“Enough of your demagogy!” Fyodor Simeonovich finally exploded. “Aren’t you ashamed to spout such gibberish? What kind of simple man of the people am I? And what kind of word is that—simple? It’s your doubles that are simple!”
“I have just one thing to say,” Cristóbal Joséevich stated indifferently. “I am a simple former grand inquisitor, and I shall block all access to your autoclave until such time as I receive a guarantee that the experiment will take place on the firing range.”
“And at least five kilometers away from the town,” added Fyodor Simeonovich. “Or even ten.”
Evidently the last thing Vybegallo wanted to do was to drag all his equipment and himself all the way out to the firing range, while there was a blizzard raging and the light was too poor to film the event. “I see,” he said. “I understand. You’re fencing our science off from the people. In that case, why ten kilometers, why not ten thousand kilometers, Fyodor Simeonovich? Somewhere on the other side? Somewhere in Alaska, Cristóbal Joséevich, or wherever it is you’re from? Just tell us straight out. And we’ll note it down!” Silence fell again, and I could hear Fyodor Simeonovich, deprived of the gift of speech, breathing loudly and menacingly through his nose.
“Three hundred years ago,” Junta said in a chill voice, “for those words I would have invited you to take a walk in the country, where I would have shaken the dust off your ears and run you through.”
“Oh no, oh no,” said Vybegallo. “You’re not in Portugual now. You don’t like criticism. Three hundred years ago I wouldn’t have wasted any more time on you than all the rest of the Catholics.” The feeling of hate was choking me. Why didn’t Janus say anything? How long could this go on?
I heard footsteps in the silence, then Roman came out into the reception room, pale and scowling. With a click of his fingers, he created a double of Vybegallo. Then with obvious pleasure he grabbed the double by the chest, shook it rapidly, then grabbed its beard and yanked it passionately several times before annihilating the double and going back into the office.
“You should be thrown out, Vybegallo,” said Fyodor Simeonovich in an unexpectedly calm voice. “It turns out you are a most unpleasant character.”
“Criticism—you can’t stand criticism,” answered Vybegallo, puffing himself up.
And then at last Janus Polyeuctovich spoke. His voice was as powerful and steady as the voices of Jack London’s sea captains. “As Ambrosius has requested, the experiment will be held today at ten hundred hours. In view of the fact that the experiment will be accompanied by extensive destruction, which will come close to causing human casualties, I set the site of the experiment as a point fifteen kilometers from the town boundary, in the farthest sector of the firing range. I wish to take this opportunity to thank Roman Petrovich in advance for his resourcefulness and courage.”
For some time they were evidently all digesting this decision. There was certainly no doubt that Janus Polyeuctovich expressed his thoughts in a strange manner. But everyone willingly accepted that he knew best. There had been precedents.
“I’ll go and call for a truck,” Roman said suddenly, and he must have gone out through the wall, because he didn’t appear in the reception room again.
Fyodor Simeonovich and Junta no doubt nodded in agreement, and Vybegallo recovered his wits and cried, “A correct decision, Janus Polyeuctovich! You have given us a very timely reminder of the need to restore vigilance. As far away as possible from prying eyes. Only I shall need porters. My autoclave is heavy, you know—five tons, after all…”
“Of course,” said Janus. “Issue instructions.”
The armchairs in the office began moving, and I hurriedly finished off my coffee.
For the next hour I hung around the entrance with the other people still left in the Institute and watched the autoclave and the stereoscopic telescopes being loaded up, with the armored shields and some warm old coats just in case. The blizzard had died down and it was a clear, frosty morning.
Roman drove up a truck on caterpillar treads. The vampire Alfred brought the loaders, who were the hekatonheirs. Kottos and Gyges came willingly, chattering excitedly with all their hundred throats and rolling up their numerous sleeves on the way, but Briareos lagged behind, thrusting out his gnarled finger ahead of him and whining that it hurt, that several of his heads were feeling dizzy and he hadn’t gotten any sleep last night. Kottos took the autoclave and Gyges took all the rest. When Briareos saw that there was nothing left for him, he started giving instructions and helpful advice. He ran ahead and opened doors, now and then squatting on his haunches and glancing underneath, shouting, “That’s got it! That’s got it!” or “Farther to the right! You’re getting snagged!” Eventually his hand got trodden on and he himself got jammed between the autoclave and the wall. He burst into sobs, and Alfred led him back down to the vivarium.
There were quite a number of people squeezed into the truck. Vybegallo climbed into the driver’s seat. He was feeling very dissatisfied and kept asking everyone what time it was. The truck set off, only to return five minutes later because they realized they’d forgotten the journalists. While they were looking for them, Kottos and Gyges started a snowball fight to keep warm and broke two windows. Then Gyges got into a tussle with an early drunk, who shouted, “All of you against just one of me, eh?” They pulled Gyges off and shoved him back into the truck. He rolled his eyes and swore menacingly in ancient Hellenic. G. Pronitsatelny and B. Pitomnik appeared, still yawning and shivering with sleep, and the truck finally left.
The Institute was left empty. It was half past nine. The entire town was asleep. I’d really wanted to go off to the firing range with everyone else, but there was nothing to be done about it. I sighed and set off on my second round.
I walked along the corridors, yawning and turning lights off everywhere until I reached Vitka Korneev’s lab. Vitka took no interest in Vybegallo’s experiments. He said that people like Vybegallo ought to be summarily handed over to Junta for experimental investigation to determine whether they were lethal mutants. So Vitka hadn’t gone anywhere; he was sitting on the sofa-translator, smoking a cigarette and chatting idly with Edik Amperian. Edik was lying beside him, staring pensively at the ceiling and sucking on a fruit drop. On the table the perch was swimming around cheerfully in its bathtub.
“Happy New Year,” I said.
“Happy New Year,” Edik replied affably.
“Let’s ask Sashka, then,” Korneev suggested. “Sasha, is there such a thing as nonprotein life?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t seen it. Why?”
“What does that mean, you haven’t seen it? You’ve never seen an M-field either, but you calculate its intensity.”
“So what?” I said. I looked at the perch in the bathtub. The perch was swimming round and round, banking steeply on the tight corners, and then you could see it had been gutted. “Vitka,” I said, “so it worked after all?”
“Sasha doesn’t want to talk about nonprotein life,” said Edik. “And he’s right.”
“You can live without protein,” I said, “but how come he’s alive without any insides?”