“Why were you thinking that? You loved people so much, is that it? But you had killed people before — both before and after that.”
“I killed and they tried to kill me — it was the times.”
“Then why?”
“I was proud, I guess that's why. I was very proud in those days. I thought I was fighting the whole war.”
“And father, that's how proud I am now.”
“Of course, if you go on the parapet you have to stand proud. That's true. But don't you equate your work with the parapet, son. I didn't stand the whole two hours. The soldiers' committee raised the battalion; they bumped off the officers, and that was it. Do you have anyone to raise an alarm over you?”
I had no answer for that question — and the imagined conversation ended.
Well, enough of this — bedtime! Cuckoo, cuckoo, how long will I live?
Chapter 24
“People from Earth, your excellency.”
“From Earth? Earth, Earth… hmm…”
“That's the planet where Fledermaus was composed, Excellency.”
“Ah! Tum — tiri — tiri, tum — tiri — tiri, tum — pam — pam — pam! Mar — velous piece. Well, give them a third — level reception.”
— A conversation in the Universe
Graduate student Krivoshein went up to the fifth floor and entered the apartment. Victor Kravets and Adam were smoking out on the balcony; when they saw him, they came inside. Krivoshein gave them a glum look.
“Three from one pea pod. And there used to be four….” He looked at the clock. There was still time. He sat down. “Tell me, Victor Kravets, what happened there?”
Kravets lit up another cigarette and began the story in a hollow voice.
The plan of the experiment was for Krivoshein the Original to immerse himself up to the neck in the liquid — control the sensations — put on Monomakh's Crown — control the sensations once more — give the command of dissatisfaction (“Not it!”) — come into mutual contact with the liquid circuit — reach the stage of controllable transparency — fix his broken ribs — use the “impulse of satisfaction” for the command “That's it” — return to nontransparency — break contact with the liquid circuit — and leave the tank.
They had gone over the methodology of the experiment dozens of times by immersing their extremities. The mutual permeation of the liquid and the body could be controlled and regulated easily.
“You see, friends, it turns out that inside our bodies there are always less healthy spots, tiny flaws, well, like your skin, no matter how healthy, always had a pimple or a scratch or chafing or a local irritation. I don't know what kind of inner 'scratches' there are, but after working in the liquid your arm or leg always feels better than it did before. The liquid circuit corrects these minor flaws. And you can recognize these corrections as they are going on: there is a tingling sensation that increases and then decreases. And if after the decrease you give the command 'That's it' the computer breaks contact and the arm or leg stops being transparent. I'm only telling you this to show you that we had no questions on the methodology of entering and breaking contact with the liquid circuit.”
“While you were immersing no more than ten or fifteen percent of the body,” Krivoshein added.
“Yes. We were also sure that the human body maintains muscle tone in the transparent stage in liquid. We used to 'struggle' in the liquid: his hand [transparent] and mine [not], or right against left when both were transparent. In other words, the liquid circuit fully supports the viability of the body.”
“Of parts of the body,” Krivoshein interrupted again. “Yes. Perhaps that was the whole problem,” Kravets sighed. Of course, it was frightening. It was one thing to dip your hand or foot into the liquid — you can pull it out if you sense danger. At worst, you'll lose an arm. But it's completely different to immerse yourself in the tank, giving yourself up to the whim of a complex and mysterious medium that you can't fight off or run away from.
They hid the fear from each other. Krivoshein, because he feared for himself. Kravets, because he didn't want to scare him unnecessarily.
But everything had been prepared assiduously, conscientiously. They regulated the level of liquid in the tank so that it would come up to Krivoshein's neck when he got in and stood in it. They placed a large mirror opposite the tank. (They had to shell out for it; there wasn't one at the warehouse.) Krivoshein could observe and control the changes he saw in the mirror.
In order to lessen the possibility of any fluctuations in current and electromagnetic field, they decided to run the experiment at night, after 2:00 A.M., when all the other labs were turned off and the buses and trolleys were in the depot.
Krivoshein stripped, climbed up the steps, and holding on to the edge with his left hand (his right was weak after the motorcycle accident), sank into the tank. The liquid gurgled. He stood up to his neck in it — his head looked separate from his body. Kravets was ready with Monomakh's Crown.
Krivoshein licked his lips.
“Salty.” His voice was hoarse.
“What?”
“The liquid. Like sea water.”
They waited a minute.
“It seems in order. No sensations, as to be expected. Give me the crown.”
Kravets put Monomakh's Crown firmly on his head, clicked the dials, and climbed back down. Now his job was to observe Krivoshein, give advice, if needed, and help him out of the tank in case of some unexpected emergency.
Krivoshein spent another minute getting used to his new position.
“The sensations are familiar: tingling, prickling,” he said. “Nothing new. Well, that's it. Wish me luck. I'm starting to plug in.”
“Break a leg, Val.”
“The hell with it. We're off!”
They didn't talk after that.
Krivoshein's body developed in the liquid like a color negative. The white contours of the bones and tendons showed through the purple muscles with their layers of yellowish fat. His ribs rose and fell rhythmically, like a bellows. Kravets saw white swellings in two ribs on the right side. The purplish red fist of the heart contracted and relaxed, pushing along crimson streams of blood (it was no longer clear into where).
Krivoshein didn't take his eyes off his reflection. His face was pale and concentrated.
Soon the muscles turned golden yellow and you could distinguish them from the liquid only by light refraction.
“And then….” Kravets rubbed his temples with the palms of his hands, took a deep drag on his cigarette, “and then the automatic vacillations began. Like it had in the very beginning with the rabbits: everything in Val began changing size and shape synchronously. I ran up to the tank: 'Val, what are you doing? He looked at me, but said nothing in reply. 'The vacillations! Unplug! He tried to say something, opened his lips, and suddenly went under into the liquid. He began jerking, twisting, a dancing skeleton with a nickel — plated helmet!”
He took another deep drag.
“The only thing to do, to save him was to use Monomakh's Crown and the 'it — not it' commands to get into rhythm with the vacillations of his body and stop them gradually, using them to return the body to the nontransparent stage. You know, external control, the way he made you,” Kravets nodded at Adam, and me.
He stopped talking, working his jaw muscles.
“That damn Harry! We could really have used an extra SES — 2 then. But of course there was no hope of getting a second crown after his dissertation flopped! Putting him in jail wouldn't be enough.”
“He probably wouldn't even get a reprimand for not completing an order in time. It's not like insulting a professor,” Krivoshein laughed drily. “And you can't accuse him of anything more than that.”
“The only way was to remove the crown from Val's head,” Victor continued. “I jumped up on the steps, put my hands in the liquid — and I got an electric shock through both arms. Judging by the effect, I'd say four hundred or five hundred volts. There had never been potentials like that in the liquid before. Well, you know, the hands jerk away involuntarily in cases like that. I ran to the shelves, got rubber gloves, and tried again, but Val was deep inside, and the gloves weren't long enough. The shock was so strong that this time I fell to the floor. I had to turn over the tank. I couldn't let him dissolve into the liquid before my very eyes like… like you had.” Kravets looked over at Adam. “I was him, Krivoshein, when he was dissolving you. [Adam's face tensed.] And he was still alive. His face had dissolved, too. There was only the crown on his skull, but he was jumping about, so that meant his muscles were working. I grabbed the edge of the tank and started shaking it. The edges are flexible and slippery but finally I pulled it down, almost on me. I just got out in time — but the liquid splashed on my face and neck and I got a third shock from that. I don't remember the rest. I came to on the stretcher.”