t  during the lunch break.  It's probably  news from  Moscow.  Listen,
can't you tear yourself away from  your  slide rule? What's  the matter with
you, anyway?"
     Nikolai  said   nothing.  He   studied  his  unfinished   drawing  with
exaggerated  attention.  The curve he had  just plotted  reminded him  of  a
wind-filled sail. This association brought back a picture of the high  white
side of  the Uzbekistan, and a slender figure in a red sun-dress diving into
the sea. Also, a picture of melancholy dark eyes.
     Nikolai drew his hand across his forehead.
     Rita had once been simply a stranger, gradually to be forgotten, driven
from  his mind. But now- now  everything was all  confused. No matter how he
tried  he could not forget her. She was no longer a stranger. She was Yellow
Lynx, a childhood playmate.
     Nikolai  had hardly seen her since  their return from Moscow.  She  had
phoned him several times at work. He had  asked her,  in a wooden voice, how
life was treating her. She had  told him that Anatole had returned home  and
had promised her to  go into hospital for treatment  as soon as he  finished
the job. Anatole's work was going along  well. Rita spoke about it in a gay,
animated voice. Nikolai was glad for her sake. But every time she rang up he
experienced pain.
     One day Rita invited Nikolai and Yura to drop in for tea. She wanted to
introduce them, her childhood friends, to her husband.
     Nikolai had never  seen  Anatole  before. He was  struck  by  Anatole's
unhealthy colouring, the bags under his eyes, and his dull glance.
     Anatole picked languidly at the cake on  his plate. He  took no part in
the conversation. Nikolai was dying to ask him about Fedor Matveyev's knife,
but that  question  and many  others on the  tip of his tongue could  not be
asked because of the promise he had given Rita.
     Anatole  turned his lacklustre eyes  on  Nikolai.  "Has  your apparatus
produced any sort of long-term penetrability?" he asked.
     Nikolai almost choked  in  surprise.  He hurriedly chewed the  piece of
cake in his mouth. "I don't  really know," he replied. "We turned everything
over to the Academy of Sciences."
     "How   are   your  experiments  coming  along?"  Yura  politely   asked
Benedictov. "When will we be able to offer you our congratulations?"
     "How can we compete with the Academy?" Anatole asked glumly.
     Yura twitched  his  blond eyebrows. "Why compete? Join us.  The days of
ivory-tower scholars are over. Modern scientific problems are so-"
     Anatole interrupted him. "You're too young, far  too young, in fact, to
tell me which  days  are  over and which aren't."  He  frowned. No one  said
anything.  Rita  hurriedly  changed  the  topic.  "You  boys  are  going  to
tomorrow's concert at Philharmony Hall, aren't you?"
     But this  did not help.  The afternoon  was ruined. Soon after, Anatole
rose, complaining of a headache, and left the room.
     Yura could see what was troubling  Nikolai,  but for the first time  in
their  many years  together he could think of no  way to help his friend. He
even  went so  far as to  ask Val's advice, but she viewed the matter rather
disdainfully. She  did  not seem to  like this newly-found playmate of their
childhood.
     The envelope that  had come  from the  Institute of Surfaces in  Moscow
really did contain interesting news.  The  frequencies which had  influenced
the Cooper Lane  installation  had been ascertained. What  had  been vaguely
hinted at in  the clumsy experiment mounted  by the young engineers had been
translated  into the language of formulas  and  figures. The  workers at the
Moscow  Institute  had  obtained  their  initial  result: the  rods  pressed
together in the field of the Mobius band had penetrated each other, although
not   deeply.  They  felt  that  their  southern   colleagues  could   begin
experimenting with liquids.
     The cautious Koltukhov surrendered. He  gave Privalov the  go-ahead  to
set up an experiment.
     Preparations took all  of May and  half of June. An apparatus  having a
glass coil mounted inside the stator of  an electrical machine was installed
in  one of the  rooms of Privalov's laboratory. A Mobius band  of  yellowish
metal, a metre and a half long, was  placed  beside  the  stator. Behind the
band there was an aluminium disc, a condenser screen linked up to a powerful
electrostatic generator.
     The glass coil was filled with water and  connected to  a small drum of
oil.
     The idea was that penetrability-in this  case, permeability, to be more
precise-would arise in the field of the  Mobius band, that is, the oil would
flow through the water in the coil.  This would be  the model  of a pipeless
oil  pipeline,  a  model of complete diffusion  of liquids with  reorganized
internal bonds. The particles of oil would pass freely through the particles
of water.
     The Institute of Surfaces believed there ought to  be  a certain amount
of  external excitation  of  the  field  when  the  installation  went  into
operation. A  hard gamma beam would  be suitable, Academician  Georgi Markov
thought. And so, a lead container with an ampoule of a radioactive substance
inside it had been suspended beside the Mobius band.
     Chief  engineer  Koltukhov   had   the   control  panel  and  measuring
instruments moved  into an adjoining room. He himself locked and sealed  the
door of the room in which the installation stood.
     During the first few days different  types of operating conditions were
tried out, but with no results. The oil that was pumped into the coil simply
pushed the water out of it.
