“This artificial environment frees man of many of the qualities and functions he developed in ancient evolution. Strength, agility, and endurance are now cultivated only in sports, while logical thought, the pride of the Greeks, has been taken over by machines. But man is not developing any new qualities — the environment is changing too fast and biological organisms can't keep up. Technological progress is accompanied by soothing, but poorly substantiated babble that man will always be on top. Nevertheless — if you talk not about man, but about people, the many and the varied — then that is not true even now, and it will only get worse. Many, many do not have the inherent capabilities to be masters of contemporary life: to know a lot, know how to do a lot, learn new things quickly, to work creatively, and structure one's behavior optimally.”
“And how do you want to help?”
“Help — I don't know if I can, but I would like to study the question of the untapped resources of man's organism. For example, the obsolescent functions, like our common ancestor's ability to leap from tree to tree or to sleep in the branches. Now that is no longer necessary, but the cells are still there. Or take the 'goose bump' phenomenon — it happens on skin that has almost no hair now. It is created by a vast nervous network. Perhaps these old reflexes can be restructured, reprogrammed to meet new needs?”
“So! You dream of modernizing and rationalizing man?” Androsiashvili stretched out his neck. “Instead of homo sapiens we'll have homo modernus rationalis, hm? Don't you think, my dear systemology technologist, that a rational path might lead to a man who is no more than a suitcase with a single appendage to push buttons? You could probably manage without that appended arm, if you use brain waves.
“If you want to be truly rational, you can manage without the suitcase,” Krivoshein noted.
“That's true!” Vano Aleksandrovich tilted his head to the other shoulder and looked at Krivoshein curiously.
They obviously liked each other.
“Not rationalizing, but enriching — that's what I'm thinking about.”
“Finally!” The professor paced his office. “Finally that broad mass of technological workers, conquerors of inorganic matter, creators of an artificial environment are beginning to see that they too are people! Not supermen who can overcome anything with their intellect, but simply people. Just think of what we're trying to study and comprehend: elemental particles, the vacuum, cosmic rays, antiworlds, the secrets of Atlantis…. The only things we don't study and wish to comprehend are ourselves! It's, you see, too hard, uninteresting, not easy to handle. Hah, the world could perish if people only worked on things that were easy to handle.” His voice was even more guttural than usual. “Man feels a biological interest in himself only when he has to go to the hospital… and you're right, if things go on this way, we'll be able to manage without the suitcase. As the students say: 'Machines will lick us before we can say boo! “ He stopped in front of Krivoshein, bent his head, and snorted. “But you're still a dilettante, my systemology technologist. You make it sound so easy: reprogram old reflexes. If it were as easy as reprogramming a computer! Hm, but on the other hand, you are a research engineer, with ideas, with a fresh viewpoint that differs from our purely biological one. What am I saying! Why am I building up hope, as though something will come of you?” He walked over to the window. “You're not going to write and defend a dissertation, are you? You have different goals, right?”
“Right,” Krivoshein admitted.
“There you see. You'll return to your systemology and I'll hear from the rector about not training scientific personnel. Heh, I'll take you!” Androsiashvili concluded without any change in tone. He approached Krivoshein. “But you'll have to study, go through the whole course of biological studies. Otherwise you'll not find any potentials in man, understand?”
“Of course!” he nodded joyously. “That's why I'm here.”
The professor sized him up and pulled him over by the shoulder:
“I'll tell you a secret. I'm studying myself. In the evening classes of electronic technology at Moscow Engineering Institute, in my third year. I go to lectures, and do lab work, and I even have two incompletes — in industrial electronics and quantum physics. I, too, want to figure out what goes where. You can help me… only shhhhh!”
They were back in Onisimov's office. Matvei Apollonovich paced from wall to wall. Krivoshein looked at his watch: it was after five. He frowned, regretting the wasted time.
“So, Matvei Apollonovich, I have my alibi. Please return my documents, and let's say good — bye.”
“No, wait!” Onisimov paced, beside himself with anger and confusion.
Matvei Apollonovich, as has been noted, was an experienced investigator, and he clearly saw that all the facts in this damn case were neatly turned against him. Krivoshein was very obviously alive, and therefore the certified and reported death of Krivoshein was a mistake. He did not ascertain the identity of the man who died or was killed in the laboratory and he didn't even know how to begin to establish the cause of death or means of murder. He did not know the motive for the crime — his version was shot to hell — and there was no body! The facts made it appear that the investigation conducted by Onisimov was just garbage.
Matvei Apollonovich tried to collect his thoughts. “Academician Azarov identified Krivoshein's body. Professor Androsiashvili identified the live Krivoshein and confirmed his alibi. That means that either one or the other made a false statement. Which one is not clear. That means I'll have to see both of them. No… to check up on such people, to put them under suspicion, and then to find out that I'm barking up the wrong tree again! I'll be destroyed….”
In a word, Onisimov understood one thing: under no circumstances could he let Krivoshein out of his hands.
“No, wait! You won't be able to return to your dirty work, citizen Krivoshein! You think that by… putting makeup on the deceased and then destroying the body, you can get off the hook? We'll still check up on who this Androsiashvili really is and why he's covering up for you! The evidence against you is still there: fingerprints, contact with the escaped suspect, the attempt to give him money….”
Krivoshein, disguising his irritation, scratched his chin.
“I just don't understand what you're trying to incriminate me with: being killed or being a killer?”
“We'll clear it up, citizen!” Onisimov yelled, losing the last remnants of his self — control. “We'll clear it up. But one thing is sure: no way could you not be involved in this case. That's impossible!”
“Ah, impossible!?” Krivoshein came up to the detective, his face flushed. “You think that since you work for the police you know what's possible and what isn't?”
And suddenly his face changed rapidly: his nose grew longer and fatter, turning purple and drooping; his eyes grew wider and their green turned to black; his hair fell back from his forehead, creating a bald spot; a mustache sprouted on his upper lip, and his jaw grew shorter. In the space of a minute, Onisimov was facing none other than the Georgian physiognomy of Professor Androsiashvili — with bloodshot eyes, a mighty nose with flaring nostrils and blue, shadowed cheeks.