Vladimir Savchenko. Self-discovery
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...namo Restaurant and the Dniepr movie theater. There wereplenty of pedestrians. Unkempt young men, trying to pass for bohemian
artists, walked stiffly down the street, their eyes glazed. Elderly couples
moved at a dignified pace. Dandies, arms around their girl friends, headed
for the park. Men with bangs over their shifty eyes darted in and out of the
crowd-the kind who don't work anywhere but have connections. Girls carefully
balanced their various hairdos, including such masterpieces of tonsorial art
as "cavewoman," "after a ladies' free-for-all," and "let them love me for my
mind." Young singles wandered around, torn between desire and shyness.
Kravets first walked around circumspectly, but then he became angry.
"Look at all of them walking around, to show themselves off and to see
others. It's as though time has stopped for them, and nothing is happening.
They used to stroll down this street when it was called Gubernatorskaya,
before the Revolution-wearing out the wooden sidewalks, checking out
fashions and each other. And they strolled after the war-from the ruins of
the Dynamo Restaurant to the ruins of the Dniepr Theater under the lights
hanging by a single wire, cracking their sunflower seeds. They've paved the
avenue, dressed it in high rises made of concrete, aluminum, and glass, lit
it up, planted trees and flowers-and they stroll around, sucking caramels,
listening to their transistors, proving the indomitability of the consumer
spirit! Show themselves off, look at others, look at others, and show
themselves off. Take a walk, drop in at the automat, consume a meat pie,
walk around, drop in at the well-tended toilet behind the post office, take
care of their needs, take a walk, have a drink, meet someone, take a walk
... an insect's life!"
He circumvented the crowd that had collected on the corner of Engels
Street near the lottery ticket vending machine. The machine, made to look
like a cyborg, played music, hawked customers with a recorded voice, and for
two five-kopek pieces, after wildly spinning a wheel made out of glass and
chrome, dispensed a "lucky" ticket. Kravets gritted his teeth.
"And we, we idiots, decided to transform people with mere laboratory
technology! What can we do with these consumers? What has changed for them
is the fact that there are taxis instead of hackney cabs, semitransistorized
tape recorders instead of accordions, telephones instead of "face-to-face"
gossip, and synthetic raincoats to wear in good weather instead of new
rubber galoshes? They used to sit around their samovars and now they spend
evenings around the TV."
He heard snatches of conversation from the crowd: "Just between us, I
can tell you frankly: a man is a man, and a woman is a woman." "So he says
'Valya?' and I say 'No.' He says 'Lusya?' and I say 'No.'
He says 'Sonya?' and I say 'No.' "Abram went oh a business trip, and
his wife...." "Learn to be satisfied with the present moment, girls!" "And
what will change as a result of progress in science and technology? So the
store windows will overflow with polyester clothes, atomic wristwatches that
never need winding, and with solid-state refrigerators and microwave ovens.
Luminescent plastic moving sidewalks will transport pedestrians from the 3-D
Dniepr Theater to the fully automated Dynamo Restaurant-they won't even have
to use their legs. They'll take strolls with microelectric walkie-talkies so
that they won't even have to turn to their friends or risk tiring their
voices to exchange such brilliant gems as:
'Just between us, I can tell you frankly: a robot is a robot, and a
mezzanine is a mezzanine!' 'Abram went off to an antiworld, and his
wife....'
Team to be satisfied with the present microsecond!' "And a vending
machine made to look like a space ship will sell 'Greetings from Venus!'
postcards: a view of the Venerian space port framed by kissing doves. And so
what?"
Harry Haritonovich Hilobok paraded past Kravets. A girl weak with
laughter was hanging from his arm. The assistant professor was busy amusing
her and didn't notice the fugitive student duck into the shadows of the
lindens. "Harry has a new one," thought Kravets, laughing. He bought some
cigarettes at a kiosk, lit one, and moved on. He was engulfed in such anger
that he lost his appetite, and if he had fallen into the arms of the
operatives, there would have been quite a brawl.
There was no room at the Theater Hotel either. The arrival walked along
the prospect in the direction of the House of the Collective Farmer,
grumpily observing the people around him.
Walk, walk, walk... every city in every country has a street where the
populace walks in the evenings, back and forth, the crowd becoming a single
entity. Show themselves, look at each other. Walk, walk, walk-and the planet
trembles under their feet! It must be some collective instinct that lures
them here, like the swallows to Capistrano. And others sit in front of the
TV. How many of them are there, people who have relegated themselves to rot
away? ('We know how to do something; we make good money; we have everything
we need; we live no worse than others-so leave us alone!') Solitary people,
afraid to be alone with themselves, confused by the complexity of life and
unwilling to think about it. They remember the one rule of safety: to be
happy in life you must be like everybody else. So they walk around and look
to see how everybody else is. They expect a revelation.
Overshadowed by the glowing glory of the avenue, the moon wandered
behind the translucent clouds. But nobody had time to look at it.
"And when they were young they dreamed about living exciting,
interesting, meaningful lives, about discovering new worlds. Who didn't have
that dream? And they probably still dream about it, passionately and
impotently. What's wrong? They didn't have the spirit to follow their
dreams? And what for? Why give free rein to your dreams and deepest
feelings-who knows where it might lead!-when you can buy ready-made dreams
and feelings, when you can safely party at a feast for invented heroes? And
so they partied themselves sick, wasted their spiritual strength on trifles,
and what they have left is enough power to muster a walk down the avenue."