     The  eventful day  started  just  like the others.  The men took  their
places  at   the  control  panel,  and  Yura   switched  on  the  television
transmitter. The Mobius band and the glass coil appeared on the screen.
     "Attention. All sec. Let's start," said Privalov. "The container."
     The  electrician pressed  a button. In  the next  room an electromagnet
removed  the lid of  the lead container and a  flux of  gamma  rays streamed
towards  the border  area  of  the  oil  and  water.  The  ruby eye  of  the
radioactivity indicator began to glow.
     "Now the static charge!"  A switch  clicked,  and the  generator on the
other side of the wall  began  to whine.  A green  zigzag  appeared  on  the
rounded  bottom of  the  cathode-ray tube  of  the oscillograph in  front of
Nikolai and crept to the right, along the scale. Nikolai turned the knob  to
hold the zigzag in place.
     "Let's have frequency 230, Nikolai," said Privalov.
     Moving  from  one frequency  to the next, Privalov  patiently proceeded
through the programme planned for that day.
     Suddenly Yura leaned forward to the  screen. The borderline between the
dark oil and the transparent water had become smudged.
     "It's begun!" he whispered tensely.
     All eyes  turned  to the screen.  It did look as though the oil was  no
longer pressing  against  the  water,  pushing  it ahead of  itself, but was
passing through it.
     Privalov kept  his eyes  fixed  on the  pressure-gauge. Resistance  was
dropping. There was  no doubt about  it. One hundred and twenty  grammes per
square  centimetre.... Seventy.... Fifty-two....  Glancing at the TV screen,
he saw that the glass coil was cloudy.
     Yura laughed jubilantly. "It's permeability, Boris!"
     The water's resistance was rapidly dropping towards the desired zero.
     Thirty-five.... thirty.... Suddenly the  needle quivered,  then stopped
at twenty-seven.
     Privalov  impatiently  tapped  the glass  of the  pressure-gauge with a
fingernail. The needle was  motionless, as though it had come  up against an
impassable barrier.
     "Add five-tenths, Nikolai," he said in a low voice.
     Nikolai gave the field intensity  knob a  slight turn. The green zigzag
on the oscillograph screen climbed, but the pressure-gauge needle refused to
budge.
     "Some   sort   of  threshold,"  Privalov  said.  "Let's  have   another
five-tenths."
     "Look!" exclaimed the electrician. "Just look at this."
     They turned  to  glance at  the electric meter.  Electricity was  being
consumed at a much  greater rate than usual. The meter was whirling  so fast
that the right-hand figures were a blur.
     Privalov  glanced  at the ammeter. The needle  was almost  on  zero, as
though the installation  had  been switched off. But the electric meter  was
spinning  faster  and faster.  The electricity from the  mains  seemed to be
vanishing into a bottomless pit.
     Koltukhov came up.
     "It's simply being swallowed up," he said. "What's happening?"
     The telephone rang. He picked up the receiver.
     "Yes,  this  is  me, Koltukhov.  No,  we  haven't  switched on any  new
machines. What? Yes, we'll have to. I'll call you back in five minutes."
     He  put down the receiver and  turned  to Privalov. "They're worried at
the substation. Voltage  in  the district  is  falling. They've  switched on
their  reserve but  it  doesn't help. The power loss is  appalling and quite
incomprehensible. Shall we stop the whole thing?"
     The  zigzag  on  the  oscillograph  kept  climbing,  although operating
conditions had not changed.
     "No!"  Privalov kept  his  eyes glued to the zigzag.  "Give  us another
one-hundredth."
     The green zigzag  jumped to  the top  of the  frame.  The meter was now
screaming like a siren. The  figures blurred into grey streaks. Suddenly the
glass  shattered and the meter flew to pieces.  The electrician  barely  had
time to cover his eyes with his hand.
     A  bright  light  flooded  the  TV screen.  Yura  involuntarily  sprang
backwards.
     Privalov dashed to  the main switch  to turn off the  installation  but
before he could  reach  it there  was an  explosion on the other side of the
wall. Plaster rained down on their heads.  The floor  shook. Privalov jerked
the switch down and looked round. As he pushed back his hair with his sleeve
he smeared  his face  with plaster dust.  No one seemed to be hurt, or  even
particularly frightened, for that matter. It had all happened too suddenly.
     "Turn on the TV receiver," Privalov said hoarsely. "Just the TV."
     The screen lit up with lustreless horizontal bands. There was no image.
Yura fiddled with the knobs.
     "It  looks as though the  transmitter was knocked out," he said softly.
"Along with everything else in that room."
     "Close the container," said Koltukhov.
     The electrician pressed a button, but the red bulb continued to glow.
     "It   doesn't   close,"   he   said.   "Something's   wrong   with  the
electromagnet."
     "Something's wrong with  the  whole  thing,"  Koltukhov  put  in. Then,
raising his voice, he said: "Everyone leave the room, please."
     The corridor buzzed with alarmed voices. The director of  the Institute
came hurrying down the stairs.
     "What happened?" he asked.
     Leading him aside, Koltukhov and Privalov  told  him briefly  about the
explosion and what had preceded it.
     "There's an open  container inside that room,"  Koltukhov  added.  "The
blast may have ejected the ampoule and  smashed it. The walls are thick, but
after all, that's 1,500 milligrams of radioactive matter-"
     "Seal  the  laboratory  and  summon  the  emergency  squad,"  said  the
director.


