“I was going to have an abortion, but changed my mind. And you….”
She shouldn't have said that. I was unwanted. I might never have existed.)
“But as distinguished from your mother, you didn't bear me, didn't suffer labor pains, didn't nurse and clothe me,” he continued. “You didn't even save me from death because, after all, I existed before this experiment. I was you. I don't owe you my life, my health, my engineering degree — nothing! So let's start even.”
“And even with Lena?”
“With Lena… I don't know. But you… you….” Judging by his expression he wanted to add something, but held his tongue, exhaling sharply. “You have to respect my feelings as I do yours, understand? I love Lena too, you know. And I know that she's mine — my woman, understand? I know her body, the smell of her skin and hair, her breath… and how she says, 'Really, Val, you're just like a bear! and how she wrinkles her nose.”
He suddenly stopped. We looked at each other, overwhelmed by the same thought. “Let's get to the lab!” I ran for my coat first.
Chapter 9
If you want a cab and fate offers a bus, take the bus; at least it runs on a schedule.
We made a beeline through the park: the wind whistled in the branches and in our ears. Asphalt — colored clouds blanketed the sky.
The lab smelled like a warm swamp. The ceiling bulbs glowed like lighthouses in a fog. I stepped on a hose near my desk that had not been there before, and pulled my foot away. The hose was moving!
The flasks and bottles were covered with thick gray dust; there was no way to tell what was going on inside them. Streams of water bubbled from the distillers and the relays clicked in the thermostats. In a far corner, which could not be reached through the jumble of wires, tubes, and hoses, the lights on the TsVM — 12's control panel blinked at me.
There were many more hoses than before. We made our way through them, as if through a jungle of lianas. Some hoses were contracting, pushing lumps through themselves. The walls of the tank were covered with some kind of mold. I wiped it off with my sleeve.
In the golden, murky medium there was a silhouette of a man. “Another double? No….” I looked closely. The contours were a woman's, contours that I could never confuse with anyone else's. A hairless head fluttered in front of my face.
There was some mad logic in the fact that precisely now when the double and I were fighting over Lena, the computer was struggling with our problem. I was scared.
“But the computer doesn't know her!”
“You do. The computer is re — creating her from your memory.” We were whispering for some reason. “Look!”
A skeleton was beginning to form beyond Lena's ghostly outline. Her feet solidified into white cartilage and toes; her ankle and shin bones took shape. Her spine formed into a long white form and ribs branched off from it; her shoulder blades grew. Seams appeared on her skull, and the outline of her eye sockets formed. I can't say that it was a pleasant sight — seeing your girlfriend's skeleton — but I couldn't take my eyes off it. We were watching something that no one had ever seen — how a machine creates a person!
“With my memory, my memory…” I was thinking feverishly. “But that's not enough. Or has the computer mastered the laws of constructing a human body? From where? I certainly don't know them!” The bones in the tank were becoming sheathed with dark blue strips and coils of muscle, and they were covered by a yellowish layer of fat, like a chicken's. The circulatory system shot red throughout the body. All this fluctuated in the mixture, changing shape and form. Even Lena's face, with its closed lids, behind which we could see her watery eyes, was distorted by horrible grimaces. The computer seemed to be trying on ways to make a person.
I know too little about anatomy in general and female anatomy in particular to judge whether the computer was building Lena correctly. But soon I sensed that something was wrong. The original contours of her body were changing. The shoulders, which just a few minutes ago had been round and soft, became angular and grew in breadth. What was it?
“Her feet!” my double shouted. “Look at her feet!”
I looked at her feet that took a size thirteen shoe — and when I understood I broke out in cold sweat. The computer had run out of information on Lena and was finishing her off with my body! I turned to my double; his forehead was glistening with sweat too.
“We have to stop it!”
“How? Cut off the current?”
“We can't. That will erase the memory bank in the computer. Turn on the cooling…?”
“To slow down the process? It won't work. The computer has large heat reserves….”
The distorted body in the tank was taking on clearer features. A transparent mantle moved over it, and I recognized the style of the simple dress in which I liked Lena best. The computer with an idiot's diligence was dressing its creation in it.
I had to order the computer to stop, convince it… but how?
“Right!” My double leaped over to the glass case, took out Monomakh's Crown, pushed the “translation” button on it, and handed it to me. “Put it on and start hating Lena; think how you want to destroy her… go ahead.”
I grabbed the shiny helmet, turned it around in my hands, and gave it back.
“I can't….”
“Jerk! What else is there? That thing will be opening its eyes soon and….”
He pulled on the helmet and started screaming and waving his arms:
“Stop, computer! Stop immediately, do you hear me? You're not creating a good copy of a human! Stop, you idiot! Stop right now!”
“Stop, machine, do you hear me?” I turned to the microphones. “Stop, or we'll destroy you!”
It's disgusting to remember that scene. We, men who were used to pushing buttons to stop and direct any process, shouting and explaining… and to what? A collection of test tubes, electric circuits, and hoses. Phooey! We were panicked.
We yelled some more in disgusting voices, when the hoses near the tank began shaking with energetic convulsions, and the hybrid specimen in the tank was covered with a white mist. We shut up. Three minutes later the mist cleared. There was nothing in the gold liquid. Only ripples and color gradations spreading from the center to the edges.
“Wow…” said my double. “I somehow never appreciated the fact that man is seventy percent water. Now I've got it.”
We made our way to the window. The humid stuffiness made my body sticky. I unbuttoned my shirt, and so did my double. It was evening. The sky had cleared. The windows of the institute across the way reflected the sunset as though nothing had happened. They reflected it like that on every clear evening — yesterday, last month, last year — when this had not existed. Nature was making believe nothing had happened.
The skeleton enveloped in translucent tissue stayed in my mind.
“Those anatomical details, the grimaces… brrrr!” said the double, lowering himself into a chair. “I don't even feel like seeing Lena right now.”
I said nothing, because he had expressed my thoughts. It was over now, but then… it's one thing to know, even intimately, that your woman is a human being made of flesh, bones, and innards, and another thing to see
