make computers tens of billions of times more complex with the use of electro — ion beams, it'll be all over. Man's song will be sung.”
“What do you mean?” Lena demanded.
“Nothing terrible will happen, don't worry. Simply a situation will come about quietly, with dignity, in which machines will be able to do without man. Of course, the computers, respecting the memory of their creators, will be kind to all the rest. They'll satisfy their simple — minded needs in terms of metabolism and such. The majority of people will be very pleased with the situation. In their unflappable conceit they will even imagine that the machines are serving them. And for the computers it will be like a secondary unconditioned reflex, an inherited habit. And maybe the computers won't have habits like that. After all, the basis of a computer is rationality. What would they need habit for?”
“By the way, those rational machines are serving us now,” Lena interrupted hotly. “They satisfy our needs, no?”
I said nothing. Valery laughed.
“That depends on how you look at it, Lenochka! The computers have every reason to think that we satisfy their needs. If I were, say, a Ural — 4 I wouldn't have any grudges against people: you live in a bright air — conditioned room with a steady supply of alternating current — the equivalent of hot and cold water. A servant in a white lab coat scurries about, fulfilling your every whim, and they write about you in the papers. And the work is clean: switch those currents and transmit those impulses. What a life!”
“I'm not saying nothing!” our neighbor announced for the last time, then stood up and shouted an obscenity at the room.
The maitre d' and company ran over to him.
“So what if I'm drunk,” the man yelled, as he was assisted out of the restaurant. “I'm drinking on my own money — money I earned. Robbery is a job, too, you know.”
“There he is, the object of your concern, in all his glory!” Valery compressed his thin lips. “A worthy descendant of the parasite who shouted 'Man — that has a proud ring! Not any more. Well, how about it, Val?” he turned to me. “Come on over. Get in on the project. This way you and I will leave something for the future. Thinking computer — factories, active and omnipotent electronic brains — and in them your ideas, your work, the best of us all. What do you think? Man the creator — that still sounds good. And the best will stay on and develop even when that semiliterate broad, Nature, will finally uncrown her homo sapiens!”
“But that's terrible, what you're saying!” Lena was incensed. “You're… a robot! You just don't like people!”
Ivanov gave her a gentle, condescending look:
“We're not arguing, Lena. I'm just explaining what's what.”
That was the limit. Lena clicked off and said nothing. I didn't reply either. The silence was getting uncomfortable. I called the waiter and paid. We went out on Marx Prospect, on the “Broadway of Dneprovsk.” The pedestrians defiled it.
Suddenly Valery grabbed me by the hand.
“Val, do you hear? Do you see?”
At first I didn't know what I was supposed to see or hear.
A teenage couple walked past, both in thick sweaters and the same hairdo. The boy had a transistor radio around his neck in a yellow pearlized shell with a rocket on it. The pure sounds of the saxophone and the clear syncopations of the brass resounded on the street. I would have recognized the sound of that radio among a hundred brands like a mother recognizes the voice of her child in the din of a kindergarten. The low — noise, wide — band amplifier that was in it was one of the things Valery and I had invented.
“That means they've started production on it,” I concluded. “We can ask for our royalties. Hey, fella, how much did you pay for the radio?”
“Fifty dollars,” the punk announced proudly.
“There you see, fifty dollars, that equals forty — five Mongolian tugriks. A clear markup for quality. You should be pleased!”
“Pleased? You be pleased! You said it was terrible [actually that was Lena, not me]. Better terrible, than that!”
Once upon a time, we had delved into quantum physics, were amazed by the duality of the particle wave of the electron, studied the theory and technology of semiconductors, mastered the most refined lab equipment. Semiconducting equipment was the future of electronics in those days. Pop science writers praised them and engineers dreamed about them. There was a lot in those dreams. Some came true — the rest was discarded by technology. But we had never dreamed that transistors would figure among the accoutrements of pimply punks on the prospect.
And how Valery and I had struggled with the noise problem! The problem was that electrons distribute themselves in a semiconducting crystal like particles of color in water — the same old chaotic Brownian motion. That's why there's noise in earphones, sounding like the hiss of a phonograph needle and the distant murmur of the surf. It's an involved story. I had the first invention, and the official phraseology of the application to the Committee on Inventions of the USSR was music to my ears: “Submitting with this the above — mentioned documents, we request an inventor's certificate for the invention called….”
So, all right; someone lived through the joy of learning, ignited in creative search, experienced engineering triumphs, but what does that poor punk care? He didn't get anything from all that joy. So there it is: turn over the bloody tugriks, push the button, turn the handle… and go around like a jerk with a clean neck.
We walked Valery back to his hotel.
“So?” he asked as we shook hands.
“I have to think about it, Valery.”
“Think!” Lena gave me a hostile look. “You're going to think about it?”
She really has no self — control. She could have held her tongue.
The funny part was that Valery didn't even ask what I was doing. It was obvious to him that there could be nothing good going on at the institute and that I had to come over to work with him.
I'll think about it.
October 2 7.
Ivanov called:
“Have you thought about it?”
“Not yet.”
“Ah, those women! I understand you, of course. Decide, Val. We'll work together. I'll call you tomorrow before I leave, all right?”
If back then, in March, when my complex was only beginning to plan and build itself, I had stopped the experiment and analyzed the possible paths of development, everything would have turned to the synthesis of microelectronic units. Because that was something I understood. And now I would be way ahead of Valery. The work would have gone down different channels, and it would never have occurred to me or to anyone else that we had overlooked a method of synthesizing living organisms.
But I didn't overlook it.
How pleasant it had been using my engineering thought to create those plates with microcircuits in the tank: flip — flops, inverters, decoders! That 'Poem' of his, if you added my computer — womb to it, would be a sure thing. In fact, it would be his computer — factory. I was on top of things in that area. It's not too late to turn around….
And work like that really could lead to a world or society of machines totally independent of man — not robots, but machines that complement one another. Perhaps that is the natural evolution of things? If you look at it objectively, there's nothing so terrible about it. Well, there were protein (ion — chemical) systems on earth, and on the basis of their information electron crystal systems developed. Evolution continues.
Yes, but if you look at things objectively, nothing so horrible would happen if there was a thermonuclear catastrophe, either. Well, so something exploded, and the radioactive foundation of the atmosphere increased. But is the earth still spinning on its axis? Yes. And around the sun? Yes. That means the stability of the solar system has not been harmed, and everything is all right.
“You don't like people!” Lena had said to Ivanov. What's so is so. Hilobok's stink, quitting the institute,
