Chapter 5

I was the most surprised by the fact that Vibegallo was not the least discomfited by what had happened. While the brownies were working him over, dousing him with absorbents and plying him with deodorants, he was orating in a falsetto.

“There you are, comrades Oira-Oira and Amperian, with your constant fears. Implying this will happen and that, and how are we going to stop him… There is in you, comrades, that which I might call an unhealthy skepticism. A lack of confidence in the forces of nature and the potentialities of man, I would say. And where are your doubts now? Exploded! Exploded, comrades, in plain view of the public, and spattered me and the comrades of the press here.”

The press were at a loss for words, docilely presenting themselves to the stream of hissing absorbents. G. Perspicaciov was trembling uncontrollably, while B. Pupilov was shaking his head to and fro and compulsively running his tongue over dry lips.

When the brownies had cleaned up the laboratory to a first approximation of cleanliness, I looked in. The emergency squad was proceeding in a businesslike manner, replacing broken glass and burning the remains of the model in a vented furnace. The remains, however, were few. There was a pile of buttons labeled For Gentlemen, the sleeve of a jacket, an unbelievably stretched pair of suspenders and a lower jaw, reminiscent of an archaeological exhibit of Neanderthal man. The rest had apparently been blown to dust.

Vibegallo looked over the autoclave, which was also a self-locker, and announced that all was in order. “The press is invited to join me,” he said. “I suggest the rest return to their respective duties.” The press drew forth their notebooks and all three sat down at the table to polish the sketch, “The Birth of a Discovery,” and the informative remarks, “Professor Vibegallo Tells All.”

The onlookers left. Oira-Oira also departed, having taken the safe keys from me. Stella, too, left in desperation, as Vibegallo refused to let her go to another department. The much-relieved technicians also left. So did Eddie, surrounded by a crowd of theoreticians peripatetically figuring the minimal pressure that must have been obtained in the stomach of the exploded zombi. I, too, departed for my post, having ascertained that the testing of the second cadaver was not to take place before eight in the morning.

The experiment left me in an oppressed mood, and, settling in the huge reception-room armchair, I tried to decide whether Vibegallo was a fool or a clever demagogue and back. The scientific value of all of his cadavers was obviously equal to zero. Models based on the original could be produced by any colleague who had successfully defended his thesis and had completed the two-year specialized course in nonlinear transgression. Endowing the models with magical properties was also trivial, because applicable references, tables, and textbooks were available to all undergraduate magi. Such models did not prove anything in their own right, and were equivalent to card tricks and sword-swallowing, from a scientific viewpoint. These miserable correspondents, who clung to him like flies to manure, could be easily understood. Because, from a lay viewpoint, all this was tremendously spectacular and evoked shivering awe and vague expectations of some sort of tremendous possibilities. But it was harder to understand Vibegallo with his pathological passion for putting on circuslike shows and public blowouts, pandering to the curious, who were deprived of the opportunity (and desire) to fathom the essence of the problem. Leaving out one or two absolutists, returned from overlong trips, who loved to give interviews on the situation in infinity, no one in the Institute, to put it mildly, took advantage of contacts with the press: this was regarded as being in bad taste, and with good reason.

The fact is that the most fascinating and elegant scientific results quite often have the characteristic of appearing precious and dully incomprehensible to the uninitiated. Today, people far removed from science expect miracles from it, and only miracles, and are functionally incapable of distinguishing a true miracle from a trick or some intellectual somersault. The science of thaumaturgy and spell-craft is no exception. Many are capable of organizing a convention of famous ghosts in a TV studio, or boring a hole in a foot-and-a-half concrete wall with their look, and this no one needs, but it can drive the vulnerable public into fits of ecstasy, since it is incapable of visualizing to what extent science has intertwined and intermixed the concepts of reality with those of fairy tales. But try instead to find the profound inner relationship between the drilling look and the philological properties of the word concrete. Try to solve the small particular problem, known as Auers’ Great Problem! It was solved by Oira-Oira, who created the Theory of Fantastic Commonality, and who laid down the framework for an entirely new field of mathematical magic. Nevertheless, almost no one heard of Oira-Oira, while everyone was fully informed about Professor Vibegallo. (“Oh, you work at SRITS? And how is Professor Vibegallo? What has he invented lately?”) This had come about because only two or three.jaundred people on this entire globe were capable of grasping Oira-Oira’s ideas. Among them were several corresponding members but, alas, not one correspondent. The classic work of Vibegallo, Fundamentals of Production Technology of Auto-attiring Footwear, on the other hand, which was stuffed with demagogic prattling, made quite an impact at one time due to B. Pupilov’s efforts. (Later, it became evident that auto-attiring shoes cost more than a motorcycle and were sensitive to dust and humidity.)

