Self-discovery

Zhora Prakhov, the electrician on duty, turned off the alarm signal immediately so as not to be distracted from his study of The Beginning Motorcyclist (Zhora was about to take the driver's test) and he glanced at the blinking light with hostility and expectancy. Usually localized short circuits in the lab were taken care of at the site.

Realizing after an hour that there was no getting around it, the electrician shut his book, picked up his instrument case and his gloves, set the pointer on the door at “New Syst. Lab.” and left the office. The dark trees of the institute grounds were waist — deep in fog. The transformers of the substation stood with their oil — cooling pipes akimbo, looking like shapeless old women. The old institute building hovered in the distance like a washed — out snowbank against the graying sky. It had heavy balconies and ornate towers. To the left, the parallelepiped of the new research department tried vainly to block out the early June dawn.

Zhora glanced at his watch (it was 4:10), lit a cigarette, and scattering the fog with his bag, headed right, into the far corner of the park where the New Systems Lab was located, housed in a small lodge. At 4:30, in answer to electrician Prakhov's call, two cars appeared on the scene: an ambulance and a squad car of the Dneprovsk City Police.

The tall, thin man in the light suit strode through the park, disregarding the paved paths. His shoes left dark prints on the dew — gray grass. A light breeze ruffled his thinning gray hair. A blindingly pink and yellow sunrise filled the space between the old and new buildings; birds chattered in the trees. But Arkady Arkadievich Azarov had no time for all that.

“Something happened in the New Systems Lab, comrade director,” a dry voice had informed him over the phone a few minutes earlier. “There were victims. Please come.”

Being wakened too early gave Azarov neurasthenia; his body seemed stuffed with cotton, his head empty, and life terrible. “Something happened in the lab…. Please come…. It must have been a cop.” This ran through his mind instead of thoughts.” 'There were victims…. What a ridiculous word! Who were the victims? And of what? Killed, wounded, trousers burned? What? Looks serious. Again! There was that student who got under the gamma rays to speed up the experiment, and then there was… the second incident in six months. But Krivoshein is not a student; he's experienced. What could have happened? They were working at night, and got tired, and… I'll have to put a stop to night work! Absolutely!”

When he had accepted the offer to direct the Dneprovsk Systemology Institute, Academician Azarov hoped to create a scientific system that would be a continuation of his own brain. In his dreams, he saw the structure of the institute developing along the vertical branching principle: he would give general ideas for research and system construction to the section and laboratory directors, who would work out the details and plan specific projects for the workers, who would try to…. Then he would draw conclusions from the data obtained and produce new fundamental ideas and principles. But reality intruded harshly on his dreams. A lot of it was due to acts of God: the slow — wittedness of some scientists and excessive independence of others; the changes in the construction plans, which was why the storerooms and storage yards of the institute were piled high with unopened crates of equipment; the backbiting among purchasing sections; the arguments that erupted from time to time among the institute's members; and the accidents and incidents…. Arkady Arkadievich thought bitterly that he was no closer now to realizing his dream than he had been five years ago.

The one — story lodge with the tile roof shone white in its idyllic setting among the flowering lindens, whose delicate scent filled the air. There were two cars bruising the lawn by the concrete porch: a white ambulance and a blue Volga with a red stripe. As soon as Arkady Arkadievich was in sight of the lab, he slowed down and started thinking. In eighteen months of its existence he had been in the lab only once, in the very beginning, and only briefly for a general tour, and he really couldn't picture what there was behind the door.