Self-discovery

by Vladimir Savchenko

  Oh, Harry isn’t lying for nothing! There’s something going on.

  May 18. Today I knocked at the window next to which a local institute poet, who wished to remain anonymous, had written in pencil:

  Be worthy of the first form.

  The enemy does not sleep!

  Major Pronin.

  I was worthy. That’s why Joahann Johannovich let me into the closed reading room and gave me a copy of the dissertation of technical sciences candidate H. H. Hilobok to attain the degree of doctor of technical sciences on the top of… well, I can’t write about that.

  Well, brother…. First of all, the topic deals totally with the development of the blocks of memory that Valery and I had done long ago, and it looks like Hilobok was at least the inventor and director of the project; it doesn’t come out and say so, but you can read it between the lines. Secondly, he allowed himself free improvisation in part of the explanation and interpretation of the results, and made major mistakes. Thirdly, he has long — proven facts, determined by foreign systemologists and electronics people, introduced by “It has been determined by experiments that….” How could the scientific council let that get by? It’s May, and half the people are on business trips or vacation.

  No, he won’t get away with this.

  May 19. “Do you know math?” Kravets asked when I told him about it and my plans for it.

  “Yes, why?”

  “Then add it up: two days to prepare for participation in the defense, plus a day for the defense, plus a month of hassles afterward. You’re not a baby. You know you won’t get by with a joke like this. What’s more important: you’ll be squandering a month of our work, the results of which will influence the world more than all the technology extant today, or some lousy dissertation, which won’t affect anything? One more or less in the world, no difference.”

  “Hmm… and now I’ll show you a different math. You and I are identical people with identical ability, and in some ways you’ve surpassed me. But if I were to go over to that Harry Hilobok and, without delving into particulars, tell him that student Kravets is stupid, hasn’t the slightest understanding of computers (even is weak in math), breaks equipment, and secretly drinks alcohol, what do you think would happen to Kravets? Kicked out of the institute and out of the dorms. And he’s gone. He won’t be able to prove anything to anyone, because he’s only a student. And that’s the comparative power that Hilobok will have over us when he becomes a doctor of sciences. Have I convinced you?”

  I convinced him so well that he set off immediately for the library to take notes from open sources.

  I have another justification: we have to think not only about our research but also about defending the correct application of our discovery some day. And we don’t yet know how to do that. We have to learn.

  The hell with careful justification! I mean am I alive in this world or is it only my imagination?

  May 22. It all began normally enough. A small but impressive audience gathered in the hall of the construction bureau. Harry Haritonovich put up several sheets of oaktag with graphs and charts on the board, struck a picturesque pose next to them and delivered the usual twenty — minute talk. The audience listened with the usual discomfort. Some had no idea what he was talking about; others understood some of it; and still others understood it all: just what this Hilobok was, and what his dissertation was on, and why he kept it secret. But all those present thought glumly that it was none of their business, and really, that they could not cast the first stone — the usual sleepy thoughts that permit thousands of inept and sneaky louts into science.

  Harry finished. The chairman read critical response to the work. The response was good (but who would submit unfavorable ones to his dissertation defense?). The only serious unexpected thing was that Arkady Arkadievich had written a response to the work, too. Then the official opponent took the stage. Everyone knows what an official opponent does: in order to earn his name, he notes several inconsistencies, several incomplete thoughts, and “yet in sum total the work corresponds… the author is deserving of….” Well, I won’t lie about this one: the opponent from Moscow was a highly qualified man and he mocked all the propositions of the dissertation and made it clear that he could expose the whole thing, but he did it so carefully and subtly that probably even Harry didn’t see it. “Yet in sum total the work deserves….”

  And finally: “Who would like to speak?” Usually by this time everyone is disgusted by the proceedings; no one wants anything; the candidate thanks everyone — and it’s over.

  Laboratory head V. Krivoshein breathed in and out deeply (by then I realized how much trouble this would cause) and raised his hand. Harry Haritonovich was unpleasantly surprised. I spoke twenty minutes, as he had, and in unfolding my point of view I handed the council members journals, magazines, monographs, brochures, and so on that contained the results Hilobok was defending without any mention of him. Then I re — created his circuit for… never mind for what, particularly since its only redeeming feature was its “originality,” and proved that the circuit would not work in the frequencies of the required range. There was a hubbub in the hall.

