by Arkady
“There is nothing to fear,” Vibegallo said weightily. “Let our enemies be afraid.”
“You remember, I told you that it is impossible—”
“Comrade Oira-Oira, you have not done your homework. You should distinguish, comrade, possibilities from realities, happenstances from necessities, theory from practice, and in general—”
“Still, wouldn’t it be better done on the polygon?”
“I am not testing a bomb,” Vibegallo said loftily. “I am testing the model of an ideal man. Are there any other questions?”
Some brain from the Absolute Knowledge Department started inquiring into the autoclave operational regime. Vibegallo launched gladly into explanations. The dour lab technicians were collecting their technology for the satisfaction of spiritual needs. The zombi continued eating. The black suit was parting and splitting along the seams.
Oira-Oira looked at it appraisingly. Suddenly he said loudly, “Here is a suggestion. All those not personally involved should leave the room.”
Everybody turned toward him.
“Very soon it’s going to get very filthy here,” he explained. “Unbearably filthy.”
“That’s a provocation,” Vibegallo said with dignity.
Roman grabbed me by the sleeve and started urging me toward the door. I dragged Stella after me. The rest of the spectators streamed after us. They trusted Roman in the Institute, but not Vibegallo. Only the correspondents, of those not associated with Vibegallo, remained behind, while we crowded into the hall.
“What’s the matter?” they asked Roman. “What will happen? Why filthy?”
“He’ll let go any minute now,” he answered, not taking his eyes off the door.
“Who’ll let go? Vibegallo?”
“I feel sorry for the correspondents,” said Eddie. “I say, Sasha, is the shower turned on today?”
The door of the laboratory opened and two technicians came out, dragging the tub and empty pails; the third, glancing behind him fearfully, was bustling about and muttering, “Let me give you a hand, guys—it’s too heavy for you…”
“Close the door,” advised Roman.
The bustling technician quickly closed the door and walked up to us, taking out a pack of cigarettes. His eyes were big and shifty.
“It’s going to happen now,” he said. “Perspicaciov is a fool. I kept winking at him! How the zombi is eating! It’s enough to drive you out of your mind…”
“It is now twenty-five minutes past two—” Roman began.
But here a roar sounded. There was a crash of broken glass. 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. Stella 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 God, 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 glass and burning the remains of the model in a vented furnace. The remains, however, were few. There was a pile of buttons 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 passion 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 Institute, 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 dully incomprehensible 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 re
ality 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 hundred 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 classic 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 pronounced 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 Institute. 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, substituted my own parameters, carried out all the necessary manipulations, and pronounced 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 scraped, and went off, swaying slightly. We never met again. Maybe he strayed into S. Gorynitch’s bunker or maybe he set off on 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 buttered, appeared on the table. After the first shock of astonishment passed, I examined the coat attentively. The butter 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-assurance, I pictured myself as a god-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 buttered with natural butter from a cut-glass butter 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 associations 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, sparse 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 Janus Poluektovich appeared on the threshold and as usual said his “So.” I flew into a frenzy of activity. Janus 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 all very 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 titans 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 glass 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 pu
rely 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 analogies! The model of an ideal man compared to an unclassifiable fire-breathing dragon…”
“My dear one, the crux of the matter is not whether he is classifiable, 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 Simeonovich!”
“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—”
