Self-discovery

by Vladimir Savchenko

  My depression began at the front door. Those governmental three — meter — wide doors made out of carved oak, with curved handles and tight pneumatic springs! They seem to be created especially for beefy young bureaucrats with hands as big as skillets for a dozen eggs. The young bucks open the doors with a light tug and go handle important papers. Once through the doors I began thinking that a conversation with Azarov should not begin with a shocking opening (“I come to you as one smart man to another….”); instead I should kowtow — he’s an academician and I’m an engineer.

  And as I walked up the marble staircase covered with thick carpet attached by chrome tacks, with bannisters too broad to grasp completely, my soul reached a respectful readiness to agree with anything the academician might say or recommend. In a word, if it was Krivoshein the discoverer who went up the stairs with a spring step, it was Krivoshein the supplicant who entered the director’s waiting room, shuffling his feet, with a hunched back and a guilty face.

  His secretary Ninochka cut me off with a fervor that Lev Yashin, the goalie, would envy.

  “No, no, no, comrade Krivoshein, you can’t. Arkady Arkadievich is going to a congress in New Zealand. You know how much trouble I get into if I let people in! He’s not seeing anyone, see?”

  There were quite a few people sitting in the waiting room. They all gave me a dirty look. I sat down to wait, without any particular hope for success, simply because the others were waiting, and I would, too. To be part of the collective. A dead — end situation.

  More people arrived. They were all grim and ugly. No one spoke to anyone.

  The more people there were in the waiting room, the less important my business seemed. It occurred to me that my samples were measured, not tested, and that Azarov would try to prove that technological work in electronics wasn’t for us. “And why am I bothering him? I’ve still got over a year to finish the project. So that Hilobok can crack jokes about my work habits again?”

  Speak of the devil, Hilobok appeared in the doorway with a rushed look; I took up a good position and slipped in after him.

  “Arkady Arkadievich, I’d like….”

  “No, no, Valentin… eh… Vasilyevich.” Azarov frowned in my direction, accepting some papers from Harry. “I can’t! I simply can’t. There’s a holdup with my visa. I have to go over the typed lecture. Please address your questions to Ippolit Illarionovich. He’ll be my replacement this month, or to Harry Haritonovich. I’m not the only person in the whole world, for pity’s sake!”

  So, the man is going to New Zealand. Why am I bothering him? To a congress and to familiarize himself. And why did I ever think to grab him by the coattail? It’s silly. Just go on and work, until they want a report.

  Some day they’ll interrupt government meetings for this project. Yes, but why that does that have to be some day?

  They won’t interrupt meetings, don’t worry. I’ll be dealing with second — level clerks, who will never take it upon themselves to take any action or responsibility — weaklings, just like me.

  Weakling. A weakling and nothing more! You should have talked to him, if you had decided to. You couldn’t. You apologized in a repulsive voice and left his office. Getting an Azarov who is hurrying across the seas interested in your work is a lot harder than commanding the computer — womb.

  But there’s still something wrong.

  October 25. And this is right, I think! Our fair city is being visited by a major specialist in microelectronics, a technical sciences candidate, a future doctor in the field, Valery Ivanov. He called me today. We’re meeting tomorrow at eight at the Dynamo Restaurant. Dress accordingly. Ladies not excluded.

  Valery Ivanov, with whom I used to cut classes so that we could play cards, my roommate, the guy I did my probation work and went to parties at the library institute with. Valery Ivanov, my former boss and co — inventor of two projects, a good arguer and a man of great ideas! Valery Ivanov, the man I worked with like this for five years. I’m happy.

  “Listen, Valery,” I’ll say to him, “give up your microelectronics, and come back here. I’ve got a great project.”

  He can even head the lab, since he’s got the degree. I’m willing. He knows how to work.

  Well, let’s see how he’s changed over the last year.

  October 26, night. Nothing happens in life for nothing.

