the heterodyne." He  turned
the set  Over on its side and went at it  with  his screwdriver. "We'll take
out the giblets. Don't just stand there, Nick. Go out on the gallery and put
the wire up."
     Working away busily,  Yura  went on.  "A great  man once  said the true
experimenter can set up any kind of experiment with three sticks, a piece of
rubber, a glass tube, and some of his own saliva."


        CHAPTER FIVE

        IN WHICH THE READER GETS TO KNOW ANATOLE BENEDICTOV BETTER

     Anatole  Benedictov  switched  on  the  motor.  The belt  drive made  a
rustling sound and  the  glass  disc of the electrostatic machine  began  to
revolve. Blue sparks crackled.
     A round aquarium  on the  table  had wire wound around it,  with  thick
copper tubing  on top of the wire.  A  copper disc  hung above  the aquarium
parallel  with the surface of  the water.  Small fish  darted  about  in the
greenish water.
     Benedictov turned the  levers  of  the  valve oscillator. Then,  slowly
tightening a screw, he brought the copper disc close to the water.
     The fish  stopped  darting about. They seemed to fall asleep instantly.
Benedictov looked at his watch, dropped heavily into an armchair and  closed
his eyes.
     The room was  shrouded in semi-darkness. Rita sat on the  sofa. A black
cat lay at her feet.
     "You   ought  to  give  up  these   experiments,  Anatole,"   she  said
thoughtfully. "You're biting off more than you can chew."
     "It's too late, Rita. I can't give up now."
     There was a silence. The electricity crackled. The fish in the aquarium
slept.
     "Why  do you keep  experimenting with living creatures, Anatole?"  Rita
asked, leaning forward. "Your old-time predecessors used inorganic matter."
     "You know why. Living matter  gives  me something a piece of wood  or a
chunk of metal never could. It gives me action potentials."
     "But the knife is lost. How can you continue experimenting without it?"
     "I don't know. I need that knife all the time." Benedictov paused, then
added,  "Did you  actually see it fall overboard? Could someone in the crowd
have grabbed it?"
     "No, it went overboard. I dived after it at once, but the knife sank to
the bottom."
     "What  a  thing  to have happened!"  Benedictov rubbed his  shaggy head
furiously.
     The doorbell  rang. When Rita opened  the door she found a husky man in
blue overalls and a cap pulled down over his eyes standing there.
     "I'm from the municipal  electricity board,"  he said.  "I've  come  to
inspect the wiring."
     "Step in," said Rita. "The meter's over there."
     The electrician removed the fuses and inspected them.
     "These have to be replaced," he said. "They're defective."
     "Rita!" Benedictov called from his  room. "Why  did you switch  off the
electricity?"
     "Hurry up and put those fuses back," Rita told the electrician.
     "Are you in a hurry to be fined?" said the electrician, but he put back
the  fuses. "Where's  the  Õkitchen?" He went  through  the  rooms, his head
tipped  back, looking at the  wiring. Suddenly he stopped short. "Is  that a
motor running?" he asked. "Got a license for it?"
     "Rita!" Benedictov called impatiently.
     "Excuse  me  a moment,"  Rita  said to  the  electrician  as she turned
towards Benedictov's study.
     The electrician heard her explaining what the matter was. A man's voice
said, "To hell with him! Let him look. Here, hold this fish."
     "Ouch!" Rita exclaimed.
     The electrician glanced into the room in time to see the woman drop the
fish and a big black cat spring to seize it.
     "Shoo!" cried Benedictov.
     The electrician jumped back from  the doorway as the  cat, covered with
blue sparks and screeching piteously, dashed into the passage. Its fur stood
on  end,  the  sparks   crackling.  The  cat  ran   frenziedly  between  the
electrician's legs, received a kick, and bounded down the passage.
     "The cat thought I tossed the fish to her," Rita said with a  laugh  as
she came out of the study. "Have you finished looking things over?"
     Benedictov followed his wife into the passage.
     "Who are you?" he asked the electrician in alarm. "What do you want?"
     "I  ought to  fine  you for such  goings-on,"  the  electrician growled
hoarsely, tugging  his cap down over his forehead. He  strode to  the  door,
pulled it open and went out, slamming the door behind him.