     The  damage done by the blast was relatively insignificant. Part of the
floor was charred,  plaster had fallen from  the ceiling and walls, and  the
installation  was  wrecked. The copper cartridge  with the ampoule inside it
had flown  out  of its lead container, just as Koltukhov had said it  might,
and  the  radioactive  matter had dispersed.  That room,  the  two adjoining
rooms, and the  three  second-floor rooms above them could not be used until
everything had been rendered quite harmless.
     Privalov's entire laboratory was closed down for the time being.
     And so, Valery Gorbachevsky found himself taking a  vacation before  he
had time to return to work eleven minutes late.
     For a while he had thought Yura  Kostyukov  was pulling his leg, and he
decided to  go upstairs and see for himself. Before  he had put  his foot on
the first step he saw Privalov coming down,  carrying a small suitcase, with
a raincoat over his arm.
     "Goodbye," he  said, offering Valery his hand. Then he shook hands with
Yura and moved towards the outer door.
     "For heaven's sake, tell me what happened," Valery begged Yura.
     "Privalov's taking a plane to Moscow."
     "What for?"
     Yura did not  know. He  knew only that Privalov and Koltukhov,  wearing
protective clothing, had  entered the  room  and found  something there that
prompted them to go to Moscow at once. He also knew that a steel-bound crate
had been shipped off to Moscow.


