Self-discovery

by Vladimir Savchenko

  “So, I guess Val tried another experiment. Maybe he wasn’t alone? It failed; that corpse turning into a skeleton. But why are the police involved? And where is he? Our Val must have blown town on his bike until things calmed down. Or maybe he’s in the lab?”

  Krivoshein approached the monumental, cast — iron gates of the institute. The rectangular posts of the gates were so large that the left one easily contained the pass office and the right one the entrance way. He opened the door. Old man Vakhterych, the ancient guard of science, was nodding off behind the barrier.

  “Good evening!” Krivoshein nodded at him.

  “Good evening, Valentin Vasilyevich!” replied Vakhterych, obviously not about to ask him for his pass; they were used to visits by the head of the New Systems Lab at all hours.

  Krivoshein, inside the grounds, looked back; the creep in the cloak was stuck outside. There you go, chum,” Krivoshein thought. “The pass system proves itself once again.”

  The windows of the lodge were dark. A red cigarette light glowed by the door. Krivoshein crouched under the trees and made out a uniform cap on a man’s head against the stars. “No, I’ve had it with the cops for one day. I’d better go home….” he laughed. “I mean to his house.”

  He started for the gates, but remembered the fellow in the cloak and stopped. “That’s against all the rules, the suspect running into the detective’s arms. Let him do some work.” Krivoshein headed for the other end of the park — where the branches of the old oak hung over the iron pickets of the fence. He jumped from the branch onto the sidewalk and started for Academic Town.

  “But what happened with his experiment? And who was that guy who met me at the airport? The telegram really confused me: I thought he was Val! He does look like him — very much so. Could it be? Val obviously didn’t sit around all year twiddling his thumbs! Too bad we didn’t write. What petty fools we are: each one wanting to prove that he could do without the other, to astound the other a year later with his results. With his own results! The highest form of possession. And so we’ve amazed each other. We’re destroying a major project with pettiness. With pettiness, lack of forethought, and fear. We shouldn’t have scattered every which way, but tried to attract people who were worthy and real, like Vano Aleksandrovich, from the very beginning. Yes, but back then I didn’t know him, and it won’t help to try it now, when he storms past me and gives me dirty looks.”

  It had all happened in the spring, in late March when Krivoshein had only begun mastering metabolism in his own body. Busy with himself, he hadn’t noticed spring until spring made him notice: a heavy icicle fell on him from the roof of a five — story building. If it had fallen a half inch to the left, it would have been the end of the experiments on metabolism as well as the end of his organism. But the icicle merely ripped his ear, broke his collar bone, and knocked him down.

  “Disaster, disaster!” That’s what he heard professor Androsiashvili saying as he came to. He was leaning over him, feeling his head, unbuttoning his coat. “I’ll kill that janitor for not clearing the snow!” he said, angrily shaking his fist. “Can you walk?” He helped Krivoshein up. “Don’t worry, your head is fairly whole. The clavicle will heal in a few weeks. It could have been worse. Hold on, I’ll walk you over to the infirmary.”

  “Thank you, Vano Aleksandrovich, I’ll manage myself,” Krivoshein replied as heartily as he could, even squeezing out a smile. “I’ll make it, it’s nearby.”

  And he moved on quickly, almost at a run. He stopped the bleeding from his ear immediately. But his right hand was dangling loosely.

  “I’ll call them to get the electric stitcher ready!” the professor called after him. “They’ll be able to sew up the ear!”

  Back in his room, Krivoshein taped up his ear, torn along the cartilage, in front of the mirror and wiped away the caked blood with cotton. That was easy. Ten minutes later there was only a pink scar where the tear had been, and in a half hour, that was gone too. Mending the clavicle was a lot harder; he had to lie on his bed all evening concentrating on commanding the blood vessels, the glands, and the muscles. The bones had much less chemical solution than soft tissue.

  He decided to go to Androsiashvili’s class in the morning. He got to the hall early to take an inconspicuous seat in the back and ran into the professor, who was instructing students about the hanging of posters. Krivoshein backed off, but it was too late.