     After the war Bugrov returned home to  his  flat in Cooper Lane where a
circus poster, now yellowed, still hung on the wall beside his bed.
     Soon  afterwards he married  a stately,  imperious woman named Claudia.
She hid the poster in the lower drawer of the bureau, placed little rugs and
embroidered cushions here, there and everywhere.
     Bugrov  did not return to the circus. He obtained a medical certificate
stating that he was a disabled veteran and began to make spring dynamometers
at home for a small producers' co-operative of disabled war veterans.
     When  Bugrov  saw Benedictov's strange knife on board the Uzbekistan on
his way home from a holiday on the Volga he immediately realized that such a
knife could  be a  gold mine in a  circus act. He carefully noted  the place
where the  woman  in red had dived overboard. When  the passengers from  the
Uzbekistan went ashore he took a taxi and followed Benedictov to his home.
     Bugrov hesitated for several  days  before finally  deciding  on direct
action to learn whether  the man still had the knife or whether it  had sunk
to the bottom of the Caspian.
     "It was a  waste of time," Bugrov thought gloomily  as he walked to the
trolleybus stop. "I didn't learn anything about  the  knife.  All  I did was
tangle with a cat."  Recalling the black cat  covered with sparks he spat on
the ground in fury.
     Vova  Bugrov  did  not  know  that cats  possess  excellent  electrical
properties, although they could hardly be a source of electric power. It has
been estimated that if 1,500  million cats were stroked simultaneously  they
would generate a mere 15 watts.
     "But maybe  it wasn't a complete loss,  after all," Bugrov reflected in
the trolleybus. "The cat's owner  was out of sorts. He swore  and shouted at
his wife. He might have  been upset because the knife sank into the sea. Why
didn't I grab it?  I should have kept my eye on the handle. Well, I'll  have
to search the sea bottom."
     Bugrov fell into a daydream about a wonderful  circus  act.  The day he
arrived in  a small town posters would be pasted  on all  the fences showing
Bugrov in a red robe-no, a green robe would perhaps  be better-and a turban,
with a knife piercing his  throat. "Famous Fakir so-and-so" the poster would
read. He'd  have  to  think up a  good  name for himself. The hall  would be
jammed to the rafters as he, Vova, emerged on the stage in a green  robe, or
maybe a black robe.
     He'd have to  borrow  his neighbour's scuba  gear  and do some  diving.
There was no  silt in that place. Just  sand. He was sure he  would find the
knife.
     Bugrov pushed  his  cap  to  the back  of his  head  and  winked at his
reflection in the trolleybus window.