        CHAPTER TWO

        IN WHICH THE AUTHORS REMEMBER THEIR PROMISE TO ARRANGE A SHIPWRECK

     At five o'clock in the morning the city on the horseshoe-shaped bay was
still  asleep. A mist hovered above the  grey water  of the harbour and  the
black hulks of the barges in the roadstead.  But the red and gold fires of a
new day were beginning to blaze in the east.
     -Carrying  small  suitcases,  Nikolai  and  Yura,  accompanied  by Rex,
approached the entrance to the marina. Valery Gorbachevsky, outfitted with a
transistor radio and fishing gear, was already waiting for them.
     At  the far  end of  the pier,  dockmaster Mehti sat leaning against an
overturned boat. His  tanned, large-featured face  looked like old bronze. A
grey  halo  fringed  his  round, mahogany-coloured bald  spot.  His  striped
jersey, ring in one ear, intricate  tattooing on  his arms, and the knife in
his  hand made  him  look  as though  he had just stepped out of  a story by
Robert Louis Stevenson.
     A  large sun-cured fish and a tin filled with small lumps of sugar were
neatly set out in front of him on a clean white cloth. Strong tea steamed in
a mug.  The dockmaster  was cutting a loaf of  fresh  unleavened  bread into
thick slices.
     "The terror  of the seas is taking his morning grog," Yura whispered to
his companions. Aloud he said:
     "Good-morning, Mehti."
     The dockmaster turned a bright black eye on the newcomers and nodded.
     "We  made  the boat ready yesterday," Nikolai  told  him. "Everything's
shipshape."
     "That's what you think," Mehti said sternly. "I'll take a look and see.
Have a snack with me."
     The young men sat down beside him and were each handed a mug of tea.
     "Taking music along with  you,  I see," Mehti remarked, glancing at the
transistor set.
     "Yes," Yura replied.  "Besides  listening to music we'll keep in  touch
with the world while we're out at sea."
     Mehti said nothing. He put q sizable piece of cheese into his mouth and
chewed it thoughtfully.
     After breakfast they set out to inspect the boat.
     The  Mekong lay  at  anchor some two hundred metres from  the pier. The
dockmaster  walked over to  the  edge of the pier with his rolling gait  and
stepped into a dinghy. The young men followed him.
     Mehti  had  paid  no attention to Rex up until then. Now he said, "That
dog will have to get out."
     "But why?" Yura protested. "Rex is a fine dog."
     "Fine dogs stay at home. They don't go to sea."
     "He'd die of a broken heart if we left him at home, Mehti."
     "He didn't die whenever you went sailing without him before, did he?"
     "Oh, Mehti, please let us take Rex. Rex is really a nautical dog."
     "The next thing I  know you'll bring a donkey and try  to tell me  it's
nautical too," Mehti retorted. "Put that dog ashore at once."
     This was done. Valery, who was quietly enjoying the  scene, then untied
the  painter at the bow.  Energetic strokes of the oars carried  them out to
the sailboat.
     Mehti  painstakingly  checked every  knot and every lanyard. Finally he
pronounced the boat ready to sail.
     Nikolai  and  Yura left Valery aboard  the  Mekong and returned  to the
clubhouse, where Mehti put on his spectacles and opened his register.
     "Here," he said to Nikolai, poking a fingernail at a clean page, "write
down the number of  people aboard, list their names,  and state where you're
sailing to  and for  how long. Then sign that you  have permission  from the
port authorities, that you were given a copy of the latest weather forecast,
and that you have the necessary maps and charts."
     Now that they were  so unexpectedly on  holiday our friends had decided
to make a  voyage  along the  coast, to  the mouth of the river Kura. If the
wind was right  they  would continue farther south,  as far as Lenkoran, and
visit the botanical gardens there. En route they intended to stop at some of
the islands in the archipelago.
     Valery,  a  newcomer on the  Mekong,  was  terribly  excited  about the
cruise. He had practically memorized Yura's sailing manual.
     Val had also expressed her delight at being invited to come along.
     One evening, two  days before they were  to sail, when the men were  at
Yura's house checking  their route and their lists  of gear  and provisions,
Nikolai suddenly pushed the map aside and reached for a cigarette.
     "Let's invite another passenger," he said, lighting his cigarette.
     "Okay," said Yura, who guessed at once  whom Nikolai had in mind. "Ring
her up."
     "It would be better if you did. You're more persuasive."
     Rita picked up the receiver at the first ring. "It's really nice of you
to think of me," she said after Yura had invited her to  come along  on  the
cruise. "But I can't be away from town for any length of time."
     "It's just for a week, Rita. The school vacation has begun, hasn't it?"
     "Oh, Yura, I'm so sorry, but I simply can't. Thanks for the invitation,
though. And remember me to Nikolai."
     She  put down the receiver, settled herself in her  favourite corner of
the  sofa, her legs under her, and opened her  book. Her eyes  ran  down the
lines but the meaning of the words did not sink in.
     She  was alone again. Anatole had not been home for two weeks now. They
hadn't quarrelled, it  wasn't that. She looked after him  to the best of her
ability and did not ask him any  questions. She realized that he was ashamed
to take the  drug in  front of her but could  not get  along without  it. He
often  made  long  trips  to some  sort of special  laboratory. A hitch  had
cropped up in his work again.  He spent  the nights at  Opratin's,  where he
never heard any reproaches.
     The next morning Rita went to  the Institute of Marine Physics. Anatole
was not at his  desk, and she had to wait  in the lobby  a fairly long  time
before someone found him and he came downstairs.
     "How clever of you to drop in," he said. He took her hand in his sweaty
palm. His eyes were tender.
     They stepped out into the garden and sat down on a bench at the edge of
the lawn.
     "Are you coming home tonight?"
     His face darkened. "This is just our busiest time, Rita. We've done the
main part of it.  Now we have to make sure there are  no flaws. It will take
another few weeks-"
     "Very well," Rita said sadly. "I'll wait."
     "I'll be going out to the laboratory again in a few days. If it doesn't
work- Then  I'll collect  all the  material  that's  out  there and try it a
different way."
     "I went  to see  Dr.  Khalilov. He's  willing to  take you  in whenever
you're ready. The sooner you start, Anatole, the better-"
     "I know, I know. Just wait a little." Anatole took her hand again. "Has
the school vacation started already?"
     "Yes."  The instant Rita said  this  she remembered the  previous day's
telephone call. "I've been invited to  go  sailing, Anatole. Do  you think I
should?"
     "Who invited you? Those childhood friends of yours?"
     "Yes. It's a seven-day cruise along  the coast." "Go  by all means. The
change will do you good. Remember our cruise of last year?"
     After a few more minutes of desultory conversation Rita said goodbye to
Anatole and left. At the gate she looked  back. Anatole was  standing at the
edge of the sunflooded lawn, gazing after her. His arms hung by his sides.
     On returning home Rita rang up Yura and told him she would  be  glad to
join them.