The time was late. I was quite tired and drifted off imperceptibly into a fitful sleep. All kinds of unseemly trash populated my visions: multilegged gigantic mosquitoes bearded like Vibegallo, talking pails with sour milk, the tub on stubby legs running up and down stairs. Occasionally, some indiscreet brownie would look in on my dream but, seeing such terrors, would hastily depart in fear. Finally I woke up in pain and saw a sullen mosquito, with a beard, standing next to me trying to sink his stinger, as big as a fountain pen, into my calf.

“Shoo!” I yelled, and hit him on his bulging eye.

It hummed disappointedly and ran off a ways. It was reddish, with spots, and the size of a dog.

Apparently I had pronounced the materialization formula in my sleep and had thus brought this nasty creature out of nonexistence. I was unable to drive it back into nothingness. So I armed myself with a volume of Equations of Mathematical Magic, opened the window ventilator, and chased the critter out into the frost. The blizzard caught it at once and it disappeared in the swirling darkness. That’s how unwholesome sensations originate, I thought.

It was six o’clock in the morning. I listened. Silence reigned in the Institute. Either they were all working diligently or had scattered to their homes. I was due to make another tour, but I was just not in the mood to go anywhere, and the only thing I was in the mood for was to have something to eat, as my last meal had been eighteen hours ago.

I decided to send a double in my place.

In general I’m still a very uncertain magus. Inexperienced. Had there been anyone nearby, I would never have risked exposing my ignorance. But I was alone and decided to take a chance and practice up at the same time. I found the general formula in Mathmagic Equations, substituted my own parameters, carried out all the necessary manipulations, and pronounced all the requisite expressions in ancient Chaldean. It is said that hard work and patience overcome all obstacles. For the first time in my life, I managed to make a decent double. Everything about him was in the right place and he even looked a little like me, except that his left eye wouldn’t open for some reason, and he had six fingers on each hand. I explained his task to him, he nodded, bowed and scraped, and went off, swaying slightly. We never met again. Maybe he strayed into S. Gorynitch’s bunker or maybe he set off on an infinite voyage on the rim of the Wheel of Fortune…. I just don’t know. The fact is I quickly forgot about him since I determined upon making myself a breakfast.

I am not a demanding person. All I needed was a plain sandwich and a cup of black coffee. Possibly with some so-called doctor’s bologna for the sandwich, I don’t know how it came out that way for me, but at first a doctor’s coat, thickly buttered, appeared on the table. After the first shock of astonishment passed, I examined the coat attentively. The butter was creamy and not of vegetable origin. So what I had to do now was to eradicate the coat and begin anew. But in a revolting fit of self-assurance, I pictured myself as a god-creator, and proceeded along the method of consecutive transformations. A bottle with a black liquid appeared next to the coat, and the coat itself started to char around the edges. Hurriedly, I made my imaging more precise, with special emphasis on the images of a cup and beef. The bottle turned into a cup, the liquid remained unchanged, one of the sleeves grew long, thin, and brown, and started to twitch. Perspiring in dismay, I recognized that it was now a cow’s tail. I got out of the chair and went into a corner. The whole business did not go beyond the tail formation, but the spectacle was frightening enough by itself. I tried once more and the tail bloomed. I took myself well in hand, shut my eyes, and started to visualize, with the utmost detail, a slice of ordinary rye bread as it gets cut from a loaf, and buttered with natural butter from a cut-glass butter dish, and a round of bologna placed upon it. Forget the doctor’s bologna pan — I’ll take any kind… let it be the plain half-smoked kind. As to coffee, let it wait. I opened my eyes cautiously. A large crystal lay on the coat, and something dark lurked inside it. I picked up the crystal, the coat following, as it was inexplicably attached, and discerned the longed-for sandwich inside. I groaned and attempted to split the crystal mentally. It became covered with a fine network of cracks so that the sandwich was almost lost to view.

