But here a roar sounded. There was a crash of broken gla.s.s. The door groaned and flew off its hinges. A camera and someone's tie was carried out in a flood through the crack. We all shied away. Steila squealed again.

"Be calm," said Roman. "It's all over. There is one less destroyer on earth."

The technician, as white as his coat, smoked, drawing on his cigarette without a pause. Coughings, gurglings, and curses sounded in the laboratory.

A bad smell wafted out.

I mumbled indecisively, "Shouldn't we take a look?" No one responded.

Everyone looked at me with empathy. Stella was crying quietly and held me by the jacket. Someone was explaining to somebody in a whisper, "He is on watch today, get it? Somebody has to go help out...

I took a few uncertain steps toward the door when, clutching at each other, Vibegallo and the correspondents came staggering out.

Good G.o.d, what a sight!

Regaining my presence of mind, I drew out the platinum whistle and blew. The house brownie sanitation brigade was hurrying toward me, pushing the colleagues aside.

Chapter 5.

Believe me, it was the most awful sight in the world.

F.Rabelais I was the most surprised by the fact that Vibegallo was not the least discomfited by what had happened. While the brownies were working him over, dousing him with absorbents and plying him with deodorants, he was orating in a falsetto.

"There you are, comrades Oira-Oira and Amperian, with your constant fears. Implying this will happen and that, and how are we going to stop him.

... There is in you, comrades, that which I might call an unhealthy skepticism. A lack of confidence in the forces of nature and the potentialities of man, I would say. And where are your doubts now? Exploded!

Exploded, comrades, in plain view of the public, and spattered me and the comrades of the press here."

The press were at a loss for words, docilely presenting themselves to the stream of hissing absorbents. G. Perspicaciov was trembling uncontrollably, while B. Pupilov was shaking his head to and fro and compulsively running his tongue over dry lips.

When the brownies had cleaned up the laboratory to a first approximation of cleanliness, I looked in. The emergency squad was proceeding in a businesslike manner, replacing broken gla.s.s and burning the remains of the model in a vented furnace. The remains, however, were few.

There was a pile of b.u.t.tons labeled For Gentlemen, the sleeve of a jacket, an unbelievably stretched pair of suspenders and a lower jaw, reminiscent of an archaeological exhibit of Neanderthal man. The rest had apparently been blown to dust.

Vibegallo looked over the autoclave, which was also a self-locker, and announced that all was in order. "The press is invited to join me," he said.

"I suggest the rest return to their respective duties." The press drew forth their notebooks and all three sat down at the table to polish the sketch, "The Birth of a Discovery," and the informative remarks, "Professor Vibegallo Tells All."

The onlookers left. Oira-Oira also departed, having taken the safe keys from me. Stella, too, left in desperation, as Vibegallo refused to let her go to another department. The much-relieved technicians also left. So did Eddie, surrounded by a crowd of theoreticians peripatetically figuring the minimal pressure that must have been obtained in the stomach of the exploded zombi. I, too, departed for my post, having ascertained that the testing of the second cadaver was not to take place before eight in the morning.

The experiment left me in an oppressed mood, and, settling in the huge reception-room armchair, I tried to decide whether Vibegallo was a fool or a clever demagogue and back. The scientific value of all of his cadavers was obviously equal to zero. Models based on the original could be produced by any colleague who had successfully defended his thesis and had completed the two-year specialized course in nonlinear transgression. Endowing the models with magical properties was also trivial, because applicable references, tables, and textbooks were available to all undergraduate magi. Such models did not prove anything in their own right, and were equivalent to card tricks and sword-swallowing, from a scientific viewpoint. These miserable correspondents, who clung to him like flies to manure, could be easily understood. Because, from a lay viewpoint, all this was tremendously spectacular and evoked shivering awe and vague expectations of some sort of tremendous possibilities. But it was harder to understand Vibegallo with his pathological pa.s.sion for putting on circuslike shows and public blowouts, pandering to the curious, who were deprived of the opportunity (and desire) to fathom the essence of the problem. Leaving out one or two absolutists, returned from overlong trips, who loved to give interviews on the situation in infinity, no one in the Inst.i.tute, to put it mildly, took advantage of contacts with the press: this was regarded as being in bad taste, and with good reason.