     As Nikolai  finished writing his  entry in the  register and signed his
name with a flourish they heard  rapid footsteps. '"That's Val", said  Yura.
"Here  we are, Val." "Hullo, there." Val ran up, panting for  breath. "I was
sure I'd be late.  How do you  do, Mehti." Mehti acknowledged  the  greeting
with a nod, picked up the register, and disappeared with it into his office.
     "What a  glorious day," Val exclaimed.  "I  was  worried I'd  be  late.
Nikolai warned  me so sternly yesterday about coming on time. Well, what are
we waiting for? It's seven already, isn't it? Time to start."
     "Let's wait a  bit longer," Nikolai  muttered. He walked to the edge of
the pier, where he could look down deserted Seaside Boulevard.
     "I see.  That friend  of your childhood, is it?" Val pulled a wry  face
and looked at Yura. "So you did invite that nut."
     Yura spread  his  hands reproachfully. "There she is," Nikolai cried as
he caught a glimpse of a red sun-dress far down the boulevard.
     Rita came up smiling,  her face relaxed. She shook hands with everybody
and patted Rex.
     "You're a bit late," Val could not resist saying.
     "It doesn't matter in the least," Nikolai put in hastily.
     They walked to the end  of  the pier. Mehti was  not in sight, so  Yura
pushed Rex into the dinghy and ordered him to lie down.
     "Couldn't we do without Rex?" Val asked.
     "Dogs need a change of scenery too," Yura explained.
     As they approached the sailboat Rita read the name on its bow. "Mekong"
she said. "Is it the same one?"
     "The  very  same."  Nikolai replied  gaily as he helped her to climb on
board. Then he snapped: "Make sail."
     As they hauled the sheets  home Yura and Nikolai pretended it was  hard
work and struck up an old sailors'  chantey they had  heard Mehti sing  many
times:

     Sail to have a fast clipper.
     Pull, boys, pull, boys!

     With each "pull" they gave a tug in unison and the sail rose higher and
higher.

     Will you tell me who is skipper?
     Pull, boys, pull, boys, pull!

     "Regular pirates, they are," Val remarked.
     "They do everything very neatly," Rita said approvingly.
     "Of course they do. Sailing is their hobby."
     The lines were belayed and the sail swelled tautly. The Mekong, listing
slightly, glided off.
     Nikolai sat at  the tiller.  Yura  rose, planted his feet wide apart on
the deck, thrust an arm forward and declaimed:

     An unforgettable moment. .
     The breeze freshens,
     We round the lighthouse,
     You are so near, so dear,
     Yet your hand I dare not touch.
     In the water Cassiopeia's lights
     Glitter like gold, and clouds sail by.