“Numbskull,” said I to myself, “you have eaten a thousand sandwiches and you can’t even approximately, accurately visualize one. Don’t get excited, there is no one here, no one can see you. This is not a test, nor a crucial paper, nor an examination. Try again.” I tried. It would have been better if I hadn’t. My imagination grew wilder, the most unexpected associations flared up in my mind, and as I kept trying, the reception room kept filling with strange objects. Many of them were born, apparently, out of the subconscious, the brooding jungles of hereditary memory, out of primeval fears long suppressed by the higher levels of education. They had extremities and kept moving about, they emitted disgusting sounds, they were indecent, they were aggressive and fought constantly. I was casting about like a trapped animal. All this vividly reminded me of the old cuts with scenes of St. Anthony’s temptations. Particularly vile was the oval dish on spider legs, covered with a straight, sparse fur on the edges. I couldn’t imagine what it wanted from me, but it would back off into a distant corner, then charge, trying to buckle me at the knees. This went on until I squeezed it between wall and chair. I finally succeeded in destroying a part of the mess and the rest wandered off into corners and hid. The remainder consisted of the dish, coat with crystal, and the mug with black liquid, which had grown to the size of a pitcher. I picked it up in both hands and smelled. Seemingly it contained black fountain-pen ink. The oval dish behind the chair kept squirming and scrabbling its legs on the colored linoleum, hissing vilely. I felt most uncomfortable.

I heard steps in the hall, then voices; the door flew open and Janus Poluektovieh appeared on the threshold and as usual said his “So.” I flew into a frenzy of activity. Janus Poluektovich went into his office, eliminating negligently as he walked, with one universal flick of his eyebrow, my entire chamber of horrors. He was followed by Feodor Simeonovich, Cristobal Junta with a fat black cigar in the corner of his mouth, a surly Vibegallo, and a determined-looking Oira-Oira. They were all very preoccupied, very much in a hurry, and didn’t pay me any attention.

The door to the office remained open. I sat down in my old place with a sigh of relief and thereupon discovered that a large china cup of steaming coffee and a plate of sandwiches was waiting there for me. Some one of the titans had looked after me, after all. I attacked my breakfast, listening to the voices from the office.

“Let’s start with the fact” — Cristobal Joseevich was saying with cold disdain — “that your, pardon me, Maternity Ward is situated directly under my laboratories. You have already arranged one explosion, as a result of which I was obliged to wait ten minutes while they replaced the blown-out glass in my office. I understand full well that arguments of a more general nature will have no effect on you and, for that reason, restrict myself to purely egotistical aspects. .

“It’s my business, dear friend, what I do in my place,” answered Vibegallo’s falsetto. “I don’t interfere on your floor, despite the water-of-life, which flows there without interruption and which has wet my ceilings. Besides, bedbugs are encouraged by this. But I don’t interfere in your affairs, so don’t interfere in mine!”

“M-my dear friend,” cooed Feodor Simeonovich. “Ambrosi Ambruosovitch! You must take into account the possible complications…. After all, no one works the dragon in the building, even though there are fire-resistant shields, and — “

“I don’t have a dragon, I have a felicitous man. A colossus of the spirit! That’s a peculiar logic you are deploying, comrade Kivrin, with strange and extraneous analogies! The model of an ideal man compared to an unclassifiable fire-breathing dragon…

“My dear one, the crux of the matter is not whether he is classifiable, but that he can start a fire…

“There you go again! The ideal man can start a fire! Really, you haven’t thought it through, comrade Feodor Simeonovichl”

“I–I am talking about the dragon..

