Self-discovery

And it was important that they needed mechanical help. Now his discovery wasn't unique, a freak, but knowledge on how to alter oneself. It wasn't enough to have a method of transformation — you had to have complete information on the human organism. They didn't have it and couldn't possibly have it. And his “knowledge in sensations” could be encoded into the computer and passed on to the world. To every human being. And every human being could have unheard — of power.

The student slitted his eyes in thought, and leaned back in the chair. The fight against disease would soon be forgotten! The elements would be subordinate to man without machines.

The blue ocean depths, where he will go without diving gear or bathyscaphe. A human dolphin will be able to grow fins and gills at will and enjoy the water environment, live in it, work in it, travel through it.

If he wants to go into the air, he can grow wings and fly, soar like an eagle on the warm air currents.

Hostile alien planets: the poisonous atmosphere of chlorous gases, heated by the sun and the uncooled magma or chilled by the cosmic cold, full of fatal bacteria. And man will be able to live there as freely as on earth, without special suits or biological shields. He will merely transform his organism to breathe chloride instead of oxygen and perhaps change the usual protein of his body to an organosilicon one.

The important thing about man is not that he breathes oxygen. Not his arms and legs. You can develop fins, gills, wings, breathe fluorine, replace protein with organosilicon, and still be man. And you can have normal extremities, white skin, a head, and papers — and not be one! “Yes, but….” Krivoshein leaned on the desk. His eyes fell on his original's notes.

Disease and freakishness will disappear. Wounds and poisons will be no threat. Everyone will be able to become strong, brave, beautiful, will be able to mobilize the resources of his organism to do work that once seemed impossible. People will be like gods! Well, what are you smiling wisely for? This is really the method for the limitless perfection of man!”

“I'm wise, so I'm smiling,” Kravets answered coldly. “You're flying off somewhere again. That's not the only possibility.”

“Oh, come on! Doesn't every person strive to become better, more perfect?”

“Strives in keeping with his concepts of good and perfection. For one thing, you might end up with “Krivoshein's cosmetic baths. “

“What baths?”

“You know… five rubles a session. A citizen shows up, undresses behind a screen, and sinks into the biological liquid. The operator — some Zhora Sherverpupa, former hairdresser — puts on Mono — makh's Crown and asks: 'What would you desire? This time I want to look like Brigitte Bardot, his client orders. 'But make sure my eyebrows are thicker and darker. My guy really likes 'em dark. Why are you frowning? She'll even give Zhora a tip. And the male clientele will be turning themselves into Alain Delon or the Nordic handsomeness of an Oleg Strizhenov. And then next season the fashion will be for Lollabrigidas and Vitaly Zubkovs, as seen in the picture….”

“But we could program a minimal retrieval of information for the computer — womb… some kind of filter for banality and stupidity. Or program it to — “

“ — simultaneously instill inner qualities in the mass consumer? What if he doesn't want any? Doesn't he have the right not to want any for his money? 'What am I, some little lady will ask, 'abnormal or something. Why do you think you should change me? You're the weirdos! You see, the reinforced concreteness of the position of the middle — class boob stems from his absolute certainty that his own behavior is the norm.”

“But we can make sure it's not the norm for the computer — womb.”

“Hmmm… I suggest a simple experiment. Please put a finger into the liquid.”

“Which one?”

“Whichever one you won't miss.”

I dipped my ring finger into the liquid. The double put on the crown and went over to the medicine chest.

“Attention!”

“Ow, what are you doing?” I pulled out the finger. It was cut and bleeding.

Victor Kravets sucked his ring finger and then wiped the blood from the scalpel.

“Do you see now?” The computer has no norms of behavior. It doesn't give a damn about anything. Whatever you command it to do, it does.”

We healed the cuts.

Kravets brought me down from the heavens — headlong down a steep flight of stairs. We're a dreamy lot, inventors. And Bell probably thought that people would use his telephone only for pleasant or necessary news, and certainly not for gossip, or anonymous denunciations, or for sending an ambulance to perfectly healthy friends as a joke. We all dream about the good thing, and when life turns our inventions inside out, we just slap our sides, like loggers in a forest, and ask: “What are you doing, people?”