Hilobok was pleased with the humor of his thought and wanted to remember it. It should be noted that Harry Haritonovich was not as stupid as one might assume from his behavior. It's just that he based his formula for success on the following: they expect less from a fool. No one ever expected great ideas or knowledge from him; thus on those rare occasions when he would display some knowledge or the tiniest idea, it came as such a pleasant surprise that his colleagues would think: “We underestimate Harry Haritonovich,” and try to compensate for that evaluation in their disposition toward him. And that's how his articles got into the anthology Questions of Systemology — the editors, naturally expecting nothing very good, were bowled over by the few grains of reason in them. Harry Haritonovich turned in work to people who were already demoralized by his talk and behavior. But something went wrong with his dissertation… but, never mind, he would get his!
Harry Haritonovich was lulled by pleasant thoughts and rain — bowlike hopes. He was sleeping soundly and without dreams, the way they must have slept in the Stone Age.
Officer Gayevoy was sleeping and smiling, just returned from his night shift.
After a good cry about Krivoshein and herself, Lena fell asleep.
But not everyone was asleep. The police guard Golovorezov was fighting off sleepiness at his post watching the New Systems Lab; he was sitting on the steps of the lodge, smoking, and looking at the stars over the trees. Something rustled in the grass not far away. He shined his flashlight: a red — eyed albino rabbit looked at him from the bushes. The guard shooed him away. Golovorezov had no idea just what kind of a rabbit it was.
Victor Kravets tossed and turned on the hard cot under a cloth blanket that smelled of disinfectant in the solitary confinement cell of the prison. He was in that state of nervous agitation when sleep is impossible.
“What will happen now? What will happen? Did graduate student Krivoshein get out of it, or will the laboratory and the project perish? What else can I do to help? Fight back? Confess? To what? Citizen investigator, I'm guilty of good intentions — good intentions that didn't help anything. I guess that's a heavy guilt, if that's how it's worked out. We kept rushing — hurry! hurry! — to master the discovery, to reach that method 'with absolute dependability. And even though I didn't admit it to myself, I expected us to come up with it too. Evolution brought new information into man gradually, by the method of small trials and small errors, testing its benefit with innumerable experiments. And we — we tried to do it all in one experiment!
“We should have dropped the idea of possible social repercussions right off the bat and worked openly and calmly like everyone else. In the long run, people aren't children. They must understand what's what on their own. We figured out everything: that man is a super complex, protein quantal — molecular system, that he is the product of natural evolution, that he is information recorded in the liquid. The one thing we missed was that man is man. A free creature. The master of his fate and his actions. And that freedom began long before all the rebellions and revolutions, on that distant day when a humanlike ape thought: 'I can climb up the tree to get the fruit but I can also knock it down with the stick in my hand. Which is better? It wasn't just thinking, that ape — it had seen storms make branches knock down fruit. Freedom was the opportunity to choose a variant of behavior based on knowledge. From that day every discovery, every invention has given people new opportunities, made them even freer.
“Of course, there have been discoveries (not many) that told people: don't! You can't build perpetual motion machines; you can't pass the speed of light; you can't accurately measure the speed and position of an electron simultaneously. But our discovery forbids nothing and doesn't change anything. It says: go ahead!
“Freedom. It's not easy to recognize your freedom in our modern society, and pick variations of your behavior wisely and well. Millions of years of the past hang over man when biological laws determined the behavior of his ancestors and everything was simple. And now he is still trying to lay the blame for his mistakes on circumstances, on cruel fate, and to place hopes in God, on a strong personality, on luck — just so it's not him. And when the hopes shatter, man looks and finds a scapegoat: the people who had raised the hopes are free of guilt. In essence, people who take the path of least resistance do not know freedom.”
The peephole in the door opened, letting in a ray of light; it was blocked by the guard's face. They were probably checking to see if he was planning another break. Victor Kravets laughed silently: naturally the clink was the best place to meditate on freedom! He acknowledged with pleasure that despite all the recent hassles he hadn't lost his sense of humor.
Double Adam — Hercules was sitting and reminiscing on a bench at the bus stop on an empty street. Yesterday, as he was coming from the railroad station, thinking about the three currents of information (science, life, art) that affect man, he had the beginnings of a vague, but very important idea. He was interrupted by the three men with the demand to show his papers, those so and so's…. He was left with the feeling that he had been close to a valuable guess. He would have been better off without it, that feeling. Now he wouldn't get any sleep!
“Let's try it again. I was thinking about what information can be used, and how, to ennoble man? Krivoshein had the idea of synthesizing a knight 'without fear or flaw. And now I've got it and I can't reject it. I ruled out information from the environment and from science, because their influence on man can be equally good or bad. There is only the method of awakening good thoughts with a lyre — art.
True, it does awaken them, but the lyre is an imperfect instrument; while it's being plinked, man is ennobled, but when it stops, so does the effect. There is something left, of course, but not much, just a superficial memory of seeing a play or reading a book. Well, all right, what if we introduce this information into the computer — womb during the synthesis of man. What if we record the contents of many books, show several excellent movies? It would be the same thing: it would remain in the superficial memory — and that's all. After all, the book's not about him!
“Aha, that's what I was thinking about: there is a transparent wall between the source of art information and its receptor — a concrete human being. What is that wall? Damn it, will life experience always be the main factor in the formation of the personality? Do you have to suffer yourself, to understand the suffering of others? Make mistakes to learn the right way? Like a child who has to burn himself to keep from sticking his hand in the fire. But that's a hard way to learn, life experience, and not everyone can master it. Life can ennoble you but it can also make you bitter and stupid.”