Hilobok walked past him with a young girl. "So Harry has a new one!"
the arrival thought.
He watched him walk on. Should he catch up with him and inquire about
Krivoshein? "Nah, in any case it's best to stay away from Hilobok." The
arrival and Kravets stepped onto the same block.
"At one time the humanoid apes diverged: some picked up rocks and
sticks and began working, thinking; and others stayed to swing in the trees.
And now on earth another transition is beginning, more powerful and driving
than the ancient ice age: the world is about to leap into a new qualitative
state. But what do they care? They are willing to stay safe in front of the
TV-it's easy to satisfy their simple demands through technology!" the angry
Victor Kravets muttered to himself. "What do they care about all the new
vistas opened up by science, technology, industry? What's our work to them?
You can increase intelligence, cleverness, and work capabilities-so what?
They'll learn something not for the pleasure of mastery and satisfying
intellectual curiosity, but in order to earn more, to have easy work, and to
get ahead of others. They will buy and hoard so that people will notice
their success, to fill their empty lives with worries about their
possessions. And about a rainy day. It might never come but because of it,
all their other days are cloudy . . . boring! I'm going to go to
Vladivostok, on my own, before I'm sent there officially. The project will
die off naturally. It won't help them in any way: in order to take advantage
of an opportunity like that you have to have high goals, spiritual strength,
and a dissatisfaction with yourself. And they are only dissatisfied with
their surroundings: the situation, their friends, life, the government-you
name it, as long as it's not themselves. Well, let them walk around. As they
say, science is helpless here...." They were separated only by the post
office building. The angry thoughts ebbed away. There was only an
inexplicable uneasiness before the people who walked past Kravets.
"Someone said: no one despises the crowd more than the mediocrity who
manages to climb above it. Who?" he frowned as he thought. "Wait a minute, I
said that myself about someone else. Of course, about someone else, I
wouldn't have said it about me...." He was disgusted. "In trampling them, I
trample myself. I haven't come so far; I used to be just like them. Wait up!
Does this mean that I simply want to disappear? And to keep from being
terribly embarrassed and not to lose my self-respect, I'm trying to give
this flight a philosophical basis? I haven't sold out anyone: everything is
true; science is helpless, and that's how it should be. My God, an
intellectual's mind is wondrously base and self-serving! (By the way, I've
thought or said that about someone else, too; all of life's verities are
nicer when applied to others.) And that intelligent one is me. All my gears
are going full blast, contempt for the crowd, theoretical discursiveness....
Hmmmm!" He blushed and felt hot. "So this is where disaster can lead. Well,
all right, let's see what else there is for me to do."
Suddenly his legs were rooted to the pavement! Walking toward him with
an easy stride was a young man with a backpack and a raincoat over his arm.
"Adam!" Kravets felt a chill and his heart sank. It wasn't a man but a
living pang of his conscience coming toward him on that street. Adam's eyes
were thoughtful and angry, and the corners of his mouth drooped
forbiddingly. "He's going to see me, recognize me...." Victor looked away so
as not to give himself away, but curiosity won out: he stared at him. No,
Adam didn't look like a "slave" now-that was a confident, strong, and
decisive man. A memory floated up of a disheveled head against a background
of dusky wallpaper, eyes wide with hatred, and a ten-pound iron dumbbell
raised over his face.
The arrival walked on past him. "Of course, how could he recognize me?"
Kravets sighed in relief. "But why is he back? What does he want?"
He watched the man disappear into the crowd. "Maybe I should catch up
with him and tell him what happened? All the help that... No. Who knows why
he's here." He was overwhelmed with despair again. "This is where all
outwork and experiments have led. Damn it! We're afraid of each other.
Wait... that is the other variant! But will it help?" Victor bit his lip,
thinking hard.
Adam had disappeared.
"Well, enough self-torture!" Kravets said, shaking his head. "This
isn't my work alone. And I can't escape-the work must be saved."
He pulled out the change from his pocket, counted it, swallowed a
hungry gulp, and went into the post office.
He just had enough to pay for a short telegram: MOSCOW, MOSCOW STATE
U., BIOLOGY DEPT. TO KRIVOSHEIN. FLY OUT IMMEDIATELY. VALENTIN.
He sent the telegram and went out on the street. He turned down a
street that led to the Institute of Systemology. After a few steps he turned
to see if anyone was following him. The street was empty, and the only
person watching was the pretty woman with the bankbook in the brightly lit
ad on the department store that said, "Save your money at the bank" in
foot-high letters. Her eyes promised to love anyone who saved.
The sign over the administrator's window in the House of the Collective
Farmer read:
Room for a man-60 kopeks.
Room for a horse-1 ruble 20 kopeks.
The man who had arrived from Vladivostok sighed and handed his passport
through the window. "Give me a sixty-kopek room, please."
Chapter 4
The impossible is impossible. For instance, it is impossible to move
faster than the speed of light. But even if it were possible, would it be
worth the trouble? After all, no one could see it to appreciate it.
-K. Prutkov-enzhener, Thought 17
The next morning the officer on duty in the city department handed
Investigator Onisimov the report of the policeman on guard at the sealed
laboratory. It stated that during the night, approximately between 1:00 and
2:00 A.M., an unknown man in a white shirt attempted to enter the lab
through a window. The policeman's shout scared him off into the park.