  Then appeared candidate of sciences V. Ivanov, who had specially made the trip from Leningrad (not without a phone call from me). He clarified the borrowed data and took apart the “original” part of the dissertation; Valery’s speech was full of erudition and subtle humor. The audience grew noisier — and then it began!

  My old friend Zhalbek Balbekovich Pshembakov tried to find out from Harry how was it that in circuit number two… it’s not worth writing about either. Hilobok didn’t know how it was, but he tried to get away with some bull and babble. Then the other colleagues of the construction bureau entered the fray. The last speaker was the chief engineer, a professor and Nobel Prize winner (I won’t mention his name in this context). “I had the feeling from the first that there was something wrong here,” he began.

  So the first form didn’t help Hilobok; they squashed his dissertation like God can squash a turtle! Harry was a pitiful sight. Everyone was going off to his office and he was taking down his magnificent displays, and the stiff oaktag rolled up and hit him in the mustache. I went over to help.

  “No, thank you,” Hilobok muttered. “Are you satisfied? You don’t write anything and you don’t let anyone else do it, either. It’s an easy life. Valentin Vasilyevich, nature has endowed you with certain gifts….”

  “Sure, it’s easy! My salary is half of yours, and my vacation time, too. And I’m swamped with work and responsibilities.”

  “You add to your worries unnecessarily. Why did you have to get involved in this?” Harry, rolling up his displays, gave me a threatening and angry look. “You have to think about the institute, not just about yourself and me. Well, this isn’t the place to talk about it.”

  So that’s the ticket. Well, it doesn’t matter. I feel wonderful now. As though I had done something that was infinitely more valuable and meaningful than even our discovery: I squashed a viper. That means it’s possible. And not as terrible as I had expected.

  Now I’m not so worried about our work’s future. Problems like this can be surmounted, too.

  “But it did have an effect on his work,” muttered Onisimov — Krivoshein, watching the computer — womb. “Everything has an effect on the work.”

  May 29. Today I was called onto Azarov’s thick carpet. He has just gotten back from a trip.

  “So you realize what you’ve done?”

  “But, Arkady Arkadievich, the dissertation — “

  “We’re not talking about Harry Haritonovich’s dissertation, but about your behavior! You’ve undermined the institute’s prestige, and in no small way!”

  “I expressed my opinion.”

  “Yes, but where? How? Is it so difficult to comprehend that in another organization you are not simply an engineer trying to even a scholarly score with someone (well, Harry told his side!) but a representative of the Institute of Syste
mology! Why didn’t you express your opinion at the preliminary defense?”

  “I didn’t know about it.”

  “Nevertheless you could have told it to my replacement after the defense. It would have been taken into account!”

  (He’s talking about Voltampernov — a likely story!)

  “It wouldn’t have been taken into account.”

  “I see we won’t reach an agreement. What are your plans for the future?”

  “I don’t intend to resign.”

  “I’m not asking you to. But it seems to me that you’re not ready to head a laboratory. A scientist working in a collective must bear the good of the collective in mind and at any rate, certainly not deal it any death blows by his behavior. I imagine that you will have trouble, at the next qualifying session, passing to lab head. That’s all. I won’t keep you.”

  So that’s how it is. The whole institute is abuzz with turkey gobbles: “An engineer against a candidate! Keeping him from his doctorate!” Thanks to Harry everybody thinks that I was trying to settle a score with him. They’re dragging out my old sins: the chewing out, the accident in Ivanov’s lab (Matyushin, the head janitor, is planning to sue me for damages). They realized that I haven’t turned in an annual report on my project, even though topic 154 isn’t over until this year. They say that a commission to check on the lab’s work should be set up.

  My enemies shout. My friends whisper carefully, looking over their shoulders: “You really gave it to Hilobok. The jerk deserves it. Well, they’ll get you now.” And they suggest where I should tranfer. “Why don’t you intercede?” “Well, you see….” Even good old Fenya Zagrebnyak just spreads his hands apart. “What can I do? It’s not in my field.”