The fact is that the most fascinating and elegant scientific results quite often have the characteristic of appearing precious and dullyincomprehensible to the uninitiated. Today, people far removed from science expect miracles from it, and only miracles, and are functionally incapable of distinguishing a true miracle from a trick or some intellectual somersault. The science of thaumaturgy and spell-craft is no exception. Many are capable of organizing a convention of famous ghosts in a TV studio, or boring a hole in a foot-and-a-half concrete wall with their look, and this no one needs, but it can drive the vulnerable public into fits of ecstasy, since it is incapable of visualizing to what extent science has intertwined and intermixed the concepts of reality with those of fairy tales. But try instead to find the profound inner relationship between the drilling look and the philological properties of the word concrete. Try to solve the small particular problem, known as Auers' Great Problem! It was solved by Oira-Oira, who created the Theory of Fantastic Commonality, and who laid down the framework for an entirely new field of mathematical magic.

Nevertheless, almost no one heard of Oira-Oira, while everyone was fully informed about Professor Vibegallo. ("Oh, you work at SRITS? And how is Professor Vibegallo? What has he invented lately?") This had come about because only two or three .jaundred people on this entire globe were capable of grasping Oira-Oira's ideas. Among them were several corresponding members but, alas, not one correspondent. The cla.s.sic work of Vibegallo, Fundamentals of Production Technology of Auto-attiring Footwear, on the other hand, which was stuffed with demagogic prattling, made quite an impact at one time due to B. Pupilov's efforts. (Later, it became evident that auto-attiring shoes cost more than a motorcycle and were sensitive to dust and humidity.) The time was late. I was quite tired and drifted off imperceptibly into a fitful sleep. All kinds of unseemly trash populated my visions: multilegged gigantic mosquitoes bearded like Vibegallo, talking pails with sour milk, the tub on stubby legs running up and down stairs. Occasionally, some indiscreet brownie would look in on my dream but, seeing such terrors, would hastily depart in fear. Finally I woke up in pain and saw a sullen mosquito, with a beard, standing next to me trying to sink his stinger, as big as a fountain pen, into my calf.

"Shoo!" I yelled, and hit him on his bulging eye.

It hummed disappointedly and ran off a ways. It was reddish, with spots, and the size of a dog.

Apparently I had p.r.o.nounced the materialization formula in my sleep and had thus brought this nasty creature out of nonexistence. I was unable to drive it back into nothingness. So I armed myself with a volume of Equations of Mathematical Magic, opened the window ventilator, and chased the critter out into the frost. The blizzard caught it at once and it disappeared in the swirling darkness. That's how unwholesome sensations originate, I thought.

It was six o'clock in the morning. I listened. Silence reigned in the Inst.i.tute. Either they were all working diligently or had scattered to their homes. I was due to make another tour, but I was just not in the mood to go anywhere, and the only thing I was in the mood for was to have something to eat, as my last meal had been eighteen hours ago.

I decided to send a double in my place.

In general I'm still a very uncertain magus. Inexperienced. Had there been anyone nearby, I would never have risked exposing my ignorance. But I was alone and decided to take a chance and practice up at the same time. I found the general formula in Mathmagic Equations, subst.i.tuted my own parameters, carried out all the necessary manipulations, and p.r.o.nounced all the requisite expressions in ancient Chaldean. It is said that hard work and patience overcome all obstacles. For the first time in my life, I managed to make a decent double. Everything about him was in the right place and he even looked a little like me, except that his left eye wouldn't open for some reason, and he had six fingers on each hand. I explained his task to him, he nodded, bowed and sc.r.a.ped, and went off, swaying slightly. We never met again. Maybe he strayed into S. Gorynitch's bunker or maybe he set offon an infinite voyage on the rim of the Wheel of Fortune. . . . I just don't know. The fact is I quickly forgot about him since I determined upon making myself a breakfast.