"I see!" Matvei Apollonovich rubbed his hands in satisfaction.
"Returning to the scene of the crime...."
Yesterday he had sent notice to citizen Azarov and to citizen
Kolomiets. Matvei Apollonovich wasn't really counting on the academician's
showing up in his office-but the stub of the notice would be handy to have
around. Elena Ivanovna Kolomiets, an engineer at a construction design
bureau near the Systemology Institute, showed up promptly at ten.
When she entered his office, Hilobok's wavy hand gestures came to mind;
she was a beautiful woman. "Isn't she just fine?" thought Onisimov. Any
single feature of Elena Ivanovna's, taken out of context, was ordinary-her
dark hair was like any hair, and her nose was only a nose (perhaps even too
upturned), and the oval of her face was just an oval-but together they
created such a harmonious picture, a picture that needed no analysis but
simply called to be enjoyed and remarked upon as an example of nature's
great sense of proportion.
Matvei Apollonovich remembered what the late Krivoshein had looked like
and he experienced typical male envy. "Hilobok was right; he's no match for
her. What did she see in him? Was she looking for security? A husband with a
good income?" Like most men whose looks and age left little hope of romantic
conquest, Onisimov had a low opinion of beautiful women.
"Please be seated. You are familiar with the name Valentin Vasilyevich
Krivoshein?"
"Yes." She had a throaty, mellifluous voice.
"How about Victor Vitalyevich Kravets?"
"Vitya? Yes." Elena Ivanovna smiled, showing her even teeth. "I didn't
know his father's name was Vitaly, though. What's the matter?"
"What can you tell me about the relationship between Krivoshein and
Kravets?"
"Well... they worked together. Victor, I think, is a distant relative
of Valya... I mean, Krivoshein. I think they were good friends. What's
happened?"
"Elena Ivanovna, I'll ask the questions." Onisimov figured that she
would reveal more if she were emotionally off balance, and he was in no
hurry to clear up the situation. "Is it true that you and Krivoshein were
close?"
"Yes."
"Why did you stop seeing him?"
Elena Ivanovna's eyes became cold, and a blush came and went from her
cheeks.
"That has nothing to do with this!"
"And how would you know what does and what doesn't have to do with
this?" Matvei Apollonovich perked up.
"Because... because this can't have anything to do with anything. We
broke up and that's all."
"I see... all right. We'll come back to that later. Tell me, where did
Kravets live?"
"In a dormitory for young specialists in Academic Town, like all the
probation workers."
"Why didn't he live with Krivoshein?"
"I don't know. Apparently they both preferred it that way."
"Despite the fact that they were friends and relatives? I see. And how
did Kravets behave with you? Did he court you?" Matvei Apollonovich was
milking his version for all it was worth.
"He did,..." Elena Ivanovna bit her lip. But she couldn't control her
tongue. "I think you'd do the same if I let you."
"Aha, so you let him, eh? Tell me, was Krivoshein jealous of Kravets
and you?"
"Perhaps, he was... but I don't understand what all this is about." The
woman looked at the investigator with great hostility. "All these innuendos!
What happened, will you please tell me?"
"Calm yourself, citizen!"
Maybe I should tell her? Should I? Is she involved? She is beautiful,
and a man could really fall for her, but... it's the wrong milieu for
serious sexual crimes. The statistics are against it. A scientist wouldn't
lose his head over a woman ... but Kravets....
The telephone interrupted Onisimov's ruminations. He picked it up.
"Onisimov here."
"We've found him, comrade captain!" the operative announced. "Do you
want to participate?"
"Of course!"
"We'll wait for you at the airport, car license plate 57-28 DNA."
"I see!" The investigator stood and looked merrily at Kolomiets. "We'll
finish this little talk another time, Elena Ivanovna. Let me sign your pass.
Don't be upset, and don't be mad: it's nerves-we're all like that, you and
I, included...." "But what happened?"
"We're investigating. I can say no more for now. Good day!" Onisimov
walked her out, then got his gun from the desk drawer, locked the room, and
hurried, almost at a run, to the parking lot.
The snow white IL jet taxied up to the terminal exactly at 13:00. A
light blue, elevated companion stairway pulled up at its door. A heavyset,
short man in tight green pants and bright shirt was the first to run down
the stairs, and, swinging his colorful traveling bag, he marched down the
concrete hexagonal paving stones to the barrier. He kept looking around,
seeking someone in the crowd of people greeting the arrivals, found him, and
rushed toward him.
"You look great! What's all the rush, the 'fly out immediately' during
vacation? Let me get a look at you! You're better looking than ever, even
taller! That's what a year away does for your looks! Your face seems noble
and I can even look upon your jaw without irritation."
"And you, I see, have gotten fat off the graduate land." The greeter
looked him over with a critical eye. "Have you furnished yourself with
socialist accumulations?"
"Val, it's not simple accumulation-it's an informational material
reserve. I'll tell you all about it later, even give you a demonstration.
It's a complete turnaround, Val... but let's talk about you first. Why did
you summon me before it was time? No, wait!" The recent passenger pulled out
a notebook from his pocket and withdrew several ten-ruble notes, "Here's the
money I owe you." "What money?"
"Please, spare me the act!" The passenger raised his hand to forestall
further protests. "We know; we're touched: the absent-minded scientist who
can't be bothered with prosaic minutiae. Drop it. I know you better than
that: you remember debts of fifty kopecks. Take the money and cut the bull!"
