Be straight, Krivoshein: you can kick the bucket in this experiment. It's that simple, based on your own statistics of success and failure in your experiments. Science and methodology aside, things never work the way they should the first time — that's the old law. And a mistake in this experiment is more than a spoiled sample.
I mean basically I'm climbing into the tank as a narrow specialist in this work. That's my speciality, like cryotron film is for Fenya Zagrebnyak. But I don't have to get in there — nobody's forcing me. Funny, I have to get into a medium that easily dissolves live organisms simply because my specialty worked out badly!
For people? The hell with them! Do I need more than the rest? I'll just live quietly for myself. And it'll be good.
And everything will be clear — with the lowest, coldest clarity of a scoundrel. And I'll have to spend my life justifying my retreat by saying that all people are like that, no better than me, and even worse, everyone lives only for himself. And I'll have to drop all my hopes and dreams of better things quickly so that they don't remind me. I sold out! I sold out and I have no right to expect anything better from anyone else.
And then it will get really cold in the world….
Golovorezov was asking him something.
“What?”
“I said, will my replacement be here soon, comrade captain? I came on at twenty — two hundred.”
“Didn't you get enough sleep?” Onisimov squinted at him merrily. “You'll have to stand it another hour and a half or so. Then you'll be relieved, I promise. I'll take the keys with me. That's better. Don't let anyone in here!”
Chapter 22
Einstein had a boss, and Faraday had one, and Popov had one… but somehow no one ever remembers them. Now that's a violation of subordination!
The window of Azarov's office opened on the institute grounds. He could see the crowns of the lindens and the gray — glassed parallelepiped of the new building rising above them. Arkady Arkadievich never tired of the view. In the mornings it helped him chase away his neurasthenia and gave him energy. But today, looking out the window, he merely frowned and turned away.
Yesterday's feeling to loneliness and vague guilt hadn't passed. “Eh!” Azarov tried to wave it away. “Whenever anyone dies, you always feel guilty just because you're still alive. Especially if the person was younger than you. And loneliness in science is natural and usual for anyone working in the creative end. Each one of us only knows his own field. It's hard to understand one another. That's why we often replace mutual understanding with an unspoken agreement not to pry into other people's business. But what had he known? What was he doing?”
“May I? Good morning, Arkady Arkadievich!” Hilobok moved across the carpet, exuding cologne as he walked.
Onisimov's subtle hint had worried Harry Haritonovich. It occurred to him that someone might think that he was evening the score with Krivoshein over the dissertation by poisoning him to death. “It's only natural that when someone is killed they look for a killer. And around here, they could easily….” the assistant professor thought, paranoid. He wasn't quite sure who or what he had to be afraid of, but he knew he had better be afraid, to keep them from getting a jump on him.
“So, Arkady Arkadievich, I've prepared a draft of an order regarding the incident with Krivoshein, so that everything about him… and this incident would be formulated properly. There are only two points here: in regards to a commission and in regards to the closing of the laboratory. Please read it over, Arkady Arkadievich, and if you have no objections — “
Hilobok leaned over the polished desk and placed a typewritten page in front of the academician.
“I've entered the following as members of the commission to investigate the incident: comrade Bezmerny, safety engineer — it's just up his alley, heh — heh — Ippolit Illarionovich Voltampernov, as a specialist in electronic technology; Aglaya Mitrofanovna Garazh, as a member of the local committee on labor defense; Lyudmila Ivanova from the office as the technical secretary of the commission… and well, I'll head it myself if you don't mind, Arkady Arkadievich. I'll take this burden on, too, heh — heh!” He looked up carefully.
Arkady Arkadievich was examining his faithful scientific secretary. The man, as usual, was extremely well shaven and groomed, his narrow red tie streaming down a starched shirt front like blood from a throat slit by a collar, but for some reason the sight and the sound of Harry Haritonovich's mellow voice elicited deep revulsion in the academician. “That light trembling before me. that phony subordinate dumbness. You're transparent, Harry Haritonovich, through and through! Maybe that's why I keep you around, because you are transparent? Because I can't expect anything unexpected or great from you? Because your goals are obvious? When the goals of a functioning system are understood, it's a thousand times easier to foresee its behavior than when the goals are masked — there is a law like that in systemology. Or is it just that I enjoy a daily comparison with you? Maybe that's why I feel this loneliness — because I surround myself with people who are easy to tower over?”
“And the second point is on the ending, that is, the stopping of work in the New Systems Laboratory during the work of the commission And then after the commission we'll see more clearly what to do with the lab: to disband it or turn it over to another department.”
“The work there had stopped of its own accord, Harry Haritonovich,” Azarov laughed sadly. “There's no one to work there now. And there's no one to disband.” He pictured Krivoshein's corpse again with its bulging eyes and pained grin. The academician rubbed his temples and sighed. “In principle I accept your idea for a commission, but its staff has to be changed slightly.” He pulled the sheet of paper over and took out his pen. “We can leave Ippolit Illarionovich, and the engineer on safety procedures, and we need a technical secretary, too. But not the rest. I'll head the commission myself, taking on, as you put it, this burden myself, to spare you. I want to find out what Krivoshein has been doing.”
“And. what about me?” the scientific secretary asked in a crestfallen voice.
“And you take care of your own duties, Harry Haritonovich.” Hilobok felt very ill: his fears were being justified. “He's estranging me!” He was afraid now and hating the dead Krivoshein much more than he had ever hated the live one.
“There! He's really making trouble again, isn't he?” Hilobok spoke, cocking his head to one side. “Look at all the troubles now! Ah, Arkady Arkadievich, don't you think I can see how you're taking this? Don't you think I understand? You shouldn't pull yourself away from your work and get all upset by this. The whole city will be talking, saying that Azarov had another one at the Institute… and that he's trying to cover it up — you know what people are like now. That Krivoshein, that Valentin Vasilyevich! Didn't I tell you, Arkady Arkadievich, didn't I foretell that he would be only trouble and danger! You shouldn't have supported his project, Arkady Arkadievich!”
Azarov listened, frowned, and felt his brain being overpowered by the usual hopeless numbness — like his neurasthenia coming back. This numbness always hit him after a prolonged conversation with Hilobok and forced him to agree with him. Now his head was buzzing with the thought that it probably takes more mental exertion to withstand babble like this than it does to do mathematical research.
“Why don't I fire him?” The idea popped into his mind. “Throw him out of the institute and that's that. This is humiliating. Yes, but with what cause? He manages his responsibilities. He's got eighteen works published, ten years' seniority. He passed the promotion test (of course, there was no one else taking it at the time) — there's nothing to complain about! And I gave him that favorable response on his dissertation like a fool. Should I fire him for stupidity and ineptness? Well… that would certainly be a new precedent in science.”
“He put in orders, used up materials and equipment, took up a whole building, worked for two years — and here you go, this calamity is all yours!” Hilobok was whipping himself up. “And at my defense… it wasn't just me that he shamed. I'm not that important. But he shamed you, Arkady Arkadievich, too! If I had my way, Arkady