        CHAPTER SIX

        IN WHICH NIKOLAI OPRATIN TAKES THE BULL BY THE HORNS

     Nikolai Opratin  saw Benedictov as soon  as he opened the door into the
laboratory. Corpulent and dishevelled, the biophysicist stood beside a table
around which ran  a  thick  copper  coil. He was unfastening  the harness in
which a brown and white dog hung. When he set the dog on the  floor it shook
itself and began to sniff angrily at the experimenter's feet.
     "Good morning," Opratin said.
     "What do you want?" Benedictov asked coldly.
     "Your advice about fish."
     Benedictov turned away. "Ask someone else."
     "I'm sorry about that argument we had on board the ship," Opratin  said
softly. "I'm ready to take back my words."
     The biophysicist was silent. Then  he  nodded  in the direction of  the
glass partition  at  the  end  of the  laboratory. "Come this  way," he said
jerkily.
     They  sat down opposite each other at a  table  covered with papers and
blocks of paraffin cut into cubes.
     "The problem we're working on is the level of the Caspian, that is, how
to raise  it," Opratin  explained. "We  plan a series of experiments  in the
course of which  ionized water  will appear in the sea. My question is:  how
will this affect the fish?"
     Benedictov gave a cough but said nothing.
     "Our  Institute  will of course  get in touch officially  with  yours,"
Opratin went on, his gaze fixed on Benedictov's face. "But I'd like to know,
ahead of time-"
     "What  are your ionization figures?" Benedictov asked,  moving closer a
spirit lamp on which stood a nickel-plated tray.
     The conversation  faltered. Benedictov answered  questions in unwilling
monosyllables. He coughed and squirmed in his chair. His bloodshot eyes were
evasive.
     Suddenly he rose, murmured an  excuse, and left  the room. Opratin  let
his eyes  roam over the table. He noticed an empty glass ampoule. As he read
the Latin inscription on it his thin lips twisted in an ironic smile.
     Benedictov returned  looking a completely  different man,  fresh-faced,
cheerful, with sparkling eyes.
     "Please continue," he said on his way to his desk.
     "Look  here,"  said  Opratin softly. "Did you  try  to  magnetize  that
knife?"
     Benedictov stopped  short. Opratin's pale  blue eyes stared steadily at
him without blinking. Benedictov felt acutely uncomfortable.
     "What's it to you?" he muttered.
     The ensuing silence lasted several seconds. Benedictov was the first to
lower his eyes.
     "Sit down,"  Opratin said.  "I'm not asking out of idle curiosity. I've
been thinking a lot about your  knife and  it seems to me I've guessed a few
things. Can it be magnetized?"
     "Suppose it can? So what?"
     "This is extremely important. Don't look at me as if you wanted to tear
me to pieces. I've come here to help you."
     "I don't need any help."
     Opratin  let  this remark pass. "Did  you  measure the knife's electric
resistance?"  he  asked.  "Did  you test  it  for  use  as  the  core  of an
electromagnet?"
     Benedictov had not done that either.
     "Did you try it on a voltaic arc?"
     Benedictov shook his head thoughtfully.
     "How does the knife react to chemical substances?"
     He  flung  question  after  question  at  Benedictov.  Benedictov  gave
reluctant replies. He had not performed  half of the tests about  which this
uninvited inspector was asking him.
     "Well, well,"  said  Opratin. He  smoothed  his thinning hair.  "To all
appearances, my dear man, you have followed the wrong path."
     "What path I follow is my own business," Benedictov growled.
     "Yes, to be sure." Opratin drummed his fingers on the table.  "You're a
biologist and I'm a  physicist. Don't you  think  that if we combined forces
we'd reach the goal faster?"
     Benedictov said nothing.
     "I won't lay claim to any of your laurels. I just want to help you. All
I'm interested in are the scientific results." Opratin looked searchingly at
Benedictov. "What do you say?"
     The biophysicist glanced out of the window. "Damn it!" he said flatly.