"No," he replied, smiling gently, "you don't owe me a thing. You
see-"He stumbled under the direct piercing stare of his companion.
"Goddamn it! So you've started dyeing your hair? And the scar?
Where's the scar over the eyebrow?" His voice dropped to a whisper.
"Who are you?"
Meanwhile the crowd of arrivals and welcoming friends and relatives had
thinned out. Five men who had met no one and were in no hurry discarded
their cigarettes and quickly surrounded the two men.
"Keep quiet!" Onisimov hissed, squeezing in between the lab assistant
and the passenger who was staring at him in disbelief; the second man had
money in his fist. "We'll shoot if you resist."
"Oh, boy!" the astonished passenger said, stepping back a pace; he was
immediately grabbed by the elbows.
"Not 'oh, boy!' but the police, citizen... Krivoshein, I believe?" The
investigator smiled with maximum pleasantness. "We'll have to hold you for a
while, too. Take them to the cars."
Victor Kravets, seating himself in the back seat of a Volga between
Onisimov and Gayevoy, had a tired and calm smile on his face.
"By the way, if I were you, I'd drop the smile," Matvei Apollonovich
noted. "You serve time for jokes like this."
"Ah, what's time!" Kravets waved his arm. "The important thing is that
I think I've made the right move."
"I never thought that my return would begin with an episode from a
detective story!" said the passenger as he entered the investigator's
office. "Well, once in a lifetime this could prove to be interesting."
Without waiting for an invitation, he sat down and looked around. Onisimov
sat down opposite him in silence. Two feelings were battling within him:
self-congratulation (What an operation! What success!! Caught two at
once-red-handed, it looks like!) and worry. Up until now the case had been
built on the fact that Krivoshein died or was killed in the laboratory.
But.... Matvei Apollonovich took a hard look at the man sitting before him:
a slanted brow with a widow's peak, ridges over the eyebrows, a purplish
scar over the right brow, a freckled face with full cheeks, a fat nose with
a high bridge, and short red hair. There was no doubt about it; Krivoshein
was sitting in his chair! "Boy, was I off. So who was bumped off in there?
I'm getting to the bottom of this right now!"
"Is that a hint?" Krivoshein pointed at the barred windows. "To make
even the innocent confess?"
"No, this used to be a wholesale warehouse," the investigator
explained, and remembering that the lab assistant had begun yesterday's
interview the same way, chuckled at the coincidence. "It's a leftover...
Well, how do you feel, Valentin Vasilyevich?"
"Thank you-I'm sorry, I don't know your name and patronymic-I can't
complain. How about you?"
"Ditto. Though my condition has no direct bearing on the case."
They smiled at each other broadly and tensely, like boxers before
beating each other's faces in.
"And mine, it would appear, does? I just thought it was standard
procedure to enquire about the health of passengers that you grab for no
good reason at the airport. So what does my condition have to do with your
case?"
"We don't grab, citizen Krivoshein. We detain," Onisimov corrected him.
"And your health interests me in a completely legal way, since I have a
doctor's certificate and several witnesses who say that you are a corpse."
"A corpse?" Krivoshein examined himself with exaggerated playfulness.
"Well, if that's your information, you might as well haul me off to the
autopsy room." Suddenly he understood and his smile disappeared. He looked
at Onisimov angrily and anxiously. "Listen, comrade investigator, if this is
a joke, it's a lousy one! What corpse?"
"Please, who's joking?" Onisimov gestured broadly with his hands. "The
day before yesterday your body was found in a laboratory-I saw it with my
own eyes-I mean not your body, since you are in good health, but someone who
looked very much like you. It was identified as being you." "Damn it!"
Krivoshein hunched over and rubbed his cheeks. "Can you let me see the
body?"
"Well, you know that we can't, Valentin Vasilyevich. It turned into a
skeleton, you know. This mischief isn't a very good idea. It could be
misinterpreted."
"Into a skeleton?!" Krivoshein looked up and confusion showed in his
brown-flecked green eyes. "How? Where?"
"It happened there, at the scene, as if you needed any information on
the matter from me," Onisimov stressed. "Maybe you'd like to explain?"
"There was a body which became a skeleton," Krivoshein muttered,
frowning. "Then... oh, then it's not so bad. He wasn't wasting time; it
looks as if something went wrong. Damn it, look at me!" He cheered up and
carefully looked at the detective. "You're mixing me up, comrade, and I
don't know why. Bodies just don't turn into skeletons like that. I know a
little about it. And then, how can you prove that it's my... I mean, the
body of a man who looks like me, if you have no body? Something's wrong
here."
"Perhaps. That's why I want you to shed light on this yourself. Since
all this happened in the laboratory you run."
"That I run? Hm...." Krivoshein laughed, and shook his head. "I'm
afraid nothing will come of this light shedding. I need someone to explain
it all to me."
"And this one is going to go mum, too!" Matvei Apollonovich sighed
glumly, took a sheet of paper, and unscrewed his pen.
"Let's do this in order. Your name is Valentin Vasilyevich Krivoshein?"
"Yes."
"Age thirty-five? Russian? Bachelor?"
"Exactly."
"You live in Dneprovsk and head the New Systems Laboratory at the
Systemology Institute?"