I am not a demanding person. All I needed was a plain sandwich and a cup of black coffee. Possibly with some so-called doctor's bologna for the sandwich, I don't know how it came out that way for me, but at first a doctor's coat, thickly b.u.t.tered, appeared on the table. After the first shock of astonishment pa.s.sed, I examined the coat attentively. The b.u.t.ter was creamy and not of vegetable origin. So what I had to do now was to eradicate the coat and begin anew. But in a revolting fit of self-a.s.surance, I pictured myself as a G.o.d-creator, and proceeded along the method of consecutive transformations. A bottle with a black liquid appeared next to the coat, and the coat itself started to char around the edges. Hurriedly, I made my imaging more precise, with special emphasis on the images of a cup and beef. The bottle turned into a cup, the liquid remained unchanged, one of the sleeves grew long, thin, and brown, and started to twitch. Perspiring in dismay, I recognized that it was now a cow's tail. I got out of the chair and went into a corner. The whole business did not go beyond the tail formation, but the spectacle was frightening enough by itself. I tried once more and the tail bloomed. I took myself well in hand, shut my eyes, and started to visualize, with the utmost detail, a slice of ordinary rye bread as it gets cut from a loaf, and b.u.t.tered with natural b.u.t.ter from a cut-gla.s.s b.u.t.ter dish, and a round of bologna placed upon it. Forget the doctor's bologna pan-- I'll take any kind . . . let it be the plain half-smoked kind. As to coffee, let it wait. I opened my eyes cautiously. A large crystal lay on the coat, and something dark lurked inside it. I picked up the crystal, the coat following, as it was inexplicably attached, and discerned the longed-for sandwich inside. I groaned and attempted to split the crystal mentally. It became covered with a fine network of cracks so that the sandwich was almost lost to view.

"Numbskull," said I to myself, "you have eaten a thousand sandwiches and you can't even approximately, accurately visualize one. Don't get excited, there is no one here, no one can see you. This is not a test, nor a crucial paper, nor an examination. Try again." I tried. It would have been better if I hadn't. My imagination grew wilder, the most unexpected a.s.sociations flared up in my mind, and as I kept trying, the reception room kept filling with strange objects. Many of them were born, apparently, out of the subconscious, the brooding jungles of hereditary memory, out of primeval fears long suppressed by the higher levels of education. They had extremities and kept moving about, they emitted disgusting sounds, they were indecent, they were aggressive and fought constantly. I was casting about like a trapped animal. All this vividly reminded me of the old cuts with scenes of St. Anthony's temptations. Particularly vile was the oval dish on spider legs, covered with a straight, spa.r.s.e fur on the edges. I couldn't imagine what it wanted from me, but it would back off into a distant corner, then charge, trying to buckle me at the knees. This went on until I squeezed it between wall and chair. I finally succeeded in destroying a part of the mess and the rest wandered off into corners and hid. The remainder consisted of the dish, coat with crystal, and the mug with black liquid, which had grown to the size of a pitcher. I picked it up in both hands and smelled.

Seemingly it contained black fountain-pen ink. The oval dish behind the chair kept squirming and scrabbling its legs on the colored linoleum, hissing vilely. I felt most uncomfortable.

I heard steps in the hall, then voices; the door flew open and Ja.n.u.s Poluektovieh appeared on the threshold and as usual said his "So." I flew into a frenzy of activity. Ja.n.u.s Poluektovich went into his office, eliminating negligently as he walked, with one universal flick of his eyebrow, my entire chamber of horrors. He was followed by Feodor Simeonovich, Cristobal Junta with a fat black cigar in the corner of his mouth, a surly Vibegallo, and a determined-looking Oira-Oira. They were allvery preoccupied, very much in a hurry, and didn't pay me any attention.

The door to the office remained open. I sat down in my old place with a sigh of relief and thereupon discovered that a large china cup of steaming coffee and a plate of sandwiches was waiting there for me. Some one of the t.i.tans had looked after me, after all. I attacked my breakfast, listening to the voices from the office.

"Let's start with the fact"-- Cristobal Joseevich was saying with cold disdain-- "that your, pardon me, Maternity Ward is situated directly under my laboratories. You have already arranged one explosion, as a result of which I was obliged to wait ten minutes while they replaced the blown-out gla.s.s in my office. I understand full well that arguments of a more general nature will have no effect on you and, for that reason, restrict myself to purely egotistical aspects. . .

"It's my business, dear friend, what I do in my place," answered Vibegallo's falsetto. "I don't interfere on your floor, despite the water-of-life, which flows there without interruption and which has wet my ceilings. Besides, bedbugs are encouraged by this. But I don't interfere in your affairs, so don't interfere in mine!"

"M-my dear friend," cooed Feodor Simeonovich. "Ambrosi Ambruosovitch!

You must take into account the possible complications. . . . After all, no one works the dragon in the building, even though there are fire-resistant shields, and-- "

"I don't have a dragon, I have a felicitous man. A colossus of the spirit! That's a peculiar logic you are deploying, comrade Kivrin, with strange and extraneous a.n.a.logies! The model of an ideal man compared to an uncla.s.sifiable fire-breathing dragon...