  “Why are you here? Why aren’t you in the clinic?” Vano Aleksandrovich went pale, staring at the student’s ear and the right hand in which he was clutching his notebook. “What is this?”

  “And you said it would take dozens of millions of years, Vano Aleksandrovich.” Krivoshein couldn’t resist. “You see, it can be done without ‘drilling. “

  “You mean… it’s working? How?”

  Krivoshein bit his lip.

  “Mmmm, a little later, Vano Aleksandrovich,” he muttered awkwardly. “I still have to figure it all out myself.”

  “Yourself?” The professor raised his eyebrows. “You don’t want to tell?” His face grew cold and haughty. “All right, as you wish. Pardon me!” He went to his desk.

  From that day on he nodded icily to his student when they met, and never entered into a discussion. Krivoshein, to keep his conscience from bothering him too much, lost himself in his experiments. He really did have a lot more to learn.

  “Don’t you understand that I wanted to demonstrate my discovery — relive my burning interest in it, your praise, fame, ” thought Krivoshein as he tried to justify himself before the invisible Androsiashvili. “After all, unlike the psychopaths I could have explained it all. Of course, this doesn’t work with other people yet; they don’t have the constitution for it. But the important thing is that I’ve proved the possibility of it, the knowledge. If only the discovery had been limited to the fact that I can heal my own wounds, breaks, and cure myself of diseases! The trouble with nature is that it never gives just exactly as much as is needed for the welfare of man — it’s always either too much or too little. I got too much. I could, probably, turn myself into an animal, even into a monster. That’s possible. Everything’s possible. That’s the scary part.” Krivoshein sighed.

  The window and glass door that opened onto the balcony of the fifth floor glowed softly. It looked like the table lamp was on. “Is he home?” Krivoshein ran up the stairs, rummaged through his pockets from force of habit, remembered that he had thrown out the key a year ago, and swore at himself, for it would have been very effective to suddenly walk in: “Your documents, citizen!” There still was no doorbell, and he knocked.

  He heard light, quick steps — they made his heart beat faster — and the lock clicked. Lena was opening the door.

  “Oh, Val, you’re alive!” She grabbed his neck with her warm hands, looked him over, smoothed his hair, hugged him, and began crying. “Val, my darling… and I thought… they’ve been saying such horrible things! I called your lab, and there was no answer. I called the institute, and when I asked where you were, what had happened, they hung up. I came here, and you were gone. And they told me that you were….” She sobbed angrily. “The fools!”

  “All right, Lena, don’t. That’s enough. What’s the matter?” Krivoshein wanted very much to hold her close and he barely controlled his arms.

  It was as though nothing had happened: not discovery number one, not the year of mad, concentrated work in Moscow, where he cast away the past…. Krivoshein had tried more than once — for spiritual peace — to eradicate Lena’s face from his memory. He knew how it was done: a rush of blood with an increased glucose level to the brain’s cortex, small oxidations directed at the nucleotides of a certain area — and the information is removed from the cells forever. But he didn’t want to… or couldn’t. ‘Wanting’ and ‘being able’ — how do you distinguish them in yourself? And now the woman he loved was weeping on his shoulder, weeping from anxiety about him. He had to soothe her.

  “Stop, Lena. Everyt
hing’s all right, as you can see.”

  She looked up at him. Her eyes were wet, happy, and guilty.

  “Val… you’re not mad at me, are you? I said all those horrible things to you then — I don’t know why myself. I’m just stupid! You were hurt? I thought that it was all over, too, but when I found out that something had happened to you… I couldn’t. You see, I ran here. Forget it, please? It’s forgotten, all right?”

  “Yes,” Krivoshein said sincerely. “Let’s go inside.”

  “Oh, Val, you can’t imagine how terrified I was!” She was still holding onto his shoulders, afraid to let go. “And that investigator… the questions!”

  “He called you in, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Aha, the old cherchez la femme!”

  They went inside. It hadn’t changed: a gray daybed, a cheap desk, two chairs, a bookshelf piled with magazines up to the ceiling, and a wardrobe with the usual mirrored door. In the corner by the door lay crisscrossed dumbbells.