     Valery gazed  admiringly at Yura. Rita  listened with a smile. Speeding
before  the wind into  the  sparkling  blue morning gave her a deep sense of
contentment.
     "I'll be the taskmaster," Yura said. "Courageous Commodore Nikolai will
sail our ship over the bounding main." He made  Nikolai a deep bow. "I'm his
first mate. And with  your  kind permission I'm also his fearless navigator.
Valery will be our  deck boy and vigilant  lookout. Carnivorous Rex will, in
case of mutiny, bite the lower limbs of the mutineers."
     Hearing his name, Rex put out his tongue and licked Yura's bare foot.
     "What  about us?" Val asked.  "How dare  you rank us below  Rex in your
silly hierarchy?"
     "But I don't. You and Rita will provide the crew with nourishing meals.
In your spare time  you can protect the delicate skin of your noses from the
scorching rays of the tropical sun by pasting a strip of paper on them."
     The boat sped out of the bay into the blue sea, its sail billowing. The
city behind them disappeared into a bluish haze.
     Yura lay down on the deck beside Nikolai.
     "This is the very same place. Do you suppose that knife is still on the
seabed?"
     Nikolai did not answer. He was busy setting a new course.
     "You're not bored, Rita, are you?" he asked.
     She smiled at him. "Not at all. It's terribly interesting. Everything's
fine. You promised to teach me to steer the boat."
     Nikolai handed her the tiller and showed her how to steer  a course  by
compass.
     "It's not easy," Rita  said after a  few minutes. "The boat won't  obey
me."
     "Don't jerk the tiller, move it gently. Now  turn it to port, that  is,
to the left. That's right."
     "Grip the rudder tight," Yura advised.
     Rita did not raise her eyes from the compass. "Why?"
     "All sea stories say so."
     Nikolai grinned. "Don't listen to him. You'd have a hard time  gripping
the  rudder because  the  rudder  is under the  boat. What you're holding is
called the tiller."
     After  several days at  sea  the two girls were able to walk a  sloping
deck and to light the primus-stove that swung in a hanger.  They had finally
come to  believe  that the boat was  rocking and the primus-stove was almost
motionless. Dinners were prepared according to Yura's recipe: a tin of  meat
was  poured into a mixture  of  millet  grits  and  potato cubes and  cooked
together. The crew of the Mekong ate this stew with great gusto.
     The  weather was perfect. No one aboard the Mekong wore  anything  more
than the briefest bathing costume and sun-glasses. Before long they were all
a deep bronze from the sun.
     "Darwin was right,"  Nikolai remarked one afternoon. "He  says,  in his
Voyage of the  Beagle, that a  white  man bathing beside a Tahitian does not
look at all impressive. A dark skin is more natural than a white skin."
     Val  lifted her  head from  her  book.  She opened  her  mouth  to  say
something  but after a glance  at Nikolai's dark brown shoulders she changed
her mind.
     Gradually the coolness between the two young women faded. Prompted by a
feeling of feminine solidarity, Rita often took  Val's side  in the frequent
debates aboard the Mekong. Sometimes the two of them went off by themselves,
to the  extent that  this was possible  on such a small  boat, and held long
conversations. Or rather,  Val talked about herself  and  the thesis she was
writing, and how  annoying and  unfeeling Yura  was at  times. Rita listened
with an understanding smile.
     The sun, the sea and the fresh air all had their effect. Rita developed
a beautiful tan, she grew  more relaxed. Her appetite began to  horrify her.
The anxieties and disappointments of the past few  months  were being pushed
out of her thoughts by the sea and the sky.
     One evening when the velvety black sky was strewn with diamonds and the
Mekong was gliding across a smooth, dark sea, leaving behind a silvery wake,
Rita sat in the stern, hugging her knees, while Nikolai half-reclined beside
her. His watch was coming to an end but he was in no  hurry to waken Valery,
asleep in the  cabin.  In the silence, broken  only  by  the wash whispering
softly alongside  the hull, the words "Your hand I  dare not  touch" flashed
through Nikolai's mind. He closed his eyes.
     "I've been recalling our childhood,"  Rita  said.  "Calm, starry nights
like this belong only to childhood."
     Her voice seemed to float towards him from afar.
     "What a  strange  power the sea  has," Rita went on  slowly.  "You  can
actually feel it cleansing your soul."
     "Your hand I dare not touch," Nikolai repeated soundlessly.
     "Are you listening?"
     Nikolai opened his eyes. "Yes."
     "Now I am beginning to understand why there  have been  so many sailors
in our family."
     Val and Yura sat out of sight in the bow, behind the stay-sail. Val had
her dark head on Yura's shoulder as she gazed enthralled at  the sea and the
stars.
     "Look how bright it is," she whispered: pointing to a golden star.
     "That's Venus,"  said Yura. "Did you know that the Greeks thought Venus
was  two stars?  They  called the evening  star in the west Vesper, and  the
morning star in the east Phosphor."
     "Oh dear, you always have something to say about  everything. Why can't
you just sit quietly and drink in the beauties of Nature?"
     Suddenly she turned her head and  peeped out from behind the stay-sail.
"I  wonder  what  they're talking  about," she whispered.  "Do  you  suppose
they're on intimate terms with each other?"
     "I haven't the faintest idea."
     "Oh, Yura, do tell me."
     "But  I  really don't know. " Yura was  compelled  to add:  "You  women
always want everything  pigeon-holed neatly.  In such cases it's best not to
meddle."