"My dear one, the crux of the matter is not whether he is cla.s.sifiable, but that he can start a fire...

"There you go again! The ideal man can start a fire! Really, you haven't thought it through, comrade Feodor Simeonovichl"

"I-- I am talking about the dragon.. .

"And I am talking about your incorrect framework! You are smearing it all up, Feodor Simeonovich! You are confusing the issue every way you can!

Of course we are erasing the contradictions . . . between the mental and the physical . . . between the rural and the urban . . . between man and woman, finally. But we will not allow you to paste over an abyss, Feodor Simeonovich!"

"What abyss? What sort of deviltry is this? R-Roman, s-say something!

Didn't you explain to him in my presence? I am t-telling you, Ambrosi Ambruosovitch, that your experiment is d-dangerous, d-do you understand?"

"I understand, all right. I'll not permit the ideal man to hatch in an open field, in the wind!"

"Ambrosi Ambruosovitch," said Roman. "I could go through my argument once again. The experiment is dangerous because-- "

"And I, Roman Petrovich, have been looking at you for a long time and no way can I understand how you can apply such terminology to the ideal man.

Behold! the ideal man is dangerous to him!"

Here, Roman, apparently in youthful impatience, lost his temper.

"Not an ideal man," he roared, "but your all-out consumer!"

An ominous silence reigned.

"How did you say?" Vibegallo inquired in a terrible voice. "Will you repeat that! What did you call the ideal man?"

'J-Ja.n.u.s Poluektovich," said Feodor Simeonovich. "After all! That won't do, my friend. . .

"Won't do!" exclaimed Vibegallo. "You are quite right, comrade Kivrin, it won't do! We have here a scientific experiment of international caliber!

The colossus of the spirit must appear here within the Insfitute walls! This is symbolic! Comrade Oira-Oira with his pragmatic proclivities takes a divisive approach to the problem. And comrade Junta, also, takes the narrow-minded view! You don't have to give me that look, comrade Junta: thetsarist gendarmerie did not frighten me, and you don't frighten me either!

Is it in our spirit, comrades, to fear an experiment? Of course, it's understandable that comrade Junta, as a one-time soldier of the church and foreigner, could wander in his judgment, but you, comrade Oira-Oira, and you, Feodor Simeonovich, you are simple Russian people!"

"L-leave off the d-demagogy!" Feodor Simeonovich exploded finally.

"H-how can your c-conscience permit you to c-carry on with such d-drivel?

W-what sort of s-simple man am I? And what kind of word is that-- 'simple'?

Our d-doubles are simple!"

"I can say one thing," Junta said indifferently. "I am a simple old Grand Inquisitor, and I will close off access to your autoclave until such time as I receive a guarantee that the experiment will be conducted on the polygon.

"N-no closer than f-five kilometers from the town," added Feodor Simeonovich. "Or even ten."

Obviously Vibegallo was awfully reluctant to drag his apparatus and himself to the polygon, where a blizzard blew and the light was inadequate for a doc.u.mentary film.

"So," he said, "I understand. You wish to fence our science off from the public. Well then, maybe instead of ten kilometers we should go ten thousand, Feodor Simeonovich! To someplace on the other side? Somewhere in Alaska, Cristobal Joseevich . .. or wherever you are from? Then say so directly. And, as for us, we'll take it all down-- on paper. ...

Silence reigned once more and Feodor Simeonovich, who had lost the power of speech, was breathing heavily.

'Three hundred years ago," Junta p.r.o.nounced coldly, "I would have invited you out for such words; for a walk out of town, where I would have rattled the dust off your ears and run you through."

"Easy, easy there," said Vibegallo. "This is not Portugal for you. You can't stand criticism. Three hundred years ago we'd not stand on ceremony with you either, my fugitive prelate."

I was contorted with disgust. Why was Ja.n.u.s keeping quiet? How much could one take? Footsteps broke the silence and a pale Roman entered with bared teeth. Snapping his fingers, he created a Vibegallo double. Next, he seized it with unholy joy by the chest, shook it rapidly, grabbed it by the beard and jerked it with pa.s.sionate might several times, calmed down, dissolved the double, and went back into the office.

