Self-discovery

Chapter 12

The first few weeks I was still wary of my double: what if he suddenly disintegrated or dissolved? Or went berserk? He was an artificial creation. Who knew? But no way! He fiercely put away sausage and yogurt drinks in the evening after a tough day at the lab, enjoyed his long baths, liked to have a smoke before going to sleep — in a word, just like me.

After the Hilobok incident, we carefully plotted out the day every morning: where would we be, doing what? When would we eat at the cafeteria? At what time would each of us go through the entryway, so that Vakhterych would forget in the rush that one Krivoshein had already gone through. In the evening we would tell each other whom we had seen and what we had talked about.

The only thing we didn’t discuss was Lena. It was as though she did not exist. I even took her photo off my desk. And she didn’t come over or call — she was mad at me. And I didn’t call her. And neither did he… but she was still there.

It was May, a poetic, glorious southern May — with blue twilights, nightingales in the park, and huge stars above the trees. The chestnut blooms were falling and the acacias were flowering. The sweet, troubling scent penetrated the lab, disturbing our work. We both felt gypped. Ah, Lena, my dear, passionate Lena, reveling in love, why is there only one of you on earth?

That’s the childishness the appearance of my double and “rival” bought out in me! Until then Lena and I had the usual relationship between two worldly — wise people (Lena had divorced her husband the year before; I’d had my share of broken affairs, which turned me into a confirmed bachelor) that comes not so much as the result of mutual attraction but of loneliness. In a relationship like that neither gives himself completely. We enjoyed our dates and tried to pass time in an interesting way; she would spend the night at my place or I would stay at hers; in the mornings we would both be a little uncomfortable and separate with relief. Then I would be drawn to her again and she to me… and so on. I was in love with her beauty (it was great to watch men looking at her in the street or in a restaurant), but I was often bored by her conversation. And as for her… well, who understands a woman’s heart? I often had the feeling that Lena expected something more from me, but I never tried to find out what. And now, where there was danger of losing Lena, I suddenly felt that I needed her desperately, and that without her my life would be empty. And we’re all like that!

But the construction of the chamber was going along swimmingly. In complex work like that it’s important to understand each other — and in that sense it was an ideal arrangement: my double and I never explained anything to each other; one simply replaced the other and went on working. We never argued once about placement of sensors, or where to set up the plugs and sockets or screens.

“Listen, are you getting a little worried by our idyl?” my double asked one day, as we changed guard. “No questions, no doubts. We’re going to make mistakes in complete harmony.”

“What else? You and I have four arms, four legs, two stomachs, and one head for the two of us — the same knowledge, the same life experience….”

“But we argued, contradicted each other!”

“We were simply thinking aloud together. You can argue with yourself. Man’s thoughts are mere variants of actions and they are always contradictory. But we strive to act together.”

“Yes… but that’s no good! We’re not working now, we’re plugging away. An extra pair of hands doubles the work capacity. But our main function is to think. And here… listen, original, we have to become different.”

I couldn’t imagine what serious repercussions this innocent conversation would have. And, as they write in novels, the repercussions didn’t make us wait.

It began with my double buying a volume of Human Physiology intended for secondary phys ed courses. I won’t try to guess whether he had really planned to distinguish himself from me or whether he was simply attracted by the bright green cover and gold lettering, but as soon as he opened it, he began muttering “Aha! Now that’s something….” as if he were reading a catchy mystery, and then he bombarded me with questions:

“Do you know that nerve cells can be up to a meter long?”

“Do you know what controls the sympathetic nervous system?”

“Do you know what protective inhibition is?”

Naturally, I didn’t know. And he went on telling me with a neophyte’s enthusiasm about the sympathetic nervous system regulating the functions of the internal organs, that protective inhibition or pessimum, occurs in nerve tissue when the strength of excitation exceeds the permissible level.

“You understand, the nerve cell can refuse to react to a powerful stimulus in order not to destroy itself! Transistors can’t do that!”

After that textbook he bought up a whole batch of biology books and journals, read them cover to cover, quoting his favorite passages, and got mad when I didn’t share his enthusiasm. And why should I have?

Graduate student Krivoshein set aside the diary. Yes, that’s precisely how it all began. In the dry academic lines of the books and articles on biology he suddenly sensed the proximity of truth that he had earlier felt only when reading the works of great writers, when, delving into the actions and emotions of invented characters, you begin to learn something about yourself. Then he did not realize it, because the physiology facts had enthralled him, so to speak. But he was upset that original Krivoshein was left cold by it all. How could that be? They were the same; that meant that they had to react to things the same way. Did that mean that he, the artificial Krivoshein, wasn’t the same? That was the first hint.

The second time he overslept — sitting up reading until dawn — I blew up:

“Why can’t you get interested in mineralogy — or production economics — if you want so badly to be different! At least you’d get some sleep.”

We were talking in the lab, after my double arrived past noon, sleepy and unshaven; I had shaved in the morning. That kind of discrepancy was enough to worry our institute friends.

He gave me a haughty and surprised look.