"No, that's the part that's wrong. I live in Moscow, and study in the
graduate biology department at Moscow State University. Here!" Krivoshein
handed him his passport and documents across the desk.
The papers had a realistically weather-beaten look. Everything in
them-including the three-year residence permit for Moscow-corresponded with
his story.
"I see." Onisimov put them in his desk. "These things are done quickly
in Moscow, in one day!"
"What are you trying to say?!" Krivoshein stared at him, one eyebrow
arched aggressively.
"Your documents are phony, that's what. Just as phony as your
confederate's, to whom you were trying to pass money at the airport. Were
you trying to guarantee an alibi? You needn't have bothered. We'll check it,
and then what?"
"Go ahead and check!"
"We will. Whom do you work under at MSU? Who's your advisor?"
"Professor Vano Aleksandrovich Androsiashvili, department chairman in
general physiology, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences."
"I see." The investigator dialed the phone. "Operator? This is
Onisimov. Quickly connect me with Moscow. I want this man on the videophone
as soon as possible. Write it down, Vano Aleksandrovich Androsiashvili,
professor, head of the physiology department at the university. Hurry!" He
stared at Krivoshein triumphantly.
"The videophone! Marvelous!" he chuckled. "I see that detective work is
approaching science fiction. Will this be soon?"
"It'll happen when it happens. We have things to discuss, you and I."
Krivoshein's confidence, however, made an impression on Onisimov. He
thought: "And what if this is some kind of crazy coincidence? Let me check."
"Tell me, do you know Elena Ivanovna Kolomiets?"
Krivoshein's face lost its calm expression. He sat up and looked at
Onisimov angrily and questioningly.
"Yes. So what?"
"Very well?"
"So?"
"Why did you break up?"
"This, my dear investigator, if you will excuse me, is absolutely none
of your business!" Krivoshein was getting very angry. "I do not permit
anyone to meddle in my private life-not God, not the devil, not the police!"
"I see," Onisimov said calmly. And the thought: "It's him! No way out
of it-it's him. Why is he covering up? What could he possibly be hoping
for?" He continued the questioning. "All right, here's an easier question:
who's Adam?"
"Adam? The first man on earth. Why?"
"He called the institute ... the first man. He wanted to know how you
were, wanted to see you."
Krivoshein shrugged.
"And who is that man who met you at the airport?"
"Whom you so cleverly branded as my confederate? That man...."
Krivoshein raised and dropped his eyebrows meditatively.
"I'm afraid he's not the person I took him for."
"I don't think he is, either. Not at all." Onisimov perked up. "But
then who is he?"
"I don't know."
"The same nonsense all over again!" Onisimov wailed, throwing down his
pen. "Enough of this baloney, citizen Krivoshein. It's unbecoming! You were
giving him money, forty rubles in tens. You mean you didn't know to whom you
were giving money?"
At that moment a young man in a white lab coat came in to the office,
put a form on the table, and left, after giving Krivoshein a sharp, curious
look. Onisimov looked at the form-it was a report on the analysis of the
suspect's fingerprints. When he looked up at Krivoshein, his eyes had a
sympathetically triumphant smile.
"Well, that's it. We don't have to wait for the Moscow professor to
give a visual ID-and he probably wouldn't anyway. Your fingerprints, citizen
Krivoshein, correspond completely to the prints that I took at the scene of
the crime. Here, see for yourself!" He handed the form and a magnifying
glass to Krivoshein. "So let's drop the game. And remember that your flight
to Moscow and the fake papers only make things worse. The court adds three
to eight years to a sentence for premeditation and the attempt to confound
the police."
Krivoshein, his lip extended, was studying the form.
"Tell me," he said, raising his eyes to the detective, "why can't you
allow for the fact that there are two men with the same fingerprints?"
"Why?! Because in a hundred years of using this method in criminology,
such a thing has never happened once."
"Lots of things have never happened before, like Sputnik, hydrogen
bombs, and computers, but they exist now."
"What do sputniks have to do with this?" Matvei Apollonovich shrugged.
"Sputniks are sputniks, and fingerprints are fingerprints, incontestable
evidence. So are you going to talk?"
Krivoshein gazed deeply and thoughtfully at the detective and smiled
gently.
"What's your name, comrade investigator?"
"Matvei Apollonovich Onisimov, why?"
"You know what, Matvei Apollonovich? Drop this case."
"What do you mean, drop it?"
"Just like that, the usual way, cover it up. How do you phrase it: 'for
insufficient evidence' or 'lack of proof of a crime.' You know, 'turned over
to the archives on such and such a date....'"
Matvei Apollonovich was speechless. He had never encountered such brass
in all his years on the force.
"You see, Matvei Apollonovich, you'll continue with the varied and, in
usual cases, certainly useful activity of questioning, detaining,
interrogating, comparing fingerprints, bothering busy people with your
videophone." Krivoshein developed his thought gesturing with his right hand.
"And all the time you'll keep thinking that any second now you'll have the
truth by the tail. Contradictions will smooth out into facts, the facts into
evidence; good will triumph, and evil will get a sentence plus time for
premeditation." He sighed sympathetically. "The hell these contradictions
will smooth out! Not in this case. And you will never hit on the truth for
the simple reason that you are not ready to accept it at your level of
reasoning."
Onisimov frowned and his lips compressed into a huffy pout.