  “I cleaned up a little, waiting for you. The dust… you have to keep the balcony door shut tight, when you leave.” Lena moved close to him. “Val, what did happen?”

  “If I only knew!” he thought with a sigh. “Nothing terrible… just a lot of brouhaha.”

  “Why the police, then?”

  “The police? They were called, and they came. If they had called the fire department, they would have come too.”

  “Oh, Val….” she placed her arms around his neck and wrinkled up her nose. “Why are you like that?”

  “Like what?” he asked, feeling more stupid by the second. “Well, seemingly grown — up, but irresponsible. And when I’m with you I turn into a silly schoolgirl…. Val, where’s Victor. What happened to him? Listen,” she asked, her eyes growing wide, “is it true that he’s a spy?”

  “Victor? What Victor?”

  “Are you joking? Victor Kravets, your assistant and nephew twice removed.”

  “Nephew, lab assistant….” Krivoshein was momentarily confused. “So that’s it!”

  Lena threw up her hands.

  “Val, what’s the matter with you? You can tell me. What happened in the lab?”

  “Forgive me, Lena, I just got confused. Of course, old Peter, I mean Victor Kravets, my trusty assistant and nephew… a very nice guy….” The woman still regarded him wide — eyed. “Don’t be surprised, Lena, this is just a momentary amnesia, that always happens after… after an electric shock. It’ll pass, it’s not serious. So you say the rumor’s begun that he’s a spy? Ah, that Academy of Sciences!”

  “Then it’s true that there was a catastrophe in the lab? Why, why do you keep everything from me? You could have been — no! I don’t want to think about it!”

  “Stop, please God, stop!” Krivoshein said irritably, sitting down. “Could have, couldn’t have, did, wasn’t…. You see, everything is fine. (I wish it were, he thought.) I can’t tell you anything until I’ve figured it all out myself.” He moved into an attack. “And what’s your problem? So, there’s one Krivoshein more or less in the world — big deal! You’re young, beautiful, childless — you’ll find someone else, someone better than an aging codger like me. Take Peter, I mean, Victor Kravets: he’s better for you?”

  “Again?” she smiled, came up behind his chair, and put his head on her bosom. “Why do you keep harping on Victor? I don’t need him. I don’t care how good — looking he is; he’s not you, understand? That’s it. And the others aren’t you either. Now I know for sure.”

  “Hm?” Krivoshein untangled himself.

  “What, ‘hm’? You’re jealous, silly. I didn’t sit at home every night like a nun. I went out. I was courted, even seriously by some. And still, they were all wrong!” Her voice caressed him. “They’re not like you — and that’s it! I came back to you anyway.”

  Krivoshein felt the warmth of her body with the back of his neck, felt her soft hands on his eyes and experienced an incomparable bliss. “I could sit like this forever. I’ve just come back from work, and nothing has happened. and I’m tired and she’s here. but something did happen! Something very serious happened, and I’m sitting here stealing her caresses!”

  He got up.

  “All right, Lena. You’ll excuse me, but I’m not going to walk you home. I’ll just sit a while or go to sleep. I don’t feel very well after all that.”

  “I’ll stay?”

  It was half question, half statement. For a second Krivoshein was overwhelmed with wild jealousy. “I’ll stay?” she used to say and he would agree. Or maybe he suggested it himself: “Stay tonight, Lena.” And she stayed.

  “No, Lena, you go home.” He laughed bitterly.

  “That means you’re still mad, right?” She looked at him and got mad. “You’re a fool, Val, a real jerk! The hell with you!” And she turned for the door.

  Krivoshein stood in the middle of the room, listening: the click of the lock, Lena’s heels on the stairs, the downstairs door slamming, quick light steps on the pavement. He ran to the balcony to call to her — and the evening breeze sobered him up. “So, I see her, and fall back in just like that! I wonder what she said to him? All right, the hell with last year’s romances!” He went back inside. “I have to find out what happened here. Wait! He must have a diary! Of course!”

