The scalpel was sharp and inexperienced. I sliced through my flesh all the way to the bone. Blood drenched my hand. I put my hand in the tank and the liquid turned crimson around it. The pain didn't disappear.
“The crown — put on the crown!” Kravets shouted.
“What crown? What for?” The pain and the sight of blood kept me from thinking straight.
He pushed Monomakh's Crown on my head, clicked the dials — and the pain disappeared instantly; in a few seconds the liquid was clear of blood. My hand was enveloped in a pleasant tingle — and the miracle began: my hand became transparent before my eyes!
First the red plaits of the muscles showed. A minute later they had dissolved, and the white bones of the fingers showed through the red jelly. A violet blood vessel, thickening and thinning, pushed blood near the sinews in my wrist.
I grew scared and I pulled my hand out of the tank. Immediate pain. The hand was whole, but it shone as if it had been oiled; heavy drops dripped off from the tips of my transparent fingers. I tried wriggling my fingers but they wouldn't obey. And then I noticed that my fingers were thickening into droplet — shaped forms. That was terrifying.
“Put it back or you'll lose your hand!” Kravets shouted.
I put it back and concentrated on the cut. There was a delicious ache there. “Yes, computer… that's it. That's it,” I repeated. The tingle weakened and the wrist was losing its transparency. Sighing in relief, I took out my hand: there was no more cut, just a big reddish blue scar. A few transparent drops of ichor oozed in the crack. The scar itched and buzzed unbearably. This probably wasn't the end, then. I put my hand in the liquid again. Again — transparency, tingling. “That's it, computer. That's it.” Finally the tingling stopped and the hand was no longer transparent.
The whole experiment lasted twenty minutes. Now I couldn't show you where I cut myself with the scalpel.
I have to figure this out. The most interesting aspect of this was that I didn't have to give the computer — womb any special information on how to heal a cut — as if I could. Probably my little encouraging that's it's were superfluous. The feeling of pain had given rise to rather eloquent biowaves in my brain as it was.
It looks like the computer — womb plugs into a person with a signal of imbalance in the system. But this signal wouldn't necessarily have to be pain: it could be a willed command to change something in yourself or a dissatisfaction (“not it”). And then it could be controlled with sensation.
A minor, ineffective experiment compared with everything that came before it. After all the cut could have been doused with iodine, bandaged, and it would have healed on its own.
But it's the most important experiment we've done in a year's work! Now our discovery can be used not only to synthesize and perfect artificial doubles but to transform complex informational systems that are contained in a highly complex biological solution, which we simply call man. The transformation of any person!
February 20. Yes, the liquid circuit plugs into a human organism on a willed command, too. Today I removed the hair from my arm up to my elbow this way. I put my hand in the tank, put on the crown. “Not it,” concentrating on the hair. The prickling and itching increased. The skin became transparent. A minute later the hair had dissolved.
Kravets used the method to grow nails on his pinky and index finger that were over an inch long. He dipped both plams into the liquid and changed his usual fingerprint sworls into something resembling the tread on a winter tire. Then he tried to restore the original pattern, but he didn't remember what it looked like.
Now I see why nothing worked with the rabbits — they have no consciousness, no will, no satisfaction with self. This is a method for man. And only for man!
Graduate student Krivoshein skimmed the rest, to memorize it. He flipped through the pages of the diary, photographing them with his memory. It was clear to him: Krivoshein and Kravets had reached the same thing a different way — they could control metabolism in man. But they needed a computer.
And it was important that they needed mechanical help. Now his discovery wasn't unique, a freak, but knowledge on how to alter oneself. It wasn't enough to have a method of transformation — you had to have complete information on the human organism. They didn't have it and couldn't possibly have it. And his “knowledge in sensations” could be encoded into the computer and passed on to the world. To every human being. And every human being could have unheard — of power.
The student slitted his eyes in thought, and leaned back in the chair. The fight against disease would soon be forgotten! The elements would be subordinate to man without machines.
The blue ocean depths, where he will go without diving gear or bathyscaphe. A human dolphin will be able to grow fins and gills at will and enjoy the water environment, live in it, work in it, travel through it.
If he wants to go into the air, he can grow wings and fly, soar like an eagle on the warm air currents.
Hostile alien planets: the poisonous atmosphere of chlorous gases, heated by the sun and the uncooled magma or chilled by the cosmic cold, full of fatal bacteria. And man will be able to live there as freely as on earth, without special suits or biological shields. He will merely transform his organism to breathe chloride instead of oxygen and perhaps change the usual protein of his body to an organosilicon one.
The important thing about man is not that he breathes oxygen. Not his arms and legs. You can develop fins, gills, wings, breathe fluorine, replace protein with organosilicon, and still be man. And you can have normal extremities, white skin, a head, and papers — and not be one! “Yes, but….” Krivoshein leaned on the desk. His eyes fell on his original's notes.
Disease and freakishness will disappear. Wounds and poisons will be no threat. Everyone will be able to become strong, brave, beautiful, will be able to mobilize the resources of his organism to do work that once seemed impossible. People will be like gods! Well, what are you smiling wisely for? This is really the method for the limitless perfection of man!”
“I'm wise, so I'm smiling,” Kravets answered coldly. “You're flying off somewhere again. That's not the only possibility.”
“Oh, come on! Doesn't every person strive to become better, more perfect?”
“Strives in keeping with his concepts of good and perfection. For one thing, you might end up with “Krivoshein's cosmetic baths. “
“What baths?”
“You know… five rubles a session. A citizen shows up, undresses behind a screen, and sinks into the biological liquid. The operator — some Zhora Sherverpupa, former hairdresser — puts on Mono — makh's Crown and asks: 'What would you desire? This time I want to look like Brigitte Bardot, his client orders. 'But make sure my eyebrows are thicker and darker. My guy really likes 'em dark. Why are you frowning? She'll even give Zhora a tip. And the male clientele will be turning themselves into Alain Delon or the Nordic handsomeness of an Oleg Strizhenov. And then next season the fashion will be for Lollabrigidas and Vitaly Zubkovs, as seen in the picture….”
“But we could program a minimal retrieval of information for the computer — womb… some kind of filter for banality and stupidity. Or program it to — “
“ — simultaneously instill inner qualities in the mass consumer? What if he doesn't want any? Doesn't he have the right not to want any for his money? 'What am I, some little lady will ask, 'abnormal or something. Why do you think you should change me? You're the weirdos! You see, the reinforced concreteness of the position of the middle — class boob stems from his absolute certainty that his own behavior is the norm.”
“But we can make sure it's not the norm for the computer — womb.”
“Hmmm… I suggest a simple experiment. Please put a finger into the liquid.”
“Which one?”
“Whichever one you won't miss.”
I dipped my ring finger into the liquid. The double put on the crown and went over to the medicine chest.
“Attention!”
“Ow, what are you doing?” I pulled out the finger. It was cut and bleeding.
Victor Kravets sucked his ring finger and then wiped the blood from the scalpel.
“Do you see now?” The computer has no norms of behavior. It doesn't give a damn about anything. Whatever you command it to do, it does.”
We healed the cuts.