"No, no!" Krivoshein waved his hands. "Please don't think that I'm
trying to put you down, that I want to demean you, or cast aspersions on
your qualities as a detective. I can see that you are a tenacious and
hard-working man. But-how can I explain this to you?" He squinted at the
sunny yellow window. "Oh, here's a good example. About sixty years ago, as
you undoubtedly know, the machinery in factories and plants was powered by
steam or diesels. A transmission shaft went through the workshops with
driving belts running from it to the machine pulleys. All this spun, buzzed,
and hummed, its wild noise bringing joy to the director or owner. Then
electricity came on the scene-and now all that has been replaced by electric
motors, built into the machines."
Once again, like last night, when he had interrogated the lab
assistant, Matvei Apollonovich was seized by doubts: something was wrong
here! Quite a few people had been in his office, polishing the chair with
their squirming: taciturn teenagers who had gotten into trouble through
stupidity; weepy speculators; overly-casual accountants caught through a
routine check of the books; and repeat offenders who knew all the laws. But
all of them realized sooner or later that the game was over, that the moment
had come for them to confess and hope that the record reflected their
clean-breasted repentance. But this one . . . just sat there as though
nothing had happened, waving his arms and explaining at a simple level why
the case should be closed. "This lack of game playing is throwing me off
again! But no, I'm not going to slip twice in the same place!" he thought.
Matvei Apollonovich was an experienced investigator and knew well that
doubts and impressions did not build a case-facts did. And the facts were
against Krivoshein and Kravets.
"Now imagine that in some ancient factory the changeover from
mechanical power to electricity took place overnight instead of taking
years," Krivoshein went on. "What would the owner of the factory think when
he got there in the morning? Naturally, that someone had swiped the steam
engine, the transmission shaft, the belts and pulleys. For him to understand
that it was a technological revolution and not a theft he would have to know
physics, electronics, and electrodynamics. And you, Matvei Apollonovich,
figuratively speaking, are in the position of such an owner."
"Physics, electronics, electrodynamics." Onisimov repeated
distractedly, looking at his watch. Where was that call to Moscow? "And
information theory, and the theory of modeling random processes, too?"
"Aha!" Krivoshein leaned back in his chair and looked at the detective
with undisguised pleasure. "You know about those sciences as well?"
"We know everything, Valentin Vasilyevich."
"I see there's no tricking you."
"And I don't suggest you try. So, are we going to count on an illegal
closing of the case or are we going to tell the truth?"
"Hah." Krivoshein wiped his forehead and cheeks with a handkerchief.
"It's hot in here. All right. Let's agree on this, Matvei Apollonovich. I'll
find out what's going on, and then I'll tell you."
"No," Onisimov shook his head. "We won't agree on that. It won't do,
you know, to have the suspect conduct the investigation of the case. No
crime would ever be solved that way."
"Goddamn it!" Krivoshein began, but the door opened and a young
lieutenant announced:
"Moscow, Matvei Apollonovich!"
Onisimov and Krivoshein went up to the second floor to the
communications room.
Vano Aleksandrovich Androsiashvili brought his face so close to the
videophone screen that it seemed he wanted to peck through the tube with his
hawklike, predatory nose. Yes, he recognized his graduate student Valentin
Vasilyevich Krivoshein. Yes, he had seen the student daily for the last few
weeks, but he couldn't give them dates of their meetings further back than
that by heart. Yes, student Krivoshein had left the university for five days
with his personal permission. His growling Georgian r's reverberated in the
phone's speaker. He was very upset that he had been dragged away from
examinations to take part in this strange proceeding. If the police-here
Vano Aleksandrovich fixed his hot blue black eyes on Onisimov-stop believing
the very passports that they themselves hand out, then, apparently he will
have to change his profession from biologist to verifier of identity for all
his graduate students, undergraduates, and relatives, as well as for all the
members and corresponding members of the Academy of Sciences whom he has the
honor of knowing personally! But in that case, the very natural question of
his identity might come up. Wouldn't it be a good idea to have the
university rector, or better yet, the president of the academy, come on the
videophone to identify this suspicious professor?
Having delivered this lecture in one long breath, Vano Aleksandrovich
shook his head in farewell and added, "That's not good! You have to trust
people!" and disappeared from the screen. The microphones carried the sound
of a slamming door all the way to Dneprovsk. The screen showed a fat man
with major's bars on his blue shirt; he made a face.
"What's the matter, comrades? Couldn't get to the bottom of this
yourselves? The end!"
The screen went black.
"Vano Aleksandrovich is still mad at me," thought Krivoshein as he went
down the stairs behind the angrily puffing Onisimov. "It's understandable:
he feels sorry for me, and I keep my back to him, hide things. If he hadn't
accepted me, none of this would have happened. I barely made it in the
exams, like a first-year student. I was okay in philosophy and foreign
languages, but in my specialty.... But how could a quick reading of
textbooks hide the absence of systematic knowledge?"
That had been a year ago. After the entrance exams in biology,
Androsiashvili invited him into his office, sat him down in a leather chair,
stood by the window and looked at him, his large, balding head tilted to the
right. "How old are you?" "Thirty-four."
"On the edge. Next year you'll celebrate your thirty-fifth birthday
among friends and kiss full-time schooling good-bye. Of course, there's
correspondence graduate school. And of course, that exists not for learning,
but to have a paid vacation. We won't even talk about it. I read your thesis
synopsis. It's a good one, mature, with interesting parallels between the
work of the nervous centers and electronic circuits. I gave it an
'excellent.' But..." the professor picked up a report and glanced at it,"...
you did not pass the exams, my boy! I mean, you got a 'satisfactory' but we
do not take students with a 'C in their major."