        CHAPTER SEVEN

        IN WHICH A REGATTA BRINGS THREE OF THE CHARACTERS STRAIGHT TO THE PLACE
WHERE THE AUTHORS WANTED THEM TO BE

     Early  Sunday morning Nikolai  Potapkin ran down the steps and out into
the courtyard, swinging his little suitcase. The  sleeves of his white shirt
were  rolled up above the  elbows, his open  collar exposed  a tanned chest.
Glancing up at the cloudless sky, he  shook his head. Not a breath of  wind!
Yet this was  the day of the big  regatta. He arrived at the  marina to find
preparations  in progress only on the centreboard and Star  class boats, for
which  even  a  slight breeze  would be enough. The crews  of the L-4 boats,
discouraged  by the absence of wind, were gathered in their  cabins in front
of TV sets watching a children's programme.
     Nikolai  found  Yura  sitting  on the edge of the  pier in  his bathing
trunks, his long arms wrapped round his knees, singing a song from an Indian
film in a mournful voice.  He sat down beside Yura  and took up the refrain.
They sang until dockmaster  Mehti stuck his  head out of the window  of  the
boathouse  and  begged  them  to  stop.  "This  isn't  an  opera-house,"  he
complained.
     "You shouldn't have lent uncle  Vova your scuba  gear,"  Yura  remarked
after a while. "We could have done some diving."
     "Why not come over to my place if the races are cancelled? We might try
to change the pitch of the spiral."
     "I don't want to."
     "Why not?" Nikolai  looked at his friend. "Ah, yes, of  course. A  date
with Val."
     "No, I-"
     "Then what the devil-"
     "Nothing  will come of it, Nick. The surfaces of substances are  a hazy
subject. If famous scientists don't know how to handle them, then what's the
use of us trying?"
     "You needn't if you don't want to. I'll get along without you."
     "You can't.  At  least  I know my  way about electronics, which is more
than you can say."
     "Anyway,  I won't  give up.  There  must be a  field in  which  surface
tension increases."
     "A field!"  Yura  repeated  derisively. "'Oh,  field,  broad field, who
strewed you with whitened bones?'"
     Boris Privalov came up to the young  men. "Good morning,  boys. Doesn't
look as though there'll be any racing today, does it?"
     "The  races haven't been officially called off yet," said Yura.  "We're
waiting. Take a seat."
     The three of them sat side by side on the pier,  dangling their feet in
the water, the sun warming their backs, waiting for the wind to come up.
     "Do you recall our talk about surface tension, Boris?" Nikolai asked in
a determined voice.
     The sun flashed  on Privalov's glasses as he turned to look at Nikolai.
"Yes, I do."
     "Well, it's  like  this."  Nikolai launched  into a description of  the
experiment with water and a wire, and  mentioned the spiral and the  desired
field.
     Privalov listened closely, frowning and screwing up his eyes.
     "It's amateurish," he said  finally.  "You can't go in for that sort of
thing  without thorough preparation. There's a  book by Adam  on the physics
and chemistry of surfaces. I'll lend it to you." He was silent for a  while.
"Besides, at the  moment  we  have  more than  enough work on our hands, and
later there will be a pipeline across the whole of the Caspian."
     "I've been hearing about a transcaspian pipeline for years," said Yura.
"We're beginning to wonder whether it will ever be built."
     "It will. I forgot to ask you yesterday, Nikolai,  if you went over  to
Opratin's."
     "Yes, I did."
     "See anything interesting?"
     "Not particularly.  I think  they're  setting  up  a big  electrostatic
installation."
     "Electrostatic, you say?" Privalov looked thoughtful.
     Yura sprang to his feet. "A wind! A wind's coming up!"
     A light southerly sea breeze ruffled the surface of the bay and rustled
in  the trees along Seaside Boulevard. The flag of the Chief Judge fluttered
tautly.
     A ship's bell tinkled. The class M flag was run up.
     "The  centreboard boats are getting ready," Yura said excitedly. "If it
blows a little stronger the keel boats can follow suit. Let's go."
     After  the centreboards the  Star  class  boats started off.  There was
enough wind for these small, light boats which carried a great deal of sail.
     The wind freshened, and half an hour later boats of the L-4  class were
announced. Soon the steady ringing of a ship's bell informed the competitors
that five minutes were left before the start.
     Ah, those last five  minutes! What a tricky business it was getting  as
close to  the starting line  as possible within those five  minutes, but not
crossing it ahead of time!
     Four rings of the bell  meant four minutes were left, then  three, two,
and one. Finally, a quick ringing of the bell gave the signal for the start.
Beating  against  the  wind,  the  boats  entered  the   first  lap  of  the
fifteen-mile course.
     Wind filled the sails as the sheet, held in strong hands, quivered; the
sea whispered to the boats sliding through it;  the sun bathed everything in
gold against the blue of the sea.
     The  Mekong  was  among  the first  to  round  the mark.  Following  an
advantageous course, it  approached its closest  rival on  a parallel course
windward, but  the other boat did not  let the  Mekong overtake it.  In  the
excitement  both crews forgot about the other competitors. When  the  Mekong
finally  forged ahead, the  crews discovered that almost all the other boats
had overtaken both of them, were rounding  the  second buoy and were raising
their spinnakers,  the  big triangular sails  used when  running  before the
wind.
     Yura, who  was  sitting  on  the  deck, raised  himself  on  one  knee.
"Obstacle ahead!" he shouted. "Two boats lying at anchor!"
     When  the  Mekong came closer they saw a man in a straw  hat sitting in
one of the boats. They  could hear  the motor running, but the  boat was not
moving.
     The second boat, some distance away, was empty.
     "Ahoy there!" Yura shouted, leaning over the side. "Watch out!"
     Just  then the  wind  died down,  prompting  the thought that Nature is
sometimes actively hostile to man. Why else should the wind die down at noon
on a Sunday just when a regatta is at its height?
     The  sails  flapped  several  times  and  then  hung limp.  The  Mekong
continued to move  forward a short  distance by inertia  before coming  to a
full stop about half a cable length from the motor-boat.
     "Well,  all we  can  do now  is  sunbathe.  What a  race!" said Yura in
disgust. Whistling  softly, he scratched the boom with his fingernails, then
threw a ten-kopek  coin overboard. But these century-old  remedies failed to
call up a wind.
     "I've done  everything I can," Yura announced. Then he stretched out on
the deck and began to sing in a doleful voice:

     The river flows but it doesn't flow;
     The day got off to a bad start.
     How can I tell you what's in my heart?
     But I think you probably know.

     Nikolai  glanced  at  the  distant  shore  and  the refrigeration plant
outlined against the blue sky.
     "Why,"  he said wonderingly,  "I  believe  this is  the spot  where  we
rescued that young woman in the red dress."
     All  of a sudden silence  descended as the motor  of the boat ahead was
switched off. They heard an angry voice say:
     "I came here first. Everything I find here is mine."
     "Don't be silly," another  voice  said. "The sea doesn't belong to you.
It belongs to everyone."
     "I'll show you who it belongs to!"
     The motorboat rocked as the man in the straw hat waved his arms.
     "I  wonder  who he's talking  to?"  Nikolai looked more closely at  the
motorboat. Then he fetched his binoculars from the cabin and trained them on
the  straw hat.  "Just what I  thought. The voice sounded  familiar.  That's
Opratin."
     "Give him my regards," Privalov said.
     "Damn it!"  Nikolai  exclaimed. "You  spoke of wanting  the scuba gear,
Yura. Well, there it is."
     Taking the  binoculars, Yura clearly saw Bugrov's big head in the water
beside  the  motorboat. The mask was pushed up on Vova's forehead and he was
clinging to the boat with one hand.
     Yura  lowered the  binoculars.  "You're right. The  diving  gear is  in
danger. It looks as though they want to drown each other."
     "I'd like to know what they're doing here," said Nikolai. "Do you mind,
Boris, if I take a short swim?"
     "Don't be too long. The wind may come up any minute."
     "I'll be back soon." With  these words Nikolai plunged into the sea and
swam towards the motorboat.
     "Come, Yura," said Privalov, lighting a cigarette and letting the smoke
out through his nostrils, "tell me about your experiments once again."
     That morning Nikolai Opratin had spent more than an hour on  the  small
wharf belonging  to the Institute of Marine Physics. He had attached a cable
drum to the side of an Institute motor-boat and had wound on it a thin cable
with a strong electromagnet at its end.
     Anatole Benedictov had said the knife could be magnetized.  If this was
so, then he, Opratin,  would find  it. How stupid that the knife should have
fallen overboard!  And  what  a scene Benedictov  had made  on deck! Opratin
recalled the glass ampoule on the biophysicist's desk. A drug addict.
     Yet without that scene  on  deck he, Opratin, would not have learned of
the existence of the mysterious knife. A drop of common sense in a barrel of
nonsense.
     Opratin finished equipping  the boat, started up the motor, and chugged
out of the bay.
     The  sea heaved lazily beneath the hot August sun. The red cone of  the
fairway buoy with a big white "18" painted  on it rocked on the surface. The
TV mast was at  Opratin's stern and the refrigeration plant on the left.  He
turned the boat a few degrees to starboard.
     Now this must be the place. This was where Benedictov's wife had fallen
overboard after the knife had dropped into the sea. An interesting woman, no
doubt about that. Had she fallen or had she jumped?
     An empty boat bobbed in  the water about  twenty metres away. Where was
the owner?  Had  he drowned? Or had  the boat torn free  of its moorings and
drifted out of the bay? Opratin was not in the least interested. He pushed a
lever which  switched the motor's drive from the propeller to a generator to
which the cable with the electromagnet was attached. The cable wound off the
drum  into the  water. Opratin wondered  how soon his particular  fish would
bite.
     At  the  end  of  the  cable  was  an electromagnetic  underwater probe