“And I am talking about your incorrect framework! You are smearing it all up, Feodor Simeonovich! You are confusing the issue every way you can! Of course we are erasing the contradictions… between the mental and the physical… between the rural and the urban… between man and woman, finally. But we will not allow you to paste over an abyss, Feodor Simeonovich!”

“What abyss? What sort of deviltry is this? R-Roman, s-say something! Didn’t you explain to him in my presence? I am t-telling you, Ambrosi Ambruosovitch, that your experiment is d-dangerous, d-do you understand?”

“I understand, all right. I’ll not permit the ideal man to hatch in an open field, in the wind!”

“Ambrosi Ambruosovitch,” said Roman. “I could go through my argument once again. The experiment is dangerous because — “

“And I, Roman Petrovich, have been looking at you for a long time and no way can I understand how you can apply such terminology to the ideal man. Behold! the ideal man is dangerous to him!”

Here, Roman, apparently in youthful impatience, lost his temper.

“Not an ideal man,” he roared, “but your all-out consumer!”

An ominous silence reigned.

“How did you say?” Vibegallo inquired in a terrible voice. “Will you repeat that! What did you call the ideal man?”

‘J-Janus Poluektovich,” said Feodor Simeonovich. “After all! That won’t do, my friend. .

“Won’t do!” exclaimed Vibegallo. “You are quite right, comrade Kivrin, it won’t do! We have here a scientific experiment of international caliber! The colossus of the spirit must appear here within the Insfitute walls! This is symbolic! Comrade Oira-Oira with his pragmatic proclivities takes a divisive approach to the problem. And comrade Junta, also, takes the narrow-minded view! You don’t have to give me that look, comrade Junta: the tsarist gendarmerie did not frighten me, and you don’t frighten me either! Is it in our spirit, comrades, to fear an experiment? Of course, it’s understandable that comrade Junta, as a one-time soldier of the church and foreigner, could wander in his judgment, but you, comrade Oira-Oira, and you, Feodor Simeonovich, you are simple Russian people!”

“L-leave off the d-demagogy!” Feodor Simeonovich exploded finally. “H-how can your c-conscience permit you to c-carry on with such d-drivel? W-what sort of s-simple man am I? And what kind of word is that — ‘simple’? Our d-doubles are simple!”

“I can say one thing,” Junta said indifferently. “I am a simple old Grand Inquisitor, and I will close off access to your autoclave until such time as I receive a guarantee that the experiment will be conducted on the polygon.

“N-no closer than f-five kilometers from the town,” added Feodor Simeonovich. “Or even ten.”

Obviously Vibegallo was awfully reluctant to drag his apparatus and himself to the polygon, where a blizzard blew and the light was inadequate for a documentary film.

“So,” he said, “I understand. You wish to fence our science off from the public. Well then, maybe instead of ten kilometers we should go ten thousand, Feodor Simeonovich! To someplace on the other side? Somewhere in Alaska, Cristobal Joseevich.. or wherever you are from? Then say so directly. And, as for us, we’ll take it all down — on paper…

Silence reigned once more and Feodor Simeonovich, who had lost the power of speech, was breathing heavily.

‘Three hundred years ago,” Junta pronounced coldly, “I would have invited you out for such words; for a walk out of town, where I would have rattled the dust off your ears and run you through.”

“Easy, easy there,” said Vibegallo. “This is not Portugal for you. You can’t stand criticism. Three hundred years ago we’d not stand on ceremony with you either, my fugitive prelate.”

I was contorted with disgust. Why was Janus keeping quiet? How much could one take? Footsteps broke the silence and a pale Roman entered with bared teeth. Snapping his fingers, he created a Vibegallo double. Next, he seized it with unholy joy by the chest, shook it rapidly, grabbed it by the beard and jerked it with passionate might several times, calmed down, dissolved the double, and went back into the office.

“Well now, it seems you should be