Krivoshein's expression must have changed drastically, because Vano
Aleksandrovich's voice became sympathetic:
"Listen, why do you need this? Moving into graduate study? I've
familiarized myself with your background-you work in an interesting
institute, with a good position. You're a cyberneticist?"
"A systemology technologist."
"It's all the same to me. Then why?"
Krivoshein was prepared for that question.
"Precisely because I am a systemologist and a systemology technologist.
Man is the most complex and most highly organized system known. I want to
figure it out completely-how things are constructed in the human organism,
what influences it. To understand the interrelationship of the parts, to put
it roughly."
"To use these principles to create new electronic circuits?"
Androsiashvili screwed up his mouth ironically.
"Not only that... and not even so much that. You see... it wasn't
always like this. Once man was up against heat and frost; exertion from a
hunt or from running away from danger, hunger or rough, unsanitary food like
raw meat; heavy mechanical overloads in work; fights which tested the
durability of the skull with an oak staff-in a word, once upon a time the
physical environment made the same demands on man that... well, that today's
military customers make on rockets. (Vano Aleksandrovich harrumphed, but
said nothing.) That environment over the millennia formed homo sapiens-the
reasoning vertebrate mammal. But in the last two hundred years, if you start
from the invention of the steam engine, everything changed. We created an
artificial environment out of electric motors, explosives, pharmaceuticals,
conveyors, communal service systems, computers, immunization, transport,
increased radiation in the atmosphere, paved roads, carbon monoxide, narrow
specialization in work-you know, contemporary life. As an engineer, I with
others am furthering this artificial environment that determines ninety
percent of the life of homo sapiens and soon will determine it one hundred
percent. Nature will exist only for Sunday outings. But as a human being, I
am somewhat uneasy." He took a breath and continued.
"This artificial environment frees man of many of the qualities and
functions he developed in ancient evolution. Strength, agility, and
endurance are now cultivated only in sports, while logical thought, the
pride of the Greeks, has been taken over by machines. But man is not
developing any new qualities-the environment is changing too fast and
biological organisms can't keep up. Technological progress is accompanied by
soothing, but poorly substantiated babble that man will always be on top.
Nevertheless-if you talk not about man, but about people, the many and the
varied-then that is not true even now, and it will only get worse. Many,
many do not have the inherent capabilities to be masters of contemporary
life: to know a lot, know how to do a lot, learn new things quickly, to work
creatively, and structure one's behavior optimally."
"And how do you want to help?"
"Help-I don't know if I can, but I would like to study the question of
the untapped resources of man's organism. For example, the obsolescent
functions, like our common ancestor's ability to leap from tree to tree or
to sleep in the branches. Now that is no longer necessary, but the cells are
still there. Or take the 'goose bump' phenomenon-it happens on skin that has
almost no hair now. It is created by a vast nervous network. Perhaps these
old reflexes can be restructured, reprogrammed to meet new needs?"
"So! You dream of modernizing and rationalizing man?" Androsiashvili
stretched out his neck. "Instead of homo sapiens we'll have homo modernus
rationalis, hm? Don't you think, my dear systemology technologist, that a
rational path might lead to a man who is no more than a suitcase with a
single appendage to push buttons? You could probably manage without that
appended arm, if you use brain waves.
"If you want to be truly rational, you can manage without the
suitcase," Krivoshein noted.
"That's true!" Vano Aleksandrovich tilted his head to the other
shoulder and looked at Krivoshein curiously.
They obviously liked each other.
"Not rationalizing, but enriching-that's what I'm thinking about."
"Finally!" The professor paced his office. "Finally that broad mass of
technological workers, conquerors of inorganic matter, creators of an
artificial environment are beginning to see that they too are people! Not
supermen who can overcome anything with their intellect, but simply people.
Just think of what we're trying to study and comprehend: elemental
particles, the vacuum, cosmic rays, antiworlds, the secrets of Atlantis....
The only things we don't study and wish to comprehend are ourselves! It's,
you see, too hard, uninteresting, not easy to handle. Hah, the world could
perish if people only worked on things that were easy to handle." His voice
was even more guttural than usual. "Man feels a biological interest in
himself only when he has to go to the hospital... and you're right, if
things go on this way, we'll be able to manage without the suitcase. As the
students say: 'Machines will lick us before we can say boo!'" He stopped in
front of Krivoshein, bent his head, and snorted. "But you're still a
dilettante, my systemology technologist. You make it sound so easy:
reprogram old reflexes. If it were as easy as reprogramming a computer! Hm,
but on the other hand, you are a research engineer, with ideas, with a fresh
viewpoint that differs from our purely biological one. What am I saying! Why
am I building up hope, as though something will come of you?" He walked over
to the window. "You're not going to write and defend a dissertation, are
you? You have different goals, right?"
"Right," Krivoshein admitted.
"There you see. You'll return to your systemology and I'll hear from
the rector about not training scientific personnel. Heh, I'll take you!"
Androsiashvili concluded without any change in tone. He approached
Krivoshein. "But you'll have to study, go through the whole course of
biological studies. Otherwise you'll not find any potentials in man,
understand?"
