Monday Begins On Saturday

by Arkady

  “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-Janus 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 Institute 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: the tsarist 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 documentary 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 pronounced 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 Janus 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 passionate 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,” pronounced 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, Janus 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 digesting this decision for some time. Janus 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 pass me by in the reception room.

  Feodor Simeonovich and Junta probably were nodding agreement, while Vibegallo, regaining his composure, cried out, “A correct decision, Janus Poluektovich! You have given us a timely reminder of our forgotten vigilance. 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 Janus. “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 Institute, 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 vivarium.

  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 snowballs 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 Institute 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 Amperian. 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?”

  “Sasha is reluctant to talk about nonprotein life,” said Eddie. “And he is right”

  “It’s possible to live without protein,” I said, “but how does he live without innards?”

  “But here is comrade Amperian, who says that there can be no life without protein,” said Victor, forcing a stream of tobacco smoke to turn into a miniature tornado that traveled about the room, curving around the furniture.

  “I say that life is protein,” argued Eddie.

  “I don’t sense the distinction,” said Victor. “You say that if there is no protein, there is no life.”

  “Yes.”

  “And what, then, is this?” asked Victor. He waved his hand feebly.

  On the table next to the tub appeared a revolting creature resembling both a hedgehog and a spider. Eddie raised himself up and looked at the table.

  “Ah,” he said, and lay down again. “That’s not life. That’s un-life. Isn’t Koschei the Undead nonprotein life?”

  “What more do you want?” asked Korneev. “Does it move? It moves. Does it eat? It eats. It can reproduce, too. Would you like it to reproduce right now?”

  Eddie raised up for the second time and glanced at the table. The hedgehog-spider was shuffling about clumsily. It seemed to be trying to move in all four directions simultaneously.

  “Un-life is not life,” said Eddie. “Un-life exists only insofar as there is intelligent life. You could even say more accurately—only insofar as there are magi. Un-life is a by-product of their activity.”

  “All right,” said Victor.

  The hedgehog-spider vanished. In its place appeared a miniature Victor Korneev, an exact copy the size of an arm. He snapped his tiny fingers and created a micro-double of even smaller size. This one did the same. A fountain-pen-sized double materialized. Then one the size of a matchbox. Then a thimble.

  “Enough?” asked Victor. “Each of them is a magus. Not one has a single protein molecule.”

  “An untoward example,” Eddie said with regret. “In the first place, they do not, in principle, differ from a programmed lathe. In the second place, they are not a product of development but of your protein mastery. It’s hardly worth arguing whether evolution could produce self-reproducing programmed lathes.”

  “A lot you know about evolution,” Korneev said rudely. “A new Darwin! What’s the difference whether it’s a chemical process or a conscious act? Not all your ancestors were protein either. Your great-great-great-grandmother also, though quite complicated, I admit, was not a protein molecule. It may be that our so-called conscious activity is also a variety of evolution. How do we know it was the aim of nature to create a comrade Amperian? Maybe the aim of nature was the creation of un-life at the hands of Amperian. It could be.”

  “Indeed, indeed. First an anti-virus, then protein, then comrade Amperian, and then the whole planet is filled with un-life.”

  “Exactly,” said Victor.

  “And all of us are dead out of sheer use…”

  “And why not?” said Victor.

  “I have an acquaintance,” said Eddie. “He asserts that man is just an intermediary link that nature requires for the crown of its creation: a glass of cognac with a lemon slice.”

  “And why, in the final analysis, not?”

  “Just because it doesn’t suit me,” said Eddie. “Nature has her aims and I have mine.”

  “Anthropocentric,” Victor said in revulsion.

  “Yes,” Amperian said haughtily.

  “I’ll not debate with anthropocentrics.”

  “In that case, let’s tell anecdotes,” Eddie calmly offered and stuffed another rock candy in his mouth.

  Victor’s doubles continued their labors on the table. The smallest was now the height of an ant. While listening to the argument between the anthropocentric and the cosmocentric, a thought entered my head.

  “I say, chums,” I came out with ersatz animation. “Why aren’t you at the polygon?”

  “And why should we be?” asked Eddie.

  “Well, it is still quite interesting…”

  “I never go to a circus,” said Eddie. “Besides: ubi nil vales, ibi nil velis.12”

  “That’s in reference to yourself?” asked Victor.

  “No. It’s in reference to Vibegallo.”

  “Chums,” I said. “I like a circus very much. Isn’t it all the same to you where you are going to tell jokes?”

  “Meaning?” said Victor.

  “Stand watch for me, and I’ll run off to the polygon.”

  “It’s cold,” reminded Victor. “Frost, Vibegallo.”

  “I have a great yen,” I said. “It’s all so mysterious.”

  “Shall we let the child go?” asked Victor of Eddie.

  Eddie nodded.

