“Oh, Val….” she placed her arms around his neck and wrinkled up her nose. “Why are you like that?”
“Like what?” he asked, feeling more stupid by the second. “Well, seemingly grown — up, but irresponsible. And when I'm with you I turn into a silly schoolgirl…. Val, where's Victor. What happened to him? Listen,” she asked, her eyes growing wide, “is it true that he's a spy?”
“Victor? What Victor?”
“Are you joking? Victor Kravets, your assistant and nephew twice removed.”
“Nephew, lab assistant….” Krivoshein was momentarily confused. “So that's it!”
Lena threw up her hands.
“Val, what's the matter with you? You can tell me. What happened in the lab?”
“Forgive me, Lena, I just got confused. Of course, old Peter, I mean Victor Kravets, my trusty assistant and nephew… a very nice guy….” The woman still regarded him wide — eyed. “Don't be surprised, Lena, this is just a momentary amnesia, that always happens after… after an electric shock. It'll pass, it's not serious. So you say the rumor's begun that he's a spy? Ah, that Academy of Sciences!”
“Then it's true that there was a catastrophe in the lab? Why, why do you keep everything from me? You could have been — no! I don't want to think about it!”
“Stop, please God, stop!” Krivoshein said irritably, sitting down. “Could have, couldn't have, did, wasn't…. You see, everything is fine. (I wish it were, he thought.) I can't tell you anything until I've figured it all out myself.” He moved into an attack. “And what's your problem? So, there's one Krivoshein more or less in the world — big deal! You're young, beautiful, childless — you'll find someone else, someone better than an aging codger like me. Take Peter, I mean, Victor Kravets: he's better for you?”
“Again?” she smiled, came up behind his chair, and put his head on her bosom. “Why do you keep harping on Victor? I don't need him. I don't care how good — looking he is; he's not you, understand? That's it. And the others aren't you either. Now I know for sure.”
“Hm?” Krivoshein untangled himself.
“What, 'hm'? You're jealous, silly. I didn't sit at home every night like a nun. I went out. I was courted, even seriously by some. And still, they were all wrong!” Her voice caressed him. “They're not like you — and that's it! I came back to you anyway.”
Krivoshein felt the warmth of her body with the back of his neck, felt her soft hands on his eyes and experienced an incomparable bliss. “I could sit like this forever. I've just come back from work, and nothing has happened. and I'm tired and she's here. but something did happen! Something very serious happened, and I'm sitting here stealing her caresses!”
He got up.
“All right, Lena. You'll excuse me, but I'm not going to walk you home. I'll just sit a while or go to sleep. I don't feel very well after all that.”
“I'll stay?”
It was half question, half statement. For a second Krivoshein was overwhelmed with wild jealousy. “I'll stay?” she used to say and he would agree. Or maybe he suggested it himself: “Stay tonight, Lena.” And she stayed.
“No, Lena, you go home.” He laughed bitterly.
“That means you're still mad, right?” She looked at him and got mad. “You're a fool, Val, a real jerk! The hell with you!” And she turned for the door.
Krivoshein stood in the middle of the room, listening: the click of the lock, Lena's heels on the stairs, the downstairs door slamming, quick light steps on the pavement. He ran to the balcony to call to her — and the evening breeze sobered him up. “So, I see her, and fall back in just like that! I wonder what she said to him? All right, the hell with last year's romances!” He went back inside. “I have to find out what happened here. Wait! He must have a diary! Of course!”
Krivoshein pulled open all the drawers in the desk, tossing out magazines, folders, quickly glancing through notebooks. No, that's not it. On the bottom of the last drawer he found a cassette, a quarter filled, and for a minute he forgot about his search: he got the cassette player from the shelf, dusted it off, put in the cassette, and turned it on playback.
“With the rights of the discoverers,” a hoarse voice began, after some hissing, carelessly slurring the endings of words, “we are taking it upon ourselves to research and exploit the discovery to be called — “
“The artificial biological synthesis of information,” another voice (though remarkably like the first) added. “It's not particularly euphonious, but it's accurate.”
“Fine. The artificial biological synthesis of information. We understand that this discovery touches upon man's life like no other and is capable of becoming the greatest threat or the greatest boon for mankind. We swear to do everything in our power to use this discovery for the good of humanity.”
“We swear that until we have researched all the potentials of this discovery — “
“And until it is clear to us how to use it with absolute reliability for the good of humanity — “ “Not to turn it over into anyone else's hands — “
“And not to publish anything about it.”
Krivoshein stood with his eyes closed. He was transported to that May night when they made that vow.
“We vow not to give away our discovery for our well — being, or fame, or immortality until we are sure that it cannot be used to harm people. We will destroy our work rather than permit that.”
“We swear!” The two voices spoke in unison. The tape ended.
“We were hotheads then. So, the diary must be nearby.” Krivoshein dove into the desk once more, rummaged about, and a second later held a notebook with a yellow cardboard cover, as thick and heavy as a book. There was nothing written on the cover, but Krivoshein was certain that he had found what he was after: a year ago, when he got to Moscow, he had bought himself the exact same notebook in a yellow cover to keep his own diary.
He sat down at the desk, moved the lamp closer, lit a cigarette, and opened the notebook.
PART TWO
SELF — DISCOVERY
Chapter 6
The relativity of knowledge is a great thing. The statement “two plus two equals thirteen” is relatively closer to the truth than “two plus two equals forty — one.” You could even say that the move to the former from the latter represents an expression of creative maturity, scholarly courage, and unheard — of scientific progress — if you didn't know that two plus two equals four.
We know that in arithmetic, but it's too soon to rejoice. For example, in physics, two plus two equals less than four because of a defect in mass. And in such fine sciences as sociology or ethics, not even two plus two, but even one plus one can be either a future family or a conspiracy to rob a bank.
— K. Prutkov — engineer, Thought 5
May 22. Today I saw him off at the train. In the station restaurant, the customers stared at two grown twins. I felt uncomfortable. He was happy.
“Remember, fifteen years ago, I — no, I guess it was you — left for the exams at the physics — technological institute? It was all the same: a streak of alienation, freedom, uncertainty….”
I remembered. Yes, it was the same. The same waiter with an expression of chronic dissatisfaction with life served tenth — graders who had escaped into life. Then we thought that everything was ahead of us; and so it was. And now there is quite a bit behind us: happy things, and gray things, and things that make it scary to look back, and yet it still seems that the best and most interesting is ahead.
Then we drank the cheapest port. Now the waiter brought us fine cognac. We each had a glass.
It was noisy and crowded in the restaurant. People were eating and drinking in a rush.
“Look,” my double pointed out, “a mother feeding twins. Greetings, colleagues! Look at their eyes. How do you think they'll turn out? For now their mother is taking care of them, and even so they managed to smear porridge all over their faces in the same way. But in a few years another bustling mother will take over — Life. One, say, will grab a chicken by the tail and pull out all the feathers. The first in a collection of unrepeatable impressions, since there will be no feathers left for the other to pull. But the other will get lost in a store with great weeping and wailing — another personal, unique experience. And a year later his mother will let him have it for the jam that his brother gobbled up. Again differences: one will sense injustice while the other is getting away without punishment. Oh, mama, watch it. If things go on like that, one of them will grow up to be a timid loser, and the other a sly fellow who gets away with everything. You'll cry then, mama. You and I are like those twins.”