  Krivoshein pulled open all the drawers in the desk, tossing out magazines, folders, quickly glancing through notebooks. No, that’s not it. On the bottom of the last drawer he found a cassette, a quarter filled, and for a minute he forgot about his search: he got the cassette player from the shelf, dusted it off, put in the cassette, and turned it on playback.

  “With the rights of the discoverers,” a hoarse voice began, after some hissing, carelessly slurring the endings of words, “we are taking it upon ourselves to research and exploit the discovery to be called — “

  “The artificial biological synthesis of information,” another voice (though remarkably like the first) added. “It’s not particularly euphonious, but it’s accurate.”

  “Fine. The artificial biological synthesis of information. We understand that this discovery touches upon man’s life like no other and is capable of becoming the greatest threat or the greatest boon for mankind. We swear to do everything in our power to use this discovery for the good of humanity.”

  “We swear that until we have researched all the potentials of this discovery — “

  “And until it is clear to us how to use it with absolute reliability for the good of humanity — “ “Not to turn it over into anyone else’s hands — “

  “And not to publish anything about it.”

  Krivoshein stood with his eyes closed. He was transported to that May night when they made that vow.

  “We vow not to give away our discovery for our well — being, or fame, or immortality until we are sure that it cannot be used to harm people. We will destroy our work rather than permit that.”

  “We swear!” The two voices spoke in unison. The tape ended.

  “We were hotheads then. So, the diary must be nearby.” Krivoshein dove into the desk once more, rummaged about, and a second later held a notebook with a yellow cardboard cover, as thick and heavy as a book. There was nothing written on the cover, but Krivoshein was certain that he had found what he was after: a year ago, when he got to Moscow, he had bought himself the exact same notebook in a yellow cover to keep his own diary.

  He sat down at the desk, moved the lamp closer, lit a cigarette, and opened the notebook.

  PART TWO

  SELF — DISCOVERY

  Chapter 6

  The relativity of knowledge is a great thing. The statement “two plus two equals thirteen” is relatively closer to the truth than “two plus two equals forty — one.” You could even say that the move to the former from the latter represents an expression of creative maturity, scholarly courage, and unheard — of scientific progress — if you didn’t know that two plus two equals four.

  We know that in arithm
etic, but it’s too soon to rejoice. For example, in physics, two plus two equals less than four because of a defect in mass. And in such fine sciences as sociology or ethics, not even two plus two, but even one plus one can be either a future family or a conspiracy to rob a bank.

  K. Prutkov — engineer, Thought 5

  May 22. Today I saw him off at the train. In the station restaurant, the customers stared at two grown twins. I felt uncomfortable. He was happy.

  “Remember, fifteen years ago, I — no, I guess it was you — left for the exams at the physics — technological institute? It was all the same: a streak of alienation, freedom, uncertainty….”

  I remembered. Yes, it was the same. The same waiter with an expression of chronic dissatisfaction with life served tenth — graders who had escaped into life. Then we thought that everything was ahead of us; and so it was. And now there is quite a bit behind us: happy things, and gray things, and things that make it scary to look back, and yet it still seems that the best and most interesting is ahead.

  Then we drank the cheapest port. Now the waiter brought us fine cognac. We each had a glass.

  It was noisy and crowded in the restaurant. People were eating and drinking in a rush.

  “Look,” my double pointed out, “a mother feeding twins. Greetings, colleagues! Look at their eyes. How do you think they’ll turn out? For now their mother is taking care of them, and even so they managed to smear porridge all over their faces in the same way. But in a few years another bustling mother will take over — Life. One, say, will grab a chicken by the tail and pull out all the feathers. The first in a collection of unrepeatable impressions, since there will be no feathers left for the other to pull. But the other will get lost in a store with great weeping and wailing — another personal, unique experience. And a year later his mother will let him have it for the jam that his brother gobbled up. Again differences: one will sense injustice while the other is getting away without punishment. Oh, mama, watch it. If things go on like that, one of them will grow up to be a timid loser, and the other a sly fellow who gets away with everything. You’ll cry then, mama. You and I are like those twins.”