  “Go, Privalov,” said Victor. “It will cost you four hours of computer time.”

  “Two,” I said quickly. I was expecting something like that.

  “Five,” Victor said boorishly.

  “Then three,” I said. “I am working for you all the time as it is.”

  “Six,” Victor said coolly.

  “Vitya,” said Eddie, “fur will grow on your ears.”

  “Red,” I said, gloating. “Maybe even shot through with green.”

  “All right, then,” said Victor. “Go for free. Two hours will fix me.”

  We went to the entry together. On the way, the magi took up an incomprehensible debate about something called cyclotation, and I had to interrupt them to get transgressed to the polygon. They had already tired of me, and being in a rush to get rid of me, they transgressed me with such energy that I had no time to get prepared, and was flung backward into the crowd of spectators.

  Everything was in readiness at the polygon. The public hid behind the armored shields. Vibegallo, poking out of the freshly dug trench, was looking jauntily through the big stereo periscope. Feodor Simeonovich and Cristobal Junta, forty-power binoculars in hand, were exchanging words quietly in Latin. Janus Poluektovich, in a heavy fur coat, stood to the side, dabbling his walking stick in the snow. B. Pupilov sat on his haunches by the trench with an open notebook and pen at the ready. G. Perspicaciov, hung about with still and movie cameras, was rubbing his frozen cheeks and stamping his feet behind him.

  The sky was clear and a full moon was sinking in the west. Blurred shafts of the northern lights appeared shimmering amid the stars and disappeared again. The snow glistened on the plain, and the large rounded cylinder of the autoclave was clearly visible some one hundred meters away.

  Vibegallo tore himself from the periscope, coughed, and said, “Comrades! Com-m-r-ades! What are we observing in the periscope? Overwhelmed with complex feelings and faint with expectations, comrades, we are observing how the protective lock is beginning to unscrew itself automatically… Write, write,” he said to B. Pupilov. “And most accurately… That is, unscrewing automatically. In a few minutes we will see the appearance among us of an ideal man—chevalier, that is, sans peur et sans reproche!”

  I could see with my naked eye as the lock turned and fell soundlessly in the snow. A long streamer of steam shot out of the autoclave, all the way, it seemed, to the stars.

  “I am clarifying for the press—” Vibegallo started to say, when a horrendous roar sounded.

  The earth slid and tossed. A huge snow cloud soared upward. Everyone fell against each other and I, too, was thrown and rolled. The roar kept increasing, and when I stood up with an all-out effort, grasping the treads of the half-track, I saw, in horrified terror, that the horizon was curling up and rolling like a bowl’s edge toward us. The armored shields were swaying threateningly, and the people were running and falling and jumping up again covered with snow. I saw Feodor Simeonovich and Cristobal Junta, encased in the rainbow-hued caps of their protective shields, backing under the press of the storm and raising their hands trying to stretch their defenses over the rest of us. I saw, too, the gusts tearing
that defense into shreds that were carried off across the plain as so many huge soap bubbles bursting against the starry sky. I saw Janus Poluektovich, collar raised, standing with his back to the wind, planted firmly on his walking stick buried in the bared earth, looking at his watch. Over there, at the site of the autoclave, a thick cloud of steam, red and lighted from within, twisted in a tight vortex, while the horizon steeply curved higher and higher till it seemed we were at the bottom of a vast pitcher. And then, right near the epicenter of this cosmic abomination, Roman suddenly appeared, his green coat flying in shreds from his shoulders. He flung his arm in a wide arc, threw something large and glinting like a bottle into the howling steam, and immediately fell to the ground, covering his head with his arms.

  The foul and enraged face of a jinn rose above the cloud, eyes rolling in fury. His mouth gaping in soundless laughter, he flapped his extensive hairy ears. A burning stench permeated the blizzard and then the ghostly walls of a magnificent castle arose and slumped, oozing down, while the jinn himself, turned into a long tongue of orange flame, vanished into the sky.

  There was quiet for several seconds. The horizon sank back down with a heavy rumble. I was thrown high and regaining my senses, discovered that I was sitting not far from the truck, my arms braced against the earth. The snow was all blown away. The field around us was bare and black. Where the autoclave had stood a minute before now yawned a large crater. A wisp of white smoke curled above it, and there was a smell of fire.

  The spectators started climbing back upon their feet. Faces were dirty and distorted. Many were speechless, coughed, spit, and moaned softly. They set to cleaning themselves up a bit, whereupon it developed that quite a few were disrobed down to underwear. There was grumbling, then cries of, “Where are my trousers? Why am I without trousers? I was dressed in trousers!”

  “Comrades, has anyone seen my watch?”

  “And mine, also!”

  “Mine, too, has disappeared!”

  “Platinum tooth is gone! It was put in just this summer.”

  “Oh, no! My ring is gone…and my bracelet.”