Self-discovery

And everything will be clear — with the lowest, coldest clarity of a scoundrel. And I'll have to spend my life justifying my retreat by saying that all people are like that, no better than me, and even worse, everyone lives only for himself. And I'll have to drop all my hopes and dreams of better things quickly so that they don't remind me. I sold out! I sold out and I have no right to expect anything better from anyone else.

And then it will get really cold in the world….

Golovorezov was asking him something.

“What?”

“I said, will my replacement be here soon, comrade captain? I came on at twenty — two hundred.”

“Didn't you get enough sleep?” Onisimov squinted at him merrily. “You'll have to stand it another hour and a half or so. Then you'll be relieved, I promise. I'll take the keys with me. That's better. Don't let anyone in here!”

Chapter 22

Einstein had a boss, and Faraday had one, and Popov had one… but somehow no one ever remembers them. Now that's a violation of subordination!

— K. Prutkov — engineer, Thought 40

The window of Azarov's office opened on the institute grounds. He could see the crowns of the lindens and the gray — glassed parallelepiped of the new building rising above them. Arkady Arkadievich never tired of the view. In the mornings it helped him chase away his neurasthenia and gave him energy. But today, looking out the window, he merely frowned and turned away.

Yesterday's feeling to loneliness and vague guilt hadn't passed. “Eh!” Azarov tried to wave it away. “Whenever anyone dies, you always feel guilty just because you're still alive. Especially if the person was younger than you. And loneliness in science is natural and usual for anyone working in the creative end. Each one of us only knows his own field. It's hard to understand one another. That's why we often replace mutual understanding with an unspoken agreement not to pry into other people's business. But what had he known? What was he doing?”

“May I? Good morning, Arkady Arkadievich!” Hilobok moved across the carpet, exuding cologne as he walked.

Onisimov's subtle hint had worried Harry Haritonovich. It occurred to him that someone might think that he was evening the score with Krivoshein over the dissertation by poisoning him to death. “It's only natural that when someone is killed they look for a killer. And around here, they could easily….” the assistant professor thought, paranoid. He wasn't quite sure who or what he had to be afraid of, but he knew he had better be afraid, to keep them from getting a jump on him.

“So, Arkady Arkadievich, I've prepared a draft of an order regarding the incident with Krivoshein, so that everything about him… and this incident would be formulated properly. There are only two points here: in regards to a commission and in regards to the closing of the laboratory. Please read it over, Arkady Arkadievich, and if you have no objections — “

Hilobok leaned over the polished desk and placed a typewritten page in front of the academician.

“I've entered the following as members of the commission to investigate the incident: comrade Bezmerny, safety engineer — it's just up his alley, heh — heh — Ippolit Illarionovich Voltampernov, as a specialist in electronic technology; Aglaya Mitrofanovna Garazh, as a member of the local committee on labor defense; Lyudmila Ivanova from the office as the technical secretary of the commission… and well, I'll head it myself if you don't mind, Arkady Arkadievich. I'll take this burden on, too, heh — heh!” He looked up carefully.

Arkady Arkadievich was examining his faithful scientific secretary. The man, as usual, was extremely well shaven and groomed, his narrow red tie streaming down a starched shirt front like blood from a throat slit by a collar, but for some reason the sight and the sound of Harry Haritonovich's mellow voice elicited deep revulsion in the academician. “That light trembling before me. that phony subordinate dumbness. You're transparent, Harry Haritonovich, through and through! Maybe that's why I keep you around, because you are transparent? Because I can't expect anything unexpected or great from you? Because your goals are obvious? When the goals of a functioning system are understood, it's a thousand times easier to foresee its behavior than when the goals are masked — there is a law like that in systemology. Or is it just that I enjoy a daily comparison with you? Maybe that's why I feel this loneliness — because I surround myself with people who are easy to tower over?”

“And the second point is on the ending, that is, the stopping of work in the New Systems Laboratory during the work of the commission And then after the commission we'll see more clearly what to do with the lab: to disband it or turn it over to another department.”