Self-discovery

“You see,” Kravets said meditatively in the morning, “for the liquid circuit to have the sensation of working, it has to work. And what is it supposed to work on, I ask you? Why should it plug into you, or me, or the rabbits? We're all complete. Everything is in informational balance.”

I don't know if I really figured it out faster than he did (I flatter myself into thinking yes) or whether he just didn't want to hurt himself. But I began the experiment: I destroyed the informational equilibrium in my organism.

The scalpel was sharp and inexperienced. I sliced through my flesh all the way to the bone. Blood drenched my hand. I put my hand in the tank and the liquid turned crimson around it. The pain didn't disappear.

“The crown — put on the crown!” Kravets shouted.

“What crown? What for?” The pain and the sight of blood kept me from thinking straight.

He pushed Monomakh's Crown on my head, clicked the dials — and the pain disappeared instantly; in a few seconds the liquid was clear of blood. My hand was enveloped in a pleasant tingle — and the miracle began: my hand became transparent before my eyes!

First the red plaits of the muscles showed. A minute later they had dissolved, and the white bones of the fingers showed through the red jelly. A violet blood vessel, thickening and thinning, pushed blood near the sinews in my wrist.

I grew scared and I pulled my hand out of the tank. Immediate pain. The hand was whole, but it shone as if it had been oiled; heavy drops dripped off from the tips of my transparent fingers. I tried wriggling my fingers but they wouldn't obey. And then I noticed that my fingers were thickening into droplet — shaped forms. That was terrifying.

“Put it back or you'll lose your hand!” Kravets shouted.

I put it back and concentrated on the cut. There was a delicious ache there. “Yes, computer… that's it. That's it,” I repeated. The tingle weakened and the wrist was losing its transparency. Sighing in relief, I took out my hand: there was no more cut, just a big reddish blue scar. A few transparent drops of ichor oozed in the crack. The scar itched and buzzed unbearably. This probably wasn't the end, then. I put my hand in the liquid again. Again — transparency, tingling. “That's it, computer. That's it.” Finally the tingling stopped and the hand was no longer transparent.

The whole experiment lasted twenty minutes. Now I couldn't show you where I cut myself with the scalpel.

I have to figure this out. The most interesting aspect of this was that I didn't have to give the computer — womb any special information on how to heal a cut — as if I could. Probably my little encouraging that's it's were superfluous. The feeling of pain had given rise to rather eloquent biowaves in my brain as it was.

It looks like the computer — womb plugs into a person with a signal of imbalance in the system. But this signal wouldn't necessarily have to be pain: it could be a willed command to change something in yourself or a dissatisfaction (“not it”). And then it could be controlled with sensation.

A minor, ineffective experiment compared with everything that came before it. After all the cut could have been doused with iodine, bandaged, and it would have healed on its own.

But it's the most important experiment we've done in a year's work! Now our discovery can be used not only to synthesize and perfect artificial doubles but to transform complex informational systems that are contained in a highly complex biological solution, which we simply call man. The transformation of any person!

February 20. Yes, the liquid circuit plugs into a human organism on a willed command, too. Today I removed the hair from my arm up to my elbow this way. I put my hand in the tank, put on the crown. “Not it,” concentrating on the hair. The prickling and itching increased. The skin became transparent. A minute later the hair had dissolved.

Kravets used the method to grow nails on his pinky and index finger that were over an inch long. He dipped both plams into the liquid and changed his usual fingerprint sworls into something resembling the tread on a winter tire. Then he tried to restore the original pattern, but he didn't remember what it looked like.

Now I see why nothing worked with the rabbits — they have no consciousness, no will, no satisfaction with self. This is a method for man. And only for man!

Graduate student Krivoshein skimmed the rest, to memorize it. He flipped through the pages of the diary, photographing them with his memory. It was clear to him: Krivoshein and Kravets had reached the same thing a different way — they could control metabolism in man. But they needed a computer.