“Well, comrade Amperian here says that life isn’t possible without protein,” said Vitka, making a jet of tobacco smoke curl into a tornado and wander around the room, avoiding objects.
“I say that life is protein,” protested Edik.
“I don’t see what the difference is,” said Vitka. “You say that if there’s no protein, there’s no life.”
“Yes.”
“Right, then what’s this?” asked Vitka. He gestured vaguely with his hand.
A repulsive creature appeared on the table beside the bathtub. It looked like a hedgehog and a spider at the same time.
Edik lifted himself up and glanced toward the table. “Ah,” he said, and lay back down again. “That’s not life. That’s nonlife. Koschei the Deathless isn’t a nonprotein being, surely?”
“Just what do you want?” asked Korneev. “Can it move? It can. Can it eat? It can. And it can reproduce too. Would you like it to reproduce now?”
Edik raised himself up again and glanced toward the table. The hedgehog-spider was marking time on the spot. It looked as though it wanted to run off in all four directions at once. “Nonlife is not life,” said Edik. “Nonlife only exists insofar as rational life exists. I can put it even more precisely: insofar as magicians exist. Nonlife is a product of the activity of magicians.”
“All right,” said Vitka. The hedgehog-spider disappeared. In its place a little Vitka Korneev appeared on the table, a precise copy of the real one, but only the size of his hand. He snapped his little fingers and created a microdouble that was even smaller. The microdouble snapped his fingers and a double the size of a fountain pen appeared, then one the size of a matchbox. Then one the size of a thimble.
“Is that enough?” asked Vitka. “Each one of them is a magician. But not one contains a molecule of protein.”
“A poor example,” Edik said regretfully. “First, in principle they are in no way different from a programmable lathe. Second, they are not products of development but of your protein-based skills. It’s hardly worth arguing about whether self-reproducing lathes with programmable controls are capable of generating evolution.”
“You don’t have a clue about evolution,” said the loutish Korneev. “Some Darwin you are! What difference does it make whether it’s a chemical process or conscious activity? Not all of your ancient ancestors are protein-based either. I’m prepared to admit that your great-great-great-great-foremother was pretty complex, but she wasn’t a protein molecule. And maybe our so-called conscious activity is just another variety of evolution. How do we know that the goal of nature is to create comrade Amperian? Maybe the goal of nature is to create nonlife with the hands of comrade Amperian? Maybe—”
“I get it, I get it. First a protovirus, then a protein, then comrade Amperian, and then the entire planet is populated with nonlife.”
“Precisely,” said Vitka.
“And then we’re all extinct because we’ve outlived our usefulness.”
“And why not?” said Vitka.
“There’s a friend of mine,” said Edik, “who claims that man is only an intermediate link required by nature to create the crown of creation: a glass of cognac with a slice of lemon.”
“Well, after all, why not?”
“Because I don’t want it,” said Edik. “Nature has its goals, and I have mine.”
“Anthropocentrist!” Vitka said in disgust.
“Yes,” Edik said proudly.
“I don’t wish to engage in discussion with anthropocentrists,” said the coarse Korneev.
“Then let’s tell jokes instead,” Edik suggested calmly, and stuck another fruit drop in his mouth.
On the table Vitka’s doubles carried on working. The smallest was already only the size of an ant. While I was listening to the dispute between the anthropocentrist and the cosmocentrist, a thought occurred to me.
“Guys,” I said with bogus vivacity, “why didn’t you go to the firing range?”
“What for?” asked Edik.
“Well, surely it’s interesting.”
“I never go to the circus,” said Edik. “Ubi nihil vales, ibi nihil velis.”[1]
“Do you mean yourself?” asked Vitka.
“No. I meant Vybegallo.”
“Guys,” I said, “I’m just crazy about the circus. And what difference does it make to you where you tell your jokes?”
“Meaning?” said Vitka.
“You cover my shift, and I’ll dash over to the firing range.”
“What do we have to do?”
“Cut the power off, put out any fires, and remind everyone about the labor regulations.”
“It’s cold,” Vitka reminded me. “It’s frosty. It’s Vybegallo.”
“I really want to go,” I said. “It’s all very mysterious.”
“Shall we let the child go out to play?” Vitka asked Edik.
Edik nodded.
“Off you go then, Privalov,” said Vitka. “It’ll cost you four hours of machine time.”
“Two,” I said quickly. I’d been expecting something of the kind.
“Five,” Vitka said cheekily.
“OK, three,” I said. “I spend all my time working for you anyway.”
“Six,” Vitka said coolly.
“Vitka,” said Edik, “you’ll grow fur in your ears.”
“Ginger,” I said gloatingly. “With a greenish tinge, maybe.”
“OK,” said Vitka, “go on the cheap, then. Two hours will do for me.”
We walked down to the director’s waiting room together. On the way the two masters struck up an incomprehensible argument about “cyclotation” or some such thing, and I had to interrupt to get them to transgress me to the firing range. They were fed up with me by then and in their haste to get rid of me they performed the transgression with such high energy that before I even had time to put on my coat I found myself flying backward into the crowd of onlookers.
At the firing range everything was ready. The audience was sheltering behind the armored shields. Vybegallo’s head protruded from a freshly dug trench, peering rakishly into a large stereoscopic telescope. Fyodor Simeonovich and Cristóbal Junta were conversing quietly in Latin, holding 40x magnification binoculars. Janus Polyeuctovich was standing indifferently at one side in his large fur coat and prodding at the snow with his cane. B. Pitomnik was squatting on his haunches beside the trench with an open notebook and fountain pen at the ready. And G. Pronitsatelny was standing behind him, hung all over with still cameras and movie cameras, rubbing his frozen cheeks, grunting, and knocking his feet together.
A full moon was sinking toward the west in a clear sky. The nebulous streaks of the northern lights appeared, glimmering between the stars, and then disappeared again. The snow gleamed white on the level land, and the large, rounded cylinder of the autoclave was clearly visible a hundred meters away from us.
Vybegallo tore himself away from the stereoscopic telescope, cleared his throat, and said, “Comrades! Comrades! What do we observe in this stereoscopic telescope? In this stereoscopic telescope, comrades, we, overwhelmed by an entire complex of feelings, rooted to the spot in anticipation, observe the protective hood beginning automatically to unscrew itself… Write, write,” he said to B. Pitomnik. “And get it right… Automatically, you know, unscrew itself. In a few minutes the ideal man will make his appearance among us—a chevalier, you know, sans peur et sans reproche. We shall have here with us our model, our symbol, our most exalted dream! And we, comrades, must greet this giant of needs and capacities in an appropriate manner, with no polemics, petty wrangling, or other outbursts. Let our dear giant see us as we really are, drawn up in closed ranks in tight formation. Let us conceal our capitalist birthmarks, comrades, those of us who still have them, and reach out our arms to our dream!”