connected with an ultrasonic range-finder. The zigzagging green  line on the
oscillograph screen would  show  the  shape of metallic objects  on the  sea
floor.  If Opratin wanted  some  object he could switch on the electromagnet
and pick it up.
     Using the oars,  Opratin  slowly moved the boat back and forth, combing
the place.  Suddenly the cable  jerked. Bubbles rose  to the surface, then a
huge hand was thrust out of  the water, followed by a head, the face covered
by a mask. The mask was connected by a hose to a cylinder on the man's back.
     The diver closed the valve of the aqualung and pushed the mask up  onto
his  forehead, revealing a  broad  face with a heavy jaw. Opratin recognized
him at once. He  was the man who had tried to take the knife from Benedictov
aboard the Uzbekistan. It  was obvious why he was at this particular spot in
the sea. An unpleasant situation.
     While the diver coughed and spat  out water Opratin decided to take the
offensive.
     "Hey you, there!" he shouted. "Why the devil did you pull my cable?"
     "You'll soon find out!" came the  answer in a threatening tone. The man
swam over to Opratin's motorboat, reached up to grip its side, and let loose
a stream  of obscenities that set Opratin's teeth on edge. The  substance of
Bugrov's  monologue  was  that  law-abiding citizens could  not  go  in  for
skin-diving on  their day off because "others"-a word which Bugrov proceeded
to define-played all kinds of dirty tricks on them.
     Bugrov had been combing the area in circles. He would  anchor his boat,
dive down and swim around  in a circle,  studying  the  firmly-packed  sandy
bottom.  His supply  of  air was almost  half  used up when  he saw  a black
cylinder suspended from a cable slowly moving over the bottom. He swam up to
the cylinder and  tugged at it, gripping the place where it was  attached to
the cable. An electric shock galvanized him, and he tore his hand away  with
difficulty. Dazed and angered, he headed for the surface.
     Bugrov had been having bad luck with electricity lately.
     "Get going, quick-before I turn your tub upside down!" he roared.
     Opratin  did  not want any  trouble,  the more so that  a  sailboat was
approaching.  He moved  over to the stern  and  said  in a  placative  tone,
"Listen, how was I to know you were swimming here?"
     "Couldn't you see my boat? Stop acting innocent, you scum!"
     They wrangled  for another  few  minutes, until Opratin realized he was
being foolish  and  would have  to get  rid of the man  some  other  way. He
switched off the motor,  gave  the becalmed sailboat a fleeting  glance, and
said,  "I know what  you're  looking for, but  you'll never find it with  an
aqualung."
     Bugrov blinked in disbelief.
     "D'you take me for a  fool?" he asked  hoarsely. "Get out! I  came here
first. Everything I find here is mine."
     "Don't  be  silly!  The  sea  doesn't belong  to  you.  It  belongs  to
everyone."
     "I'll show you  who it belongs to!" Bugrov began to rock the motorboat.
Opratin had to throw out his arms to keep his balance.
     "All right, I'm leaving," Opratin said, strongly tempted to hit the man
over the head with  his anchor. "But you'll  never  see that knife.  You can
take my word for it as a scientist."
     This  made  an impression  on Bugrov,  who  had  a  deep  faith in  the
omnipotence of science.
     "Are you  looking for the knife too?"  he  asked in  what was almost  a
civil tone.
     "There, that's the  way  to talk," said Opratin. "Yes, I am. If I don't
find it I'll make one just like it."
     Bugrov gave the face under the straw hat a thoughtful glance.
     "I'm apt  to be quick-tempered," he said.  "Maybe  I said some things I
shouldn't have."
     Opratin gave a wry grin.