"Well now, it seems you should be d-drummed out of here, V-Vibegallo,"

p.r.o.nounced Feodor Simeonovich in an unexpectedly calm voice. "It turns out you are quite an unsavory figure."

"It's criticism, criticism that you can't abide," responded Vibegallo, puffing.

And here, at last, Ja.n.u.s Poluektovich spoke up. His voice was powerful and even, like that of a Jack London captain.

"The experiment, in accordance with Ambrosi Ambruosovitch's request, will take place today at ten-zero-zero. In view of the fact that the experiment will be accompanied by considerable destruction, which could include human casualties, I designate the far sector of the polygon fifteen kilometers outside the city limits as the site of the experiment. I take this early occasion to thank Roman Petrovich for his initiative and courage."

Apparently everyone was disgesting this decision for some time. Ja.n.u.s Poluektovich had an undoubtedly strange manner of expressing his thoughts.

But everyone willingly accepted that his vision was the better. There were precedents.

"I'll go call for the truck," Roman said suddenly, and probably went through a wall, as he didn't pa.s.s me by in the reception room.

Feodor Simeonovich and Junta probably were nodding agreement, while Vibegallo, regaining his composure, cried out, "A correct decision, Ja.n.u.s Poluektovich! You have given us a timely reminder of our forgottenvigilance. Farther, yes farther, from extraneous eyes. Only thing is, I'll need some stevedores. My autoclave is heavy; that is, it is a good five tons.

"Of course," said Ja.n.u.s. "Issue your orders."

Chairs were being moved in the office and I quickly finished my coffee.

During the next hour, in the company of those who still remained in the Inst.i.tute, I hung about the entrance watching the autoclave, stereo telescopes, armored shields, and contingency supplies being loaded. The blizzard had blown itself out and the morning was clear and frosty.

Roman drove up in a half-track truck. Alfred, the vampire, herded in the hekatocheire stevedores. Cottus and Gyes came willingly, conversing animatedly in a hundred voices, rolling up their sleeves on the go. Briareus dragged behind, displaying his damaged finger, and complaining that several of his heads were dizzy, that it hurt, and that he didn't sleep last night.

Cottus took the autoclave, Gyes carried everything else. When Briareus saw that there was nothing left for him, he began giving orders, directions, and helping with advice. He ran ahead, opened and held doors, kept squatting down, looking under the loads, yelling "Steady as she goes," or "Bear off to the right. You're getting snagged!" In the end he got his hand stepped on, and his body squeezed between the autoclave and a wall. He broke into sobs and Alfred walked him back to the vivarmum.

Quite a few people climbed aboard the truck. Vibegallo got into the cab. He was considerably put out and kept asking everyone what time it was.

The truck started off, but came back in five minutes, as it developed that the correspondents had been forgotten. While they were being sought, Cottus and Gyes started pelting each other with s...o...b..a.l.l.s to warm up and broke two windowpanes. Then Gyes quarreled with an early drunk who was yelling, "All against one, right?" He was dragged back and stuffed into the van. He kept swiveling his eyes and cursing in ancient Greek. G. Perspicaciov and B.

Pupilov showed up, shivering and half awake, and the truck finally drove off.

The Inst.i.tute emptied out. It was half-past eight. The whole town was asleep. I was very eager to go to the polygon with everyone else, but there was no way for me to leave, so I sighed and started on another round.

Yawning, I went up and down the halls, turning off lights until I came to Victor Korneev's lab. Victor was not interested in Vibegallo's experiments. He was wont to say Vibegallo and his ilk should be mercilessly handed over to Junta as experimental animals to determine whether they were reverse mutations. Consequently, Victor didn't go anywhere, but sat on the translator-sofa, smoking a cigarette and lazily conversing with Eddie Ainperian. Eddie reclined nearby, sucking on a hard candy and pensively contemplating the ceiling.

The perch was vigorously swimming about in the tub.

"Happy New Year," I said.

"Happy New Year," Eddie responded cheerily.

"Let Sasha decide," offered Korneev. "Sasha, is there such a thing as nonprotein life?"

"I don't know," I said. "I haven't seen any. Why?"

"What do you mean, you haven't seen any? You have never seen an M-field either, but you compute its intensity."

"And so?" I said. I was watching the perch in the tub. It was going around and around, leaning hard into the turns, so that you could see that it had been gutted. "Victor," I went on, "did it work after all?"