  A narrow specialist has a lousy life. Well — fed, secure, but lousy. All his interests are concentrated on elements of passive memory, say, and not on any old elements but only on cryotron elements, and only on film cryotrons and only on those made of lead — tin films. The worker, the farmer, the technician, the broad — based engineer, the teacher, and even the office worker can apply his knowledge and skills to many activities, enterprises, and companies, but there are only two or three institutes in the whole Soviet Union studying those damned cryotrons. What can poor Fedya do? He has to sit there and not make waves. In effect, a narrow speciality is a means of self — enslavement.

  That’s why it’s rare among us specialists to find all for one (unless the one is Azarov). All against one is the more usual picture; that’s easier. That’s why passions flare up at the first sign of insubordination. “Anyone could be failed like that!” yelped Voltampernov — and it went on and on.

  All right, I’ll bear it. I can take it. The important thing is that it’s done. I knew what I was getting into. But it’s repulsive. It’s unbelievably disgusting.

  Onisimov put out his cigarette and stared at the computer. Something had changed slowly and imperceptibly in the distribution of the hoses. They seemed to be tensed. A shudder of contractions traveled through some of them. And — Onisimov jumped — the first drop fell loudly from the left gray hose into the tank.

  Onisimov moved the stairs over to the tank and climbed up. He put his hand under the hose. In a minute it was full of the golden liquid. The lines in his skin were visible through it, as if under a magnifying glass. He concentrated, and the skin disappeared, revealing the red muscles, the white bones, the tendons…. “Ah, if they had only known how to do this,” he sighed. “The experiment wouldn’t have gone like this. They didn’t know. And it had an effect.”

  He let the liquid splash into the tank, got back down to the floor, and washed his hand in the sink. The patter of drops from all the hoses rang merrily and springlike in the lab.

  “Work! You’re strong, computer,” Onisimov — Krivoshein said respectfully. “As strong as life.”

  He obviously didn’t want to leave the laboratory. But he glanced at his watch, put on his jacket, and hurried.

  “Good morning, Matvei Apollonovich!” Hilobok greeted him rapturously. “Working already? I’ve been waiting for you. I wanted to report something,” he whispered, bringing his mustache close to Onisimov’s ear, “Yesterday that. woman of his, Elena Ivanovna Kolomiets, came to his apartment, took something, and left. And there was someone else in there, too. The light was on all night.”

  “I see. You did the right thing in telling me. As they say, jurisprudence will not forget you.”

  “Oh, any time, it’s my duty!”

  “Duty aside,” Onisimov said in a stern voice, “aren’t you motivated by other, stronger motives, comrade Hilobok?”

  “What motives?”

  “For instance the fact that Krivoshein ruined your doctoral dissertation defense.”

  Harry Haritonovich’s face sagged for a moment and then quickly took on a look of injury at the hands of humanity.

  “Some people! Someone already had time to report that to you. What kind of people work here, I ask you, tsk, tsk? Don’t be silly, Matvei Apollonovich. How could you doubt the sincerity of my motives! Krivoshein didn’t have as tremendous an influence at the defense as you might have been told. There were more serious experts there than him, and many approved of it, but he, obviously, was jealous, and well, they suggested I make some changes, nothing terrible. I’ll be up for it again soon. But, of course, if you suspect me, that’s up to you. Then check things out for yourself. It was my duty to tell you, but now… good day!”

  “Good day.”

  Harry Haritonovich left furious: Krivoshein was getting him from the other world, too!

  “You really let him have it, comrade captain!” the guard said approvingly.

  Onisimov didn’t hear. He was watching Hilobok leave.

  It leads to one thing. But the question that comes up willy — nilly is “Is it worth it?”

  Be straight, Krivoshein: you can kick the bucket in this experiment. It’s that simple, based on your own statistics of success and failure in your experiments. Science and methodology aside, things never work the way they should the first time — that’s the old law. And a mistake in this experiment is more than a spoiled sample.

  I mean basically I’m climbing into the tank as a narrow specialist in this work. That’s my speciality, like cryotron film is for Fenya Zagrebnyak. But I don’t have to get in there — nobody’s forcing me. Funny, I have to get into a medium that easily dissolves live organisms simply because my specialty worked out badly!

  For people? The hell with them! Do I need more than the rest? I’ll just live quietly for myself. And it’ll be good.

  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.