“Tell me, what’s that liquid?” and he pointed at the tank. “What is its composition?”

“Organic, of course, why?”

“It’s not tricky. Why did the computer — womb use ammonia and phosphoric acid? Remember? It kept spewing out formulas and amounts and you ran around all the stores like a crazy man, trying to find it all. Why did you get it?! You don’t know? I’ll explain: the computer was synthesizing atpase and phosphocreatine — the sources of muscle energy. Understand?”

“I understand. But what about Galosha brand gas? And calcium rhodanate? And the methylviolet? And the other three hundred reagents?”

“I don’t know yet. I have to read up on biochemistry….”

“Uh — huh… and now I’ll explain to you why I got those disgusting things: I was fulfilling the logical conditions of the experiment — the rules of the game, and nothing else. I did not know about your superphosphate. And the computer probably didn’t know that the formulas it was turning out in binary code had such fancy names — because nature is made up of structural elements and not names. And yet it asked for ammonia, phosphoric acid, and sugar, and not for vodka or strichnine. It figured out for istelf, and without textbooks, that vodka is a poison. And it created you without textbooks and medical encyclopedias — it modeled you from life.”

“I don’t see why you’re so uptight about biology. It has everything we need: knowledge about life and man. For example. ” — he was trying to convince me, it was obvious — “did you know that conditioned reflexes are created only when the conditioning stimulus precedes an unconditioned one? The cause precedes the effect, understand? The nervous system has a greater sense of causality than any philosophy book! And biology uses more precise terms than everyday life. You know, how they write in novels: ‘The unconscious terror widened his pupils and made his heart beat faster. The sympathetic system went to work. There you go….” He leafed through his green bible. “ ‘Under the influence of impulses passing through the sympathetic nerves, the following occurs: a) dilation of pupils through the contraction of the radial muscles of the iris; b) increase in frequency and strength of heart contractions…. That’s more like it, eh?”

“It’s more like it, but how much more? It doesn’t occur to you that if biology had made giant strides in this business, then it would be biologists and not us who are synthesizing man?”

“But on the basis of this knowledge we’ll be able to make an analysis of man.”

“An analysis!” I remembered the “streptocidal striptease with trembling….” my near breakdown, the punchtape bonfire — and I got mad. “All right, let’s drop our work, memorize all the textbooks and pharmacology manuals, master a mass of terms, acquire degrees and baldspots, and thirty years or so from now let’s return to our work so that we can label it all properly. This is phosphocreatine, and this is gluten… a hundred billion labels. I’ve already tried to analyze your appearance. I’ve had it. The analytic path will take us the devil knows where.”

In a word, we didn’t reach an agreement. This was the first instance when each of us retained his opinion. I still don’t understand why he, a systems technologist, engineer, electronics man… well, the same as I… why he turned to biology. We have an experimental setup the likes of which he’ll never find in any other lab. We have to run experiments, systemize the results and observations, establish general laws — I mean general ones, informational ones! Biological laws are a step backward in comparison. That’s the way it’s done. And that’s the only way to study the best way to control the computer — womb — after all, it’s a computer first and foremost.

The arguments continued during the next few days. We got angry, attacking one another. Each one used arguments in his favor.

‘Technology shouldn’t be copying nature; it should be complementing it. We plan to double good people. And what if the good man is limp? Or lost an arm in the war? Or is in lousy health? After all, a man’s worth is usually known when he has reached a ripe old age; and then his health isn’t what it used to be, and maybe senility is creeping up… and we should re — create all that, too?”

“No. We have to find a way to iron out the wrinkles in the doubles. Let them be healthy, attractive.”

‘There, you see!”

“What see?”

“In order to correct the doubles you need biological information on a good constitution and attractive looks. Biological!”

“I don’t see that. If the computer, without any biological preparation, can re — create an entire person, then why does it need information when it will be creating parts of a person? Biological information won’t help you construct a person or an arm. You crazy person, why can’t you see that we can’t delve into all the details of the human organism? We can’t. We’ll get bogged down. There are untold billions of them, and no two are the same. Nature didn’t follow a few state plans, you know. That’s why the question of correcting doubles must be reduced to tuning the computer — womb by external integral characteristics… in other words, so that we just have a few dials to spin!”

“Well, really!” He would spread his hands in shock and walk away.

This situation was getting on our nerves. We had wandered into a logistical dead end. A difference in opinion on future work is nothing so terrible; finally you can try it both ways and let the results be the judge. The unbearable part was that we did not understand each other! Us — two informationally identical people. Is there any truth in the world in that case?

I began reading his collection of biology opuses (when he was on duty at the lab). Maybe I just had an antibiology hangover from my school days and now I would read it, and be amazed, and start mumbling: “Now that’s it!” I didn’t. There was no question; it was an interesting science, and there were a lot of edifying details (but only details!) about the functions of the organism. It was good for one’s general development, but it wasn’t what we needed. It was a descriptive and approximate science, another form of geography. What did he see in it?

