Self-discovery

The hellish part of science is that it creates methods and nothing else. So we will have a “method for transforming information in a biological system.” You can turn a monkey into a man. But you could also turn a man into a donkey.

But I can't, I can't believe that after our discovery things would go on as they were! Not for the sake of science — for the sake of life. Our discovery was intended for life: it doesn't shoot; it doesn't kill — it creates. Maybe we're looking in the wrong place — the problem isn't in the computer but in man?

Graduate student Krivoshein finished reading the diary to the inner accompaniment of these troubling thoughts. Had they worked for nothing? Was their discovery too soon, ahead of its time, and could it harm mankind? In Moscow he hadn't given much thought to it: the discovery was only within him — it had nothing to do with anyone else — and he just explored it to his heart's content and said nothing. Of course, after his bath in the pool of the reactor he was bursting to share his knowledge and experiences with Androsiashvili and the guys in the form: radiation and radiation sickness can be overcome! But this knowledge was top secret… “because of the dregs!” Krivoshein was angry. “Because of the dregs, of whom there are maybe one in a thousand and for whom that prostitute science prepares methods of destroying cities and nations! Only methods. I guess we'll have to just wipe out those vipers. No one would catch me or shoot me… but then I'll be just like them. No, that's not it, either.

The student shut the diary and raised his eyes. The table lamp was lit without illuminating anything. It was light. Beyond the window the matching yellow faces of the buildings of Academic Town stared into the sun; it looked like the herd of houses would take off after the light any second. The clock said 7:30 in the morning.

Krivoshein lit up and went out on the balcony. People were gathering at the bus stop. A broad — shouldered man in a blue raincost paced under the trees. “Well, well!” Krivoshein was amazed by his tenacity. “All right, I have to save what can be saved.”

He went back inside, undressed, and took a cold shower. Then he opened the closet, critically eyed the meager selection of clothes. He chose a Ukrainian shirt with embroidery. He gave the worn suit a dubious stare, sighed, and put it on.

Then the student trained in front of the mirror for fifteen minutes and left the apartment.

Chapter 21

“Hey! Stop! Don't be a jackass!”

“Easier said than done….” muttered the jackass, and rambled on.

— A contemporary fable

The man in the raincoat noticed Krivoshein, turned to him, and stared.

“God, what a bumbling amateur detective!” Krivoshein thought to himself. “None of this watching my reflection in store windows or hiding behind a newspaper — he's pushing his way toward me like a preneanderthal on a county bus! Don't they train these guys? They should at least read comic books to improve their technique. A guy like this is really going to solve a crime, hah!”

He was angry. He walked right up to the man.

“Listen, don't you ever get relieved? Doesn't the seven — hour workday law apply to detectives?”

The man raised his eyebrows quizzically.

“Val….” he said in a soft baritone. “Val, don't you recognize me?”

“Hm….” Krivoshein blinked, stared, and whistled. “I see… you must be the double Adam — Hercules? So that's it! And I thought….”

“And then, you're not Krivoshein? I mean, you are Krivoshein, but the Moscow one?”

“Right. Well, hello… hello Val — Adam, you lost soul!”

“Hello.”

They shook hands. Krivoshein examined Adam's wind — burned, tanned face: the features were coarse, but handsome. “Val did a good job, just look at him!” But the light eyes behind the bleached lashes hid a certain temerity.

“There's going to be an awful lot of Valentin Vasilyevich Krivosheins around here.”

“You can call me Adam. I think I'll adopt the name.”

“Where have you been, Adam?”

“In Vladivostok. God….”He chuckled, as though not sure whether he had the right to joke or not. “In Vladivostok and its environs.”

“Really? Teriffic!” Krivoshein looked at him enviously. “Did you work on the ships?”

“Not quite. I blew up underwater cliffs. And now I'm back to work here.”

“And you're not scared?”

Adam looked into Krivoshein's eyes.

“I'm scared, but… you see, I have an idea. Instead of synthesizing artificial people I want to try to transform regular ones in the computer — womb. Well… you know, put them in the liquid and act on them with external information. I guess that's possible, no?”

Adam was too diffident, he knew he was, and was sorry that he put the idea so clumsily.