     The cluster of islands lay baking in the sunshine.
     The Mekong glided past Duvanny Island,  where Stepan Razin and his  men
divided  the  booty of the Persian campaign. They visited Bull Island to see
the vast  number of birds that nested there, and then  dropped anchor on Los
Island,  where  hot mud bubbled constantly in craters,  some all  of  twenty
metres in diameter. In places the mud tipped over the edge of its crater and
flowed down to the sea in a brown rivulet.
     "I  had no idea all this rather  frightening wilderness was so close to
us!" Rita exclaimed.
     It  was noon. The wind  had dropped, and the sun was blazing. The sails
hung limp. Yura tossed a match into the  smooth  green water. It  floated on
the surface without drifting away from the boat.
     Heat waves shimmered in the motionless air. The horizon had vanished in
a haze; land could not be seen anywhere.
     "What do you do if there is no wind for a long time?" Val asked.
     "Haven't you read any sea stories?" Yura asked. "We eat up all our food
and then draw lots to see who is the first to be divided up for dinner." The
talk turned to how long a person could live without food  or water, and they
recalled well-known cases of men who had survived many days alone at sea.
     "I wouldn't be able  to  eat  raw fish the  way Dr. Alain Bombard did,"
said Val.
     "If you  had nothing else you'd eat it and like it," Yura retorted. "As
for water, we have some miracles we can work if we have to." "What kind?"
     "A resin that turns  sea water into fresh water through  ion  exchange.
But there's no need to worry-it won't come to that."
     "I'm not worrying."
     There was still no wind.  The sky was  a milky  white, as though it had
been drained of colour. A fog crept towards them from the north.
     "I don't like this  dead calm," Yura  said to Nikolai in  a  low voice.
"Let's drop anchor. By evening there may be a current that will carry us off
to where we don't want to go."
     The water,  as  smooth and colourless as the sky, swallowed  the anchor
without a splash.
     The storm broke without warning. Squalls  of a raging  north wind  tore
the fog to shreds and whistled menacingly in the rigging.
     The entire  weight of his body  on  the tiller, Nikolai  held  the boat
against the wind. Yura and Valery took down the jib and ran up the hurricane
sail. Then, bracing themselves on the pitching deck, they reefed in the taut
mainsail  with great difficulty.  Valery was almost  swept overboard  at one
point. The stays and shrouds moaned as the wind tore at them.
     The  Mekong, her mainsail tightly reefed, was  driven southward.  Waves
swept over her and crested on her deck; the foam hissed and dissolved.
     Rita and Val sat silent in the cockpit, pressed close together, staring
at the wild sea.
     On the water-swept foredeck Valery helped Yura  to  fashion a  floating
anchor from boathooks and oars which they wrapped in a staysail.
     To  be carried forward into the unknown, into the roaring night, across
a sea strewn with  reefs and submerged rocks, was terrifying. Holding to the
tiller with difficulty.  Nikolai tacked back and forth.  As she  tacked, the
boat lay on  her side, her  reefed mainsail  dipping into the waves. Nikolai
knew the keel  was heavy and was confident they would not be upset. "Hold on
tight," he shouted. "Don't be scared! We'll soon right ourselves!"
     Each tack  demanded  tremendous exertion. Nikolai's muscles ached,  his
forehead was beaded with sweat.
     He  bore down on  the tiller with all his might, overcoming the furious
resistance of the waves.
     "Hurry up there!" he shouted to Yura above the howling of the wind.
     Suddenly a  shudder went through the boat. There was a  grinding  sound
under  the keel; boards snapped  in two, the  mast came crashing  down.  All
these sounds almost drowned out a short cry-but Nikolai  heard it. He dashed
forward along the listing deck, pushed Valery  aside and jumped overboard. A
breaker washed over him, the undertow tugging at his legs. But he managed to
touch  bottom  with one foot. Looking up, he  caught  a glimpse of a beach a
short distance ahead.
     The wave rolled Nikolai back beside the Mekong. He dived and felt along
the pebbly  bottom. In another moment his head was out  of the  water and he
had Yura in his arms. But, unable to keep on his  feet, he sank to his knees
in  the  water.   He  rose  again,  now  standing  chest-deep,  and  shouted
breathlessly: "All ashore! It's shallow here! Rope yourselves together!"
     Carrying the unconscious body of his  friend  over his shoulder, he was
knocked  off his feet again and  again  by the  waves as he stumbled along a
sandbar towards the shore.
     The  Mekong lay on its side. The three on board clung to  whatever they
could lay hands on.  Rex, pushed up  against the  cabin  handrail, whimpered
softly.
     At the sound of Nikolai's voice Valery recovered  from  his fright. Now
he was the senior crew member aboard the boat.
     "Listen,  you  girls!" he  shouted. "Everything's  all right! We'll  go
ashore."
     He tied the end  of  a sail sheet round  his waist, then roped Rita and
Val to it and ran the other end  through Rex's collar. He jumped out  of the
boat and  helped the girls to  do  the same.  The  three of  them  staggered
towards shore, Rita carrying Rex.
     Finally they  came ashore. Still roped  together, they  climbed a  clay
slope. On the other side of the hillock they took shelter from the wind in a
hollow. The sand in the hollow was surprisingly warm underfoot.
     Here they saw Yura lying on  the sand. Nikolai was energetically giving
him artificial respiration.
     Val dashed forward. "Yura!" she cried wildly.


