No matter how much we wanted to check every hypothesis as soon as possible in the computer — womb, we controlled ourselves and spent the whole day on theory. We've played enough with chance. This time we'll plan everything thoroughly.
So, the first thing is to plug in.
February!. Ah, those were good theories that we were tailoring to fit what had already been done! The building block game, the mathematics of “it — not it”… it's nice to look back on how smoothly it all went. Build a theory to help you achieve new results that are much more complex.
For now the theoretical liquid (the liquid circuit) in the tank is behaving like vulgar water. Just thicker.
Do I need to write how the very next day we ran to the lab bright and' early, and in trepidation and anticipation, stuck our fingers into the tank — “plugging in.” And nothing. The liquid wasn't warm or cool. We stood around like that for an hour: no sensation, no changes.
Do I need to describe how we bathed the last two rabbits in the liquid trying to plug them into the computer? The computer — womb didn't obey the order “No!” and didn't dissolve them. It ended with the rabbits drowning, and we couldn't save them by pumping them out.
Do I need to mention that we lowered conductors into the liquid and watched the movements of floating potentials on the oscillograph? The potentials vacillated and the plotted curve looked like a jagged electroencephalogram. And so what?
That's the way it always is. If I were a novice, I'd quit.
February 6. An experiment: I lowered my finger into the liquid, Kravets put on Monomakh's Crown and began touching various objects with his finger. J could feel what surfaces he was touching! There was something warm (the radiator), something cold and wet (he stuck his finger under the tap).
That meant my finger was plugged in!? The computer was giving me information about external sensations through my finger. Yes, but they're the wrong ones. I need signals (even in sensations) of the work of the liquid circuit in the tank.
February 10. A small, innocent, trifling result. In scope it's inferior even to making the rabbits. Simply, I cut the fleshy part of my palm today and healed the cut.
“You see,” Kravets said meditatively in the morning, “for the liquid circuit to have the sensation of working, it has to work. And what is it supposed to work on, I ask you? Why should it plug into you, or me, or the rabbits? We're all complete. Everything is in informational balance.”
I don't know if I really figured it out faster than he did (I flatter myself into thinking yes) or whether he just didn't want to hurt himself. But I began the experiment: I destroyed the informational equilibrium in my organism.
The scalpel was sharp and inexperienced. I sliced through my flesh all the way to the bone. Blood drenched my hand. I put my hand in the tank and the liquid turned crimson around it. The pain didn't disappear.
“The crown — put on the crown!” Kravets shouted.
“What crown? What for?” The pain and the sight of blood kept me from thinking straight.
He pushed Monomakh's Crown on my head, clicked the dials — and the pain disappeared instantly; in a few seconds the liquid was clear of blood. My hand was enveloped in a pleasant tingle — and the miracle began: my hand became transparent before my eyes!
First the red plaits of the muscles showed. A minute later they had dissolved, and the white bones of the fingers showed through the red jelly. A violet blood vessel, thickening and thinning, pushed blood near the sinews in my wrist.
I grew scared and I pulled my hand out of the tank. Immediate pain. The hand was whole, but it shone as if it had been oiled; heavy drops dripped off from the tips of my transparent fingers. I tried wriggling my fingers but they wouldn't obey. And then I noticed that my fingers were thickening into droplet — shaped forms. That was terrifying.
“Put it back or you'll lose your hand!” Kravets shouted.
I put it back and concentrated on the cut. There was a delicious ache there. “Yes, computer… that's it. That's it,” I repeated. The tingle weakened and the wrist was losing its transparency. Sighing in relief, I took out my hand: there was no more cut, just a big reddish blue scar. A few transparent drops of ichor oozed in the crack. The scar itched and buzzed unbearably. This probably wasn't the end, then. I put my hand in the liquid again. Again — transparency, tingling. “That's it, computer. That's it.” Finally the tingling stopped and the hand was no longer transparent.
The whole experiment lasted twenty minutes. Now I couldn't show you where I cut myself with the scalpel.
I have to figure this out. The most interesting aspect of this was that I didn't have to give the computer — womb any special information on how to heal a cut — as if I could. Probably my little encouraging that's it's were superfluous. The feeling of pain had given rise to rather eloquent biowaves in my brain as it was.
It looks like the computer — womb plugs into a person with a signal of imbalance in the system. But this signal wouldn't necessarily have to be pain: it could be a willed command to change something in yourself or a dissatisfaction (“not it”). And then it could be controlled with sensation.
A minor, ineffective experiment compared with everything that came before it. After all the cut could have been doused with iodine, bandaged, and it would have healed on its own.
But it's the most important experiment we've done in a year's work! Now our discovery can be used not only to synthesize and perfect artificial doubles but to transform complex informational systems that are contained in a highly complex biological solution, which we simply call man. The transformation of any person!
February 20. Yes, the liquid circuit plugs into a human organism on a willed command, too. Today I removed the hair from my arm up to my elbow this way. I put my hand in the tank, put on the crown. “Not it,” concentrating on the hair. The prickling and itching increased. The skin became transparent. A minute later the hair had dissolved.
Kravets used the method to grow nails on his pinky and index finger that were over an inch long. He dipped both plams into the liquid and changed his usual fingerprint sworls into something resembling the tread on a winter tire. Then he tried to restore the original pattern, but he didn't remember what it looked like.
Now I see why nothing worked with the rabbits — they have no consciousness, no will, no satisfaction with self. This is a method for man. And only for man!
Graduate student Krivoshein skimmed the rest, to memorize it. He flipped through the pages of the diary, photographing them with his memory. It was clear to him: Krivoshein and Kravets had reached the same thing a different way — they could control metabolism in man. But they needed a computer.
And it was important that they needed mechanical help. Now his discovery wasn't unique, a freak, but knowledge on how to alter oneself. It wasn't enough to have a method of transformation — you had to have complete information on the human organism. They didn't have it and couldn't possibly have it. And his “knowledge in sensations” could be encoded into the computer and passed on to the world. To every human being. And every human being could have unheard — of power.
The student slitted his eyes in thought, and leaned back in the chair. The fight against disease would soon be forgotten! The elements would be subordinate to man without machines.
The blue ocean depths, where he will go without diving gear or bathyscaphe. A human dolphin will be able to grow fins and gills at will and enjoy the water environment, live in it, work in it, travel through it.
If he wants to go into the air, he can grow wings and fly, soar like an eagle on the warm air currents.
Hostile alien planets: the poisonous atmosphere of chlorous gases, heated by the sun and the uncooled magma or chilled by the cosmic cold, full of fatal bacteria. And man will be able to live there as freely as on earth, without special suits or biological shields. He will merely transform his organism to breathe chloride instead of oxygen and perhaps change the usual protein of his body to an organosilicon one.