"It's the one," I said. "Green and with a ring."

"Photon?" asked Korneev in a prosecutor's tone.

"Photon. Ja.n.u.s called him his little Photon."

"And the numbers?" asked Volodia.

"And the numbers!"

"The numbers are the same?" Korneev asked threateningly.

"I think they are the same," I said, looking at Roman uncertainly.

"Let's have that a bit more precisely," demanded Korneev, covering theparrot with his red paw. "Would you repeat those numbers again?"

"Nineteen . . ." I said. "Eh . . . zero-two, is it? Sixty-three."

Korneev looked under his palm. "You lie," he said. "And how about you?"

He turned to Roman.

"I don't remember," Roman said .calmly. "It seems it was zero-five, not zero-three."

"No," I said. "I still think it was zero-six. I remember there was that hook on it."

"A hook," Pochkin said contemptuously. "See our Holmeses and Pinkertons! They grow weary of the law of cause and effect."

Korneev stuffed his hands in his pockets. "That's a different matter,"

he said. "I don't believe you are lying. You are simply mixed up. The parrots are all green, many are tagged. This pair was from the 'Photon'

series. And your memory is full of holes. As with all versifiers and editors of hack bulletin gazettes."

"Full of holes?" inquired Roman.

"Like a sieve."

"Like a sieve?" repeated Roman, smiling strangely.

"Like an old sieve," elaborated Victor. "A rusty one. Like a net. With large mesh."

Then Roman, continuing to smile strangely, pulled a notebook out of his shirt pocket and riffled its pages.

"And so," he said. "Large, meshed, and rusty. Let's see nineteen, zero-five, seventy-three," he read.

The magisters lunged toward the parrot and collided their foreheads with a dry crack.

"Nineteen, zero-five, seventy-three," Korneev read the numbers on the ring in a fallen voice. It was most spectacular. Stella immediately squealed with pleasure.

"Big deal," said Drozd without tearing himself away from his drawing.

"I once had a number coinciding with the winner in a lottery. I ran to the savings outlet to pick up my car. And then it turned out-- "

"Why did you write down the number?" said Korneev, squinting at Roman.

"Is it a habit with you? Do you write down all numbers? Maybe you have the number of your watch in there?"

"Brilliantt" said Pochkin. "Victor, you are great! You have hit the bull's eye. Roman. what a disgrace! Why did you poison the parrot?

How cruel!"

"Idiots!" said Roman. "What am I to you? A Vibegallo?"

Korneev ran up to him and ogled his ears.

"Go to the devil!" said Roman. "Sasha, just look at them; aren't they admirable?"

"Come on, fellow," I said. "Who jokes that way? What do you take us for?"

"And what is left for us to do?" said Korneev. "Someone is lying.

Either it's you or the laws of nature. I believe in the law of nature.

Everything else changes."

Anyway, he quickly wilted, sat down out of the way, and settled down to think. Sanya Drozd drew his banner calmly. Stella was looking at each of us - in turn with frightened eyes. Volodia Pochkin rapidly wrote and crossed out some formulas. Eddie was the first to speak.

"Even if laws are not subverted," he said with a show of reasonableness, "the unexpected appearance of a large number of parrots in the same room and their suspiciously high modality rate still remain most unlikely. But I am not too surprised, since I have not forgotten we are dealing here with Ja.n.u.s Poluektovich. Don't you feel that Ja.n.u.s Poluektovich is in himself a most curious personage?"

"It would seem so," I said.

"I think so, too," said Eddie. "What field is he actually working in, Roman?" "It depends on which Ja.n.u.s you mean. Ja.n.u.s-U is involved in communication with parallel s.p.a.ces."

"Hmm," said Eddie. "That'll hardly help us."

"Unfortunately," said Roman. "I, too, have been constantly thinking about how we can tie in the parrots with Ja.n.u.s, and I can't come up with anything."

"But is he not a strange person?" asked Eddie.

"Yes, undoubtedly," said Roman. "Beginning with the fact that there are two of them and he is one. We have become so used to that, that we no longer think about it"

"That's what I wanted to talk about. We seldom discuss Ja.n.u.s, as we respect him tremendously. But hasn't every one of us noticed at least one idiosyncracy about him?"

"Idiosyncracy number one," I said. "A fondness for dying parrots."

"We'll consider that as one," said Eddie. "What else?"

"Gossips," Drozd said with dignity. "I had occasion to ask him for a loan once."

"Yes?" said Eddie.

"And he gave it to me," said Drozd. "But then I forgot how much he gave me. Now I don't know what to do."