        CHAPTER THREE

        IN WHICH THE MOBIUS BAND THAT SANK INTO CONCRETE IS EXAMINED

     To  save the 'reader unnecessary anxiety, we announce here and now that
Yura survived the ordeal.
     Meanwhile,  the action shifts  to  Moscow. Boris Privalov and Professor
Bagbanly arrived in  the  capital  by  plane several  days before  the heavy
steel-bound crate.
     From the  airport they drove  straight to the  research centre in which
the Institute of Surfaces was situated. Rooms  had been reserved for them in
the hotel there.
     "What do you say  now?" Privalov asked Academician Markov  after he had
looked through the records of the experiment.
     But the Academician refused  to be  hurried. "We'll examine your latest
miracle first." Turning  to Professor Bagbanly, he remarked, "I haven't seen
you in Moscow for quite a time, have I?"
     A few  days  later, in the  middle of the afternoon, a lorry drove into
the yard of  the Institute  workshop and a crane lifted a heavy crate out of
it. What the Institute employees saw after the crate had been opened up  was
a block of concrete. It had been the  support on which the Mobius band stood
during the experiments. Now  a yellowish metal arc about  the size and shape
of  a pail handle  jutted up from it.  The remainder of the  Mobius band had
sunk into the concrete.
     Academician Markov slowly ran his hand along the arc.  His hand  passed
through  the metal. All he felt  was something like a  warm, gentle  puff of
air. The  sensation was not unfamiliar to him. The Institute experiments had
already produced several models of restructured matter.
     When they cut the block in two they found that the section  of the band
which had sunk into the concrete was impenetrable. Analysis showed, however,
that all the elements found in concrete were present in the area occupied by
the  band.  The  atomic-molecular  systems   of   concrete  had  filled  the
interatomic spaces in the metal. This was penetrability.
     "It's a fantastic, unprecedented mixture," the Academician remarked the
next morning  as  he looked  through the analysis report.  "Yet  it actually
exists."
     "The Mobius band came into the zone  of its own action," said Professor
Bagbanly, "and therefore it sank into the concrete."
     "Yes, you could say that the band devoured itself."
     "But why did it get  stuck?"  asked  Privalov.  "Why  didn't  it go  in
deeper, through  the floor and then through the earth  too, for that matter?
How did gravity act on it?"
     "Gravity?  How little we know about gravity! We may suppose, of course,
that the band  descended  until  it  reached some sort  of  limit,  where it
encountered repulsive forces."
     "The energy limits of penetrability," Professor Bagbanly suggested.
     "Yes,  the  energy limits." Academician Markov took a sheet of  squared
paper from a  folder  and placed  it in  front of his visitors. "I asked our
power experts to make a chart of the phases of  your  experiment. This curve
is power consumption," he said,  pointing  to  it with his pencil.  "You can
clearly see the moment when consumption skyrocketed."
     There was silence for a while as all three studied the chart.
     "The moment  when  matter  absorbed  energy,  to  be more  exact,"  the
Academician went on. "An energy abyss, if you wish.  You simply did not have
enough energy to fill it."
     "What if there had been enough?" Privalov asked quickly.
     "Then I believe the experiment would have continued calmly to the end."
The Academician pointed a long finger at Privalov. "You did not complete the
process of restructuring the internal  bonds of matter. The process exploded
backwards, returning the energy-not only what had been expended but also the
energy of the surface."
     "That means we-"
     "Yes,  Boris. What you called  an  explosion was the surface energy. Do
you recall, last  winter,  my  mentioning a  new  power  source?  Well,  you
obtained it."
     Professor Bagbanly tapped the chart with a fingernail. "This section of
the curve must be reduced to a dot."
     "Yes, but  if we are to reduce the time factor the process must have an
independent and sufficiently large power supply."
     "What kind of supply?" Privalov asked.
     "I don't know yet."
     -That evening Academician Markov rang up the hotel and invited Bagbanly
and Privalov to visit him  at home. He  met them in  the front garden of his
attractive little cottage and led them into a simply furnished sitting room.
Tea was served.
     Over the tea and cakes the Academician said: "I should like to tell you
a rather curious story. Or would you prefer to watch telesivion?"
     "I vote for the story," said Professor Bagbanly, setting down his empty
cup and preparing to listen.
     "Well,  here  it is. While I was rummaging through my collection of old
manuscripts the other day I came across a strange  Chinese tale. Excuse me a
moment." The  Academician left the room,  returning  a  minute later  with a
folder.  "I do  not possess  the original manuscript, unfortunately. It is a
rare collector's item;  the characters are  embroidered  on silk. This is  a
photographic reproduction I brought back from India a few years ago."
     The guests examined the copy of the manuscript with interest.
     "Here is the translation." The  Academician  produced a sheaf of papers
from the folder. "Let me read it to you."

     The Story of Liu Ching-chen, Seeker of Complete Knowledge

     Liu  Ching-chen  dedicated his  life to seeking Truth and Knowledge. He
mastered all the sciences and  all the natural elements:  metal, wood, fire,
water  and  earth.  He knew there existed three worlds: Desire,  Colour, and
Colourlessness.
     He often gazed at the moon. On clear nights he saw, in the moon, a jade
hare pounding a drug in a mortar. Liu Ching-chen knew  that anyone who  took
this drug would gain immortality. But  the moon was far  away. The wisdom of
complete knowledge was still farther away.
     Liu  Ching-chen  read  and  reread  the  Buddhist  secret  books  which
Hsuan-tsang had brought from India. But Hsuan-tsang had not brought  all the
wisdom of Buddha.
     To the west, beyond the high  mountains,  in distant India,  stood  the
mysterious  temple  of  Peals of  Thunder,  where books about  the  heavens,
treatises about the earth, and s