  From my first look at him, I knew that we wouldn’t have the old rapport. And it wasn’t a question of a year’s separation. The old Harry — esque vileness had come between us. It’s not his fault or mine, but we’ve ended up on opposite sides. He, who had proudly quit and slammed the door, was somehow more in the right than I, who stayed behind and didn’t share his bitter lot. That’s why there was a slight unpleasantness between us all evening, a bitterness that we couldn’t overcome. We somehow trusted each other less now. It was good that I took Lena with me; at least she decorated our meeting.

  Actually the conversation was interesting. It’s worth relating.

  The meeting began at 8:00 P.M. A Petersburgian sat before me. An imported suit in a discreet gray check, without lapels, a white, starched shirt, hexagonal glasses on an aquiline nose, a proper black crew cut. Even the drawn cheeks reminded me of the blockade.

  Lena was no slouch, either. As we walked across the room, everyone looked at her. I was the only slob in the group: a checked shirt and not — too — rumpled gray pants. Two doubles had depleted my wardrobe severely.

  Waiting for our order, we enjoyed looking at each other.

  “Well,” Petersburgian Ivanov broke the silence, “Oink something, you old pig.”

  “I see your mug is assymetrical.”

  “Assymetry is a sign of the times. That’s my teeth. I got a chill in the train,” he said touching his cheek.

  “Let me give you a punch — it’ll pass.”

  “Thanks. I think I’ll stick to cognac.”

  That was our usual warm — up before a good talk.

  They brought cognac and wine for the lady. We drank, satisfied our first hunger with sturgeon in aspic and then stared at each other expectantly again. There were parties going on around us. A tubby man standing at two joined tables was toasting “mother science.” (They were drinking to a completed dissertation.) A tipsy fellow all alone at a neighboring table was threatening a carafe of vodka, muttering:

  “I’m quiet… I’m quiet!” He was bursting to tell some secret.

  “Listen, Val!”

  “Listen, Valery!”

  We looked at each other.

  “Well, you go first.” I nodded.

  “Listen, Val,” his eyes glistening invitingly behind his glasses, “drop your systemology and come over to us. I’ll arrange your transfer. We’re working on such an interesting project now! A microelectric complex, a machine that makes machines. Do you get it?”

  “Solid — state circuits?”

  “Ah, what are solid — state circuits — obsolete now. Electronic and plasma rays plus electrophotography plus cathode spraying of film plus… in a word, here’s the idea. The circuit of an electronic machine evolves in bundles of ions and electrons, like the image on a TV screen — and that’s it. It’s finished; it can work. A density of elements as in the human brain. See that?”

  “And does that exist now?”

  “Well, you see…” he raised his eyebrows. “If it did, then why would I call on you? We’ll do it in the time allotted.”

  (Well, of course, I had to drop systemology and follow him! Not him follow me; oh, no… of course not! That’s the way it always was.)

  “What about the Americans?”

  “They’re trying, too. The question is who’ll be first. We’re working at full blast. I’ve already made a dozen depositions. Do you get it?”

  “Well, what’s the goal?”

  “Very simple: to make computers as easily mass produced and cheap as newspapers. Do you know the code name I gave to the project? ‘Poem. And it really is a technological poem!” Th
e booze made Valery’s nose glow. He was putting in a big effort and was probably sure of success. I was always easy to talk into things. “A computer factory no bigger than a TV set, can you imagine that? A factory that’s a machine! It receives a technical assignment by teletype for new computers, recalculates the assignment into circuits, encodes the result into electric impulses, which run the beams on the screen and print out the circuit. Twenty seconds — and the computer is finished. A thin plate that contains the same circuitry it now takes a whole room to house, understand? They send the thin plate in an envelope to the buyer, and he installs it in the unit. The command panel of a chemcial plant, a system for controlling traffic lights in a city, a car — wherever — everything that in the past had been done slowly, clumsily, and with mistakes by man can now be done with electronic precision by the wise microelectronic plate! So you see what I mean?”

  Lena was watching Valery rapturously. Really, the picture he painted was so marvelous that I didn’t realize right away that he was talking about the same film circuits that I created in the tank of the computer — womb. Of course, they were simpler ones, but in principle, more complex ones could be made, too.