He was silent. Eddie waited a while for a continuation and then said, "Do you know, for example, that each time I had to work nights with him, at exactly twelve midnight he went away somewhere and came back five minutes later, and each time, I had the impression that, one way or another, he was trying to find out from me what we were doing there prior to his departure."

"That is indeed so," said Roman. "I know it very well. I have noted for a long time that right at midnight his memory is wiped clean. And he is thoroughly aware of this defect., He excused himself several times and said that it was a reflexive syndrome connected with the sequelae of a serious contusion."

"His memory is worthless," said Volodia Pochkin. He crumpled a sheet with computations and threw it under the table. "He keeps bothering you about whether he's seen you yesterday or not."

"And what you talked about, if he has seen you," I added.

"Memory, memory," Korneev muttered impatiently. "What has memory to do with it? Lots of people have faulty memories. . . . That's not the point.

What has he been doing with parallel s.p.a.ces?"

"First we have to collect the facts," said Eddie.

"Parrots, parrots, parrots," continued Victor. "Can it be that they are doubles, after all?"

"No," said Volodia Pochkin. "I calculated. According to all criteria, it is not a double."

"Every midnight," said Roman, "he goes to that laboratory of his and literally locks himself up in it for several. minutes. One time he ran in there so hurriedly that he did not have time to shut the door.

"And what happened?" asked Stella in a faint voice.

"Nothing. He sat down in his chair, stayed there a few minutes, and came back. Immediately he asked whether we had been talking about something important."

"I'm going," said Korneev, getting up.

"I, too," said Eddie. "We're having a seminar.

"Me, too," said Volodia Pochkin.

"No," said Roman. "You sit here and type. I appoint you head of this enterprise. And you, Stellotchka, take Sasha and make verses. And I'm leaving. I'll be back in the evening and the paper had better be ready."

They left, and we stayed to do the paper. At first we tried to come up with something, but grew tired quickly and had to accept that we just couldn't do any more. So we wrote a small poem about a dying parrot.

When Roman returned the paper was finished. Drozd lay on the table and consumed sandwiches, while Pochkin was expounding to Stella and me why theincident with the parrot could absolutely not be included.

"Stout fellow," said Roman. "An excellent paper. What a banner! What boundless starry skies! And how few typos! And where is the parrot?"

The parrot lay in the petrie dish, the very same dish and in the very same place where Roman and I saw it yesterday. It was enough to make me catch my breath.

"Who put it there?" inquired Roman.

"I did," said Drozd. "Why?"

"No, that's all right," said Roman. "Let it lay there. Right, Sasha?'

I nodded.

"Let's see what'll happen with it tomorrow," said Roman.

Chapter 4.

Tire poor old innocent bird curses like a thousand devils, but it does not understand a word of what it is saying.

R.Stevenson.

Next morning, however, right from the start, I had to a.s.sume my normal duties. Aldan had been repaired and was ready to do battle, and when I arrived in Electronics after breakfast there was already a small queue of doubles, with lists of a.s.signed problems, at the door. I began by vengefully expelling Cristobal Junta's double, and writing on his list that I couldn't decipher the script. (Junta's handwriting was truly not susceptible to being read; he wrote Russian in gothic letters.) Feodor Simeonovich's double brought a program that had been personally composed by him. It was the first program Feodor Simeonovich had written by himself without any advice, prompting, or directions on my part. I looked the program over attentively and was pleasantly rea.s.sured that it was put together competently, economically, and not without ingenuity. I corrected some inconsequential errors and turned it over to my girls. Then I noticed that a pale and distraught-looking accountant from the fish factory was visibly suffering from the delays in the line. He was so discomfited and even frightened that I received him at once.

"It's a bit uncomfortabie," he muttered, looking fearfully at the doubles out of the corner of his eye. "After all, these comrades are waiting there and they were here before me. . .

"It's all right, these are not comrades," I calmed him.

"Well, citizens. .

"Not citizens, either."

The accountant turned altogether pale, and bending toward me, p.r.o.nounced in a halting whisper, "No wonder, then! I am looking at them, and they are not blinking. . . . And that one there, in blue-- I think he's not even breathing...

I had already processed half of the queue when Roman called.

'Sasha?"

"Yes."

"The parrot's gone!"

"What do you mean-- gone?"

"Just like that."

"Did the charwoman throw it out?"

"I asked. Not only did she not throw it out, she hasn't seen it."

"Maybe the brownies are fooling around."

"In the director's laboratory? I doubt it."

"Mmm, yes," I said. "Maybe Ja.n.u.s himself?"