I’m an engineer — that says it all. After ten years of work, machines have entered my soul, and I feel confident working with them. In machines, everything is subject to reason and my hands; everything is definite. If it’s yes, then it’s yes; if it’s no, then it’s no. Not like with people: “Yes, but…” followed by a phrase that crosses out the “yes.” And yet the double was me….

We began avoiding our painful argument and worked in silence. Maybe everything would work out and we would understand each other. The information chamber was almost ready. Another day or two and we could let the rabbits in. And then what had to happen sooner or later finally happened: the phone rang in the laboratory.

It had rung before. “Valentin Vasilyevich, either produce a form requisitioning the reagents by June 1 or we’ll close the supply department as far as you’re concerned!” The call was from accounting. “Comrade Krivoshein, drop into department one,” said Johann Johannovich Kliapp. “Old man, can you lend me your silver — nickel battery for a week?” said good old Fenya Zagrebnyak. And so on. But this was an absolutely special call. As soon as my double had said “Krivoshein here,” he looked beatifically dumb.

“Yes, Lena,” he murmured, “yes… no, no, dearest. Don’t be silly… every day and every hour!”

Pliers in hand, I froze by the chamber. My beloved was being taken away from me before my very eyes. My beloved! I knew that for sure now. I got hot. I coughed wheezily. My double looked up at me with eyes clouded with tender desire and came to. He was grim and sad.

“Just a second, Lena, ” and he handed me the phone. “It’s basically for you.”

I grabbed the phone and shouted: “I’m listening, darling. Go on!”

Actually, there’s no need to describe what we talked about. She, it turned out, was away on a business trip and had only returned yesterday. Of course, she was mad about the May 1 holidays. She had expected a call from me.

When I hung up, the double was gone from the lab. I didn’t feel like working any more either. I locked up the lodge and headed off for home, whistling, to shave and change for that evening.

My double was packing.

“Going far?”

“To the village to visit my aunt, to the sticks, to Saratov! To Vladivostok to lick salt spray from my lips. It’s none of your business.”

“No, drop the jokes. Where are you going? What’s up?”

He looked up at me:

“You really don’t understand? Well, that makes sense. You’re not me.”

“No, why not? You are me, and I am you. That, anyway, was always our starting point.”

‘That’s the point — it’s not so.” He lit up a cigarette and took a book from the shelf. “I’ll take Introduction to Systemology. You can use the library. You are number one, and I’m the second. You were born, grew up, developed, took on a certain position in society. Every man has some place in life. Whether it’s good or bad, it’s his own. I have no place. It’s taken! Everything’s taken, from girl friend to civil position, from the bed to the apartment.”

“You can sleep on the bed, for God’s sake, I don’t have any objections.”

“Don’t talk nonsense. The bed isn’t the point.”

“Listen, if you’re leaving over Lena, then. maybe we can experiment a little more, and… maybe we can try it?”

“Re — create a second Lena, an artificial one?” He laughed darkly. “So that she can hang around life like a ticketless passenger. A reward for a good life… what a stupid idea that was! The best pupils, they’re a bunch of spoiled privileged people. Imagine Arkady Arkadievich’s double: Academician A. A. Azarov, but without an institute to run, without a framework, without membership in the academy, without a car and apartment — without anything except his personal qualities and pleasant memories. What would his life be like?” He put a towel, toothbrush, and toothpaste into the suitcase. “In a word, I’ve had it. I can’t lead a double entendre life any more — worrying about being seen together, looking around in the cafeteria, taking money from you. Yes, I’m taking your money from you, being jealous of you and Lena. Why should I suffer like that — for what sins? I’m a man, not an experimental subject and not somebody’s double!”

“How about the work?”

“And who says I’m planning to drop the work? The chamber is almost ready, and you can run the experiments yourself. There’s little for me to do here. I’ll go away and study the problem of man and machine from the other end.”

He told me his plan. He was going to Moscow to enter the graduate biology department of MSU. The work was dividing up into two streams: I would study the computer — womb and determine its possibilities; he would study man and his possibilities. Then — different by then, with different experiences and ideas — we’d put the work together.

“But why biology? Why not philosophy, sociology, psychology, or life studies, or fine arts? They all deal with man and human society. Why?”

He looked at me thoughtfully.

“Do you believe in intuition?”

“Well, maybe.”

“My intuition tells me that if we overlook biological research, we will lose something very important. I don’t know yet just what. I’ll try to explain in a year.”

“But why doesn’t my intuition say any such thing?”

“Damned if I know!” he sighed with his old expressiveness. His good mood was returning. “Maybe you’re just a dumb jackass.”

“Sure, sure. And you’re brilliant and sensitive — like the dog that can feel everything but can’t express any of it!”

In a word, we had a talk.

Everything was clear: he had to gather individual information, to become his own person. And I accepted the fact that in order to do that he had to be away from me, somewhere on his own. To tell the truth, our “double” situation was beginning to wear on me, too. But that biology stuff — I really didn’t understand that at all….

The graduate student leaned back in his chair and stretched. “And couldn’t understand it.” he said aloud. In those days he didn’t understand himself.