"Of course!" he nodded joyously. "That's why I'm here."
The professor sized him up and pulled him over by the shoulder:
"I'll tell you a secret. I'm studying myself. In the evening classes of
electronic technology at Moscow Engineering Institute, in my third year. I
go to lectures, and do lab work, and I even have two incompletes-in
industrial electronics and quantum physics. I, too, want to figure out what
goes where. You can help me... only shhhhh!"
They were back in Onisimov's office. Matvei Apollonovich paced from
wall to wall. Krivoshein looked at his watch: it was after five. He frowned,
regretting the wasted time.
"So, Matvei Apollonovich, I have my alibi. Please return my documents,
and let's say good-bye."
"No, wait!" Onisimov paced, beside himself with anger and confusion.
Matvei Apollonovich, as has been noted, was an experienced
investigator, and he clearly saw that all the facts in this damn case were
neatly turned against him. Krivoshein was very obviously alive, and
therefore the certified and reported death of Krivoshein was a mistake. He
did not ascertain the identity of the man who died or was killed in the
laboratory and he didn't even know how to begin to establish the cause of
death or means of murder. He did not know the motive for the crime-his
version was shot to hell-and there was no body! The facts made it appear
that the investigation conducted by Onisimov was just garbage.
Matvei Apollonovich tried to collect his thoughts. "Academician Azarov
identified Krivoshein's body. Professor Androsiashvili identified the live
Krivoshein and confirmed his alibi. That means that either one or the other
made a false statement. Which one is not clear. That means I'll have to see
both of them. No ... to check up on such people, to put them under
suspicion, and then to find out that I'm barking up the wrong tree again!
I'll be destroyed...."
In a word, Onisimov understood one thing: under no circumstances could
he let Krivoshein out of his hands.
"No, wait! You won't be able to return to your dirty work, citizen
Krivoshein! You think that by... putting makeup on the deceased and then
destroying the body, you can get off the hook? We'll still check up on who
this Androsiashvili really is and why he's covering up for you! The evidence
against you is still there: fingerprints, contact with the escaped suspect,
the attempt to give him money...."
Krivoshein, disguising his irritation, scratched his chin.
"I just don't understand what you're trying to incriminate me with:
being killed or being a killer?"
"We'll clear it up, citizen!" Onisimov yelled, losing the last remnants
of his self-control. "We'll clear it up. But one thing is sure: no way could
you not be involved in this case. That's impossible!"
"Ah, impossible! ?" Krivoshein came up to the detective, his face
flushed. "You think that since you work for the police you know what's
possible and what isn't?"
And suddenly his face changed rapidly: his nose grew longer and fatter,
turning purple and drooping; his eyes grew wider and their green turned to
black; his hair fell back from his forehead, creating a bald spot; a
mustache sprouted on his upper lip, and his jaw grew shorter. In the space
of a minute, Onisimov was facing none other than the Georgian physiognomy of
Professor Androsiashvili-with bloodshot eyes, a mighty nose with flaring
nostrils and blue, shadowed cheeks.
"You think, katso, that because you work for the police you know what
is possible and what isn't?"
"Stop it!" Onisimov backed up to the wall.
"Impossible!" Krivoshein howled. "I'll show you impossible!"
He finished the sentence in a mellifluous, throaty woman's voice, and
his face began turning into Elena Ivanovna Kolomiets's face: the cute nose
turned up; the cheeks grew pink and round; the dark eyebrows arched
delicately, and the eyes glowed with gray light.
"If anyone should come in now,..." thought Onisimov feverishly and
rushed to lock the door.
"Uh-huh, drop it!" Krivoshein, himself again, stood in the middle of
the room in a boxer's stance.
"No, you misunderstood, . . ." muttered Matvei Apollonovich, coming
back to his desk. "Why get upset?"
"Phew! . . . and don't even think about calling." Krivoshein sat down,
puffing, his face glistening with sweat. "Or I can turn into you. Would you
like that?"
Onisimov's nerves gave out completely. He opened his drawer.
"Don't... please relax... stop ... don't! Here, take your papers."
"That's better." Krivoshein took his papers and picked up his travel
bag from the floor. "I explained to you nicely that you should drop your
interest in this case-but no, you didn't believe me. I hope that I've
convinced you now. Bye!"
He left. Matvei Apollonovich stood still listening to some sound
reverberating in the room's stillness. A minute later he realized that it
was his teeth chattering. His hands were also shaking. "What's the matter
with me?" He grabbed the phone... and dropped it, sank into his chair and
impotently laid his head on the cool surface of the desk. "The hell with
this job."
The door opened wide and the medical expert Zubato appeared on his
doorstep with a plywood crate in his hands.
"Listen, Matvei, this really is the crime of the century.
Congratulations," he shouted. "Lookee here!" He noisily set the box on the
table, opened it, and tossed out the straw packing. "I just got this from
the sculpture studio. Look!"
Matvei Apollonovich looked up. He was staring at the plaster cast of
Krivoshein's face-with a sloping forehead, a fat upturned nose, and wide
cheeks....
Chapter 5
The best way to disguise that you limp with your left foot is 'to also
limp with your right. You will then walk with a sailor's swagger.
-K. Prutkov-enzhener. Hints for the Beginning Detective
"You sucker, show-off punk!" Krivoshein berated himself. "You found a
wonderful application for your discovery-te...