     Nikolai quickly covered the hundred metres or  so to the motorboat in a
noiseless breast stroke. As  he  approached it he  heard Bugrov say,  "All I
want is the knife. I'm willing to make sacrifices for science."
     "I'm glad to hear it," said Opratin.
     "I am what  I am," Bugrov said modestly. "Will I be going to the island
often?"
     "No, not very."
     "There's  a  fishery nearby.  I can get caviar  cheap  there."  He fell
silent, his head filled with visions of future profits.
     At that  moment  Opratin caught  sight of  Nikolai  beside the boat. He
removed his dark glasses to take a better look.
     "Is that you?"  he  asked  with  a pleasant smile. "What  an unexpected
encounter!"
     "Hi, there," called  Bugrov,  recognizing his neighbour. "Where" d  you
drop from?"
     "That  sailboat,"  Nikolai  caught hold of  the motorboat's  life line.
"We're becalmed, so I decided to take a swim."
     An awkward silence followed.
     "I'll  be on my way," said Bugrov,  pushing off from the motorboat. "Do
you want your scuba gear now?"
     "No," said Nikolai. "Bring it to me at home."
     Bugrov swam back to his rowboat.
     "I see you know him," remarked Opratin.
     "Yes, we live in the same house." Nikolai stared  at the generator, the
face plate of the cathode-ray tube of the oscillograph and the drum with the
cable running into the sea.
     Opratin smiled. "How I envy you. Sailing is a wonderful  sport. But  I,
as you can see, have to carry out investigations on Sundays too."
     "Yes, I  see," said Nikolai, trying feverishly to make out what sort of
cable it was. "Well, good luck."
     He pushed off from the motorboat and swam back to the sailboat. If only
he had known the circumstances under which he would cling to the  life  line
of that motorboat a second time!


        CHAPTER EIGHT

        IN WHICH PRIVALOV ACQUIRES A NEW ALLY

     The  wheel now worked well. Unwinding the "spool", a tug  had laid  the
first  pipeline  to Neftianiye Reefs.  The pressure trials  completed,  they
returned  home towards  evening. At this  time of day  there  was  not  much
traffic on the road, which ran between  vineyards, with  oil derricks beyond
them, and their sleek grey car made good time.
     Privalov  relaxed  in the  back  seat,  satisfied  after  two  days  of
intensive  work.  Pavel  Koltukhov, who  sat beside him,  dozed  and  smoked
simultaneously; he  woke every  now  and then to take  a  puff or two on his
cigarette and then closed his eyes again.
     Nikolai was at the wheel. Beside him Yura  was going through his  notes
on the pressure trials.
     "That's a load off  my mind," Privalov said with  a sigh.  "I hope  the
builders will be able to handle the parallel pipelines without us."
     "You can gird your loins for another job," said Koltukhov.
     "You mean  the  transcaspian  pipeline? But  the  project  hasn't  been
approved yet."
     "Approval was wired yesterday. Is your survey programme ready?"
     "It's been ready a long time."
     "That's fine. We'll discuss it tomorrow."
     Nikolai slowed down as they passed through a small town and then put on
speed when they came out into open country again.
     "How are things going, boys?" Privalov asked  in a low voice. "Have you
read that book by Adam?"
     "It  isn't  what you'd  call light reading,"  Nikolai  replied.  "We're
stuck, Boris. We're thinking of experimenting with mercury."
     The remainder of the drive into town passed in silence. After the young
men got out  on the corner of Toilers  of the Sea Street,  Privalov took the
wheel and drove to the Institute.
     "Look here, Boris," said Koltukhov. "Do you think it's fair to let your
imagination run  wild and  make  those two young men pay for it  by  wasting
their time and energy?"
     "I'm  not  making them do anything. They  started experimenting without
sufficient  theoretical grounding. I  told them what  to read  and gave them
some advice. That's all."
     "Then why  does  Nikolai spend  every  free  minute  of his time in the
automation department, showering everyone there with questions?"
     Privalov  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "Aren't  you   letting   your  own
imagination  run wild?  Dabbling in resins  like  an  alchemist,  in between
co