  “But why the vacuum and various rays? Why not chemistry? Probably, you could do it that way, too.”

  “Chemistry. Personally, ever since Professor Varfolomeyev used to lecture us, I haven’t been too hot on chemistry. [Lena giggled.] But if you have some ideas on chemical microelectronics — let’s have them. I’m for it. You can handle that end of it. In the long run, it’s not important how we do it, as long as it gets done. And then… and then we’ll be able to do so much….” He leaned back dreamily. “Judge for yourself. Why should the computer — factory be assigned to create circuits? That’s extra work. All it has to do is receive information on the problems. After all, we have computers working in production, in services, in transport, in defense. Why translate their impulses into human speech if they will only have to be retranslated back into impulses! Imagine: the computer — factories receive radioed information about other computers from industry, planning, production, shipping.. from everywhere, even on the weather, the crops, the needs of people. They work it out into the necessary circuits and send them out.”

  “Microelectrical recommendations?”

  “Directives, my good fellow! What recommendations? Mathematically based electronic circuits are the reflexes of production. You don’t argue with mathematics.”

  We drank.

  “Valery,” I said, “if you do this, you’ll be so famous that they’ll even print your picture on bathroom paper!”

  “Yours, too,” he added generously. “We’ll be famous together.”

  “But, Valery,” Lena said, “in your complex there’s no room for people. How can that be?”

  “Lena, you’re an engineer.” Ivanov condescended. “Let’s look at this subject, man I mean, from an engineering point of view. Why should there be room for him? Can a man receive radiosignals, ultra and infrared, heat, ultraviolet rays and X — rays, radiation? Can he withstand a vacuum, gas pressure at hundreds of Gs, vibrations, thermal shocks from minus 120 degrees Celsius to plus 120 with hourly frequency or the temperature of liquid helium? Can he fly with the speed of a jet, submerge to the ocean floor or plunge into molten metal? Can he figure out a problem with ten factors — only ten — in a fraction of a second? No.”

  “He can with the help of machines,” Lena said, supporting humanity.

  “Yes, but machines can do it without his help! So all that’s left him in our harsh electronic and atomic age is to push buttons. But that’s the easiest operation to automate. You know, in modern technology, man is the least dependable element. That’s why there are all those breakers and buffers and other defenses against fools.”

  “I’m not saying nothing,” the drunk growled.

  “But man could be perfected,” I muttered.

  “Perfected? Don’t make me laugh! That’s like perfecting steam engines — instead of replacing them with diesels or electric engines. The flaw is in the physical principles of man, the ion reactions and metabolism. Look around,” he said, waving his arm around the room.

  “That damn process is draining all of man’s strength.”

  I looked around. At the joined tables the revelers were kissing the brand — new candidate, a bald youth, worn out by work and tension. Next to him was his wife. At a nearby table twelve tourists were feeding decorously. There were smoke and noise over every table. On the stage, a saxophonist, leaning over to the side and jutting out his belly, was wailing a solo with variations; the brass section was busy syncopating and the drummer was in a frenzy. The band was doing a rock version of an old folk song. Near the stage, without moving their feet, couples agitated all the parts of their bodies.

  “I’m not saying nothing!” our neighbor announced, staring into the empty carafe.

  “Actually, man’s only redeeming feature is his universality,” Ivanov noted. “Even though he does it badly, he can do a lot. But universality is a product of complexity, and complexity is a quantitative factor. When we learn to make computers tens of billions of times more complex with the use of electro — ion beams, it’ll be all over. Man’s song will be sung.”

  “What do you mean?” Lena demanded.

  “Nothing terrible will happen, don’t worry. Simply a situation will come about quietly, with dignity, in which machines will be able to do without man. Of course, the computers, respecting the memory of their creators, will be kind to all the rest. They’ll satisfy their simple — minded needs in terms of metabolism and such. The majority of people will be very pleased with the situation. In their unflappable conceit they will even imagine that the machines are serving them. And for the computers it will be like a secondary unconditioned reflex, an inherited habit. And maybe the computers won’t have habits like that. After all, the basis of a computer is rationality. What would they need habit for?”

  “By the way, those rational machines are serving us now,” Lena interrupted hotly. “They satisfy our needs, no?”

  I said nothing. Valery laughed.

  “That depends on how you look at it, Lenochka! The computers have every reason to think that we satisfy their needs. If I were, say, a Ural — 4 I wouldn’t have any grudges against people: you live in a bright air — conditioned room with a steady supply of alternating current — the equivalent of hot and cold water. A servant in a white lab coat scurries about, fulfilling your every whim, and they write about you in the papers. And the work is clean: switch those currents and transmit those impulses. What a life!”

  “I’m not saying nothing!” our neighbor announced for the last time, then stood up and shouted an obscenity at the room.

  The maitre d’ and company ran over to him.

  “So what if I’m drunk,” the man yelled, as he was assisted out of the restaurant. “I’m drinking on my own money — money I earned. Robbery is a job, too, you know.”

  “There he is, the object of your concern, in all his glory!” Valery compressed his thin lips. “A worthy descendant of the parasite who shouted ‘Man — that has a proud ring! Not any more. Well, how about it, Val?” he turned to me. “Come on over. Get in on the project. This way you and I will leave something for the future. Thinking computer — factories, active and omnipotent electronic brains — and in them your ideas, your work, the best of us all. What do you think? Man the creator — that still sounds good. And the best will stay on and develop even when that semiliterate broad, Nature, will finally uncrown her homo sapiens!”

  “But that’s terrible, what you’re saying!” Lena was incensed. “You’re… a robot! You just don’t like people!”

  Ivanov gave her a gentle, condescending look:

  “We’re not arguing, Lena. I’m just explaining what’s what.”

  That was the limit. Lena clicked off and said nothing. I didn’t reply either. The silence was getting uncomfortable. I called the waiter and paid. We went out on Marx Pr
ospect, on the “Broadway of Dneprovsk.” The pedestrians defiled it.

  Suddenly Valery grabbed me by the hand.

  “Val, do you hear? Do you see?”

  At first I didn’t know what I was supposed to see or hear.

  A teenage couple walked past, both in thick sweaters and the same hairdo. The boy had a transistor radio around his neck in a yellow pearlized shell with a rocket on it. The pure sounds of the saxophone and the clear syncopations of the brass resounded on the street. I would have recognized the sound of that radio among a hundred brands like a mother recognizes the voice of her child in the din of a kindergarten. The low — noise, wide — band amplifier that was in it was one of the things Valery and I had invented.

  “That means they’ve started production on it,” I concluded. “We can ask for our royalties. Hey, fella, how much did you pay for the radio?”

  “Fifty dollars,” the punk announced proudly.

  “There you see, fifty dollars, that equals forty — five Mongolian tugriks. A clear markup for quality. You should be pleased!”

  “Pleased? You be pleased! You said it was terrible [actually that was Lena, not me]. Better terrible, than that!”

  Once upon a time, we had delved into quantum physics, were amazed by the duality of the particle wave of the electron, studied the theory and technology of semiconductors, mastered the most refined lab equipment. Semiconducting equipment was the future of electronics in those days. Pop science writers praised them and engineers dreamed about them. There was a lot in those dreams. Some came true — the rest was discarded by technology. But we had never dreamed that transistors would figure among the accoutrements of pimply punks on the prospect.

  And how Valery and I had struggled with the noise problem! The problem was that electrons distribute themselves in a semiconducting crystal like particles of color in water — the same old chaotic Brownian motion. That’s why there’s noise in earphones, sounding like the hiss of a phonograph needle and the distant murmur of the surf. It’s an involved story. I had the first invention, and the official phraseology of the application to the Committee on Inventions of the USSR was music to my ears: “Submitting with this the above — mentioned documents, we request an inventor’s certificate for the invention called….”