information. This will be a new kind of art — not written, not acted, not musical — everything together, expressed in biopotentials and chemical reactions. The art of synthesizing man!”
Suddenly he stopped. “Yes, but how do you do that in the computer — womb? How do you create that kind of feedback? It won't be easy. Well — experiments, experiments, and more experiments — we'll do it! We managed to create feedback between the parts of the complex. The important thing is we have the idea!”
Vano Aleksandrovich Androsiashvili wasn't sleeping either, in his dacha outside Moscow. He was standing on the veranda, listening to the rustle of the rain. Today at a department meeting they discussed the work of their students. Krivoshein came out looking the worst: in a year's time he hadn't taken a single exam; lately his attendance at lectures and labs had been erratic; and he hadn't chosen a topic for his dissertation. Professor Vladimir Veniaminovich Valerno expressed the opinion that the man was taking up a place in the graduate department for nothing, getting a fellowship, and that it wouldn't be a bad idea to free that spot for someone more deserving. Vano Aleksandrovich had wanted to say nothing, but lost his temper, and said many rash and angry things to Vladimir Veniaminovich about condescension and disdain in judging the work of young researchers. Valerno was stunned, and Androsiashvili himself felt bad: Vladimir Veniaminovich didn't deserve that kind of rebuke.
Vano Aleksandrovich had spent many an evening pondering the miraculous healing of the student after he was hit by the icicle, remembering their conversation about controlling metabolism in the organism, and came to the conclusion that Krivoshein had discovered and developed the ability to regenerate tissue rapidly, an ability characteristic of the simplest coelenterates. He couldn't imagine how he had done it. He was waiting for Krivoshein to come and tell him: Vano Aleksandrovich was willing to forget his injured feelings and promise silence, if necessary. He'd do anything to find out! But Krivoshein was silent.
Now Androsiashvili was mad at himself for not finding out why the police were holding the student when he had talked to them yesterday on their videophone. “Has he done something? When did he have time? He came by the department in the morning to announce that he had to go to Dneprovsk for a few days. Krivoshein's second mystery.” The professor chuckled. But the anxiety didn't go away. All right, there might have been a mishap, but what if it was something serious? Say what you will, but Krivoshein was the discoverer and bearer of an important discovery about man. That discovery must not perish.
“I have to go to Dneprovsk,” the thought suddenly came to him. But then the proud blood of a mountain dweller and corresponding member of the Academy boiled over: he, Vano Aleksandrovich Androsiashvili, would rush to help out a graduate student who had gotten into a mess! A student that he took into the department out of pity and who had hurt him deeply with his lack of trust?
“Yes, rush off!” Vano Aleksandrovich shook his head, calming himself. “First of all, you, Vano, don't believe that Krivoshein committed any crime. He's not the type. There's some problem or misunderstanding there, that's all. You have to help him. Second, you've been dreaming of a way to gain his confidence and get closer to him. Well, here it is. Maybe he has good reason for hiding. But don't let him think that Androsiashvili is a man that can't be counted on, who withdraws from petty irritations. No! Of course, even in Dneprovsk you won't begin to question him — he'll tell you if he wants to. But that discovery must be saved. It's more important than your pride.”
Vano Aleksandrovich felt better because he had overcome himself and reached a wise decision.
Graduate student Krivoshein wasn't sleeping either. He was still reading the diary.
Chapter 20
According to the teachings of Buddha, the way to rid yourself of suffering is to rid yourself of ties. Won't someone tell which ties 1 must sever to stop my eyetooth from aching? And hurry!
January 5. Here I am in the position of a human rough draft for a more perfect copy. And even though I'm the creator of the copy, it's still nothing to be happy about.
“You know, your nephew is very attractive,” Lena said to me after I introduced them at a New Year's party. “Simpatico.”
Back at home, I spent a whole hour staring at myself in the mirror: a depressing sight. And he was good at small talk; I was no match for him.
No, Victor Kravets was behaving himself like a gentleman with Lena. Either earlier memories are having an effect or he's just feeling out his possibilities in breaking hearts, but he appears to be uninterested in her. If he made the effort, though, I'd never see Lena again.
When he and I walk around Academic Town or along the institute grounds, girls who never nodded to me before greet me loudly and joyously: “Hello, Valentin Vasilyevich!” — with an eye on the handsome stranger next to me.
And he's so good on skis! The three of us went out of town yesterday, and he and Lena left me far behind.
And how he danced at the New Year's ball!
Even Ninochka, the secretary, who didn't know the way to the lodge before, always seems to be dropping by with a paper from the office for me.
“Hello, Valentin Vasilyevich! Hello, Vitya… oh, it's so interesting here, all these tubes!”
In a word, I now can observe myself every day the way I am and myself the way I would be if only… if only what? If only it weren't for the hunger during and after the war, the strong resemblance to my father who — alas! — was not too handsome (“Pudgy — faced, just like his father!” the relatives used to say, cooing over me), the bumps and potholes in the road of life. If only it weren't for my rather unhealthy life — style: the lab, the library, my room, conversations, thinking, the miasmas from the reagents — and no physical recreation. Really, I didn't try to become an ugly, fat, stooped egghead — it just happened.
In principle, I should be proud: I beat Mother Nature! But something gets in the way….
No, there's something damaging about this idea. Let's say we perfect the method of controlled synthesis. And we create marvelous people — strong, beautiful, talented, energetic, knowledgeable — you know, masters of life from advertising posters like “We saved at the bank and bought this refrigerator!” But what about the people that were used as a basis for them — does that mean that they were nothing more than rought drafts sketched by life? Why should they be demeaned? That's a fine reward for their lives: regret for your imperfections, the thought that you will never be perfect because you were made by a regular mama and not a marvelous contraption? It turns out that with our system people will still be pitted against people. And not only against bad ones — against everyone, since we all have some imperfections. Does that mean that good but ordinary people (not artificial) will have to be crowded out of life?
(There! That's just like you, Krivoshein — you're so thick — skinned. Until it affects you personally you don't think about it. “Whup him with a two — by — four,” as your daddy used to say. But all right, I got it now. That's the important thing.)
There's plenty to think about here. I guess all human flaws have a common nature — they're exaggerations. Take a quality that's pleasant to have in people around you: simplicity. We're inculcated with it from childhood. But if nature flubs it, or your upbringing spoils it, or if life goes the wrong way — you end up with sleepy stupidity instead of simplicity. You can also get cowardice instead of reasonable caution, false conceit instead of a necessary confidence, cynicism instead of sober daring, or sneakiness instead of brains.
We use a lot of words to hide our impotence in the face of human imperfections: jokes (“A bear stepped on his ear,” “He was dropped as a baby”), scientific terms (“anemia,” “personality breakdown/ “inferiority complex”), and homilies (“That's not for him,” or “He has a gift for that….”). We used to say “God's gift.” Now in our materialistic age we say “nature's gift,” but basically, it's the same thing: man has no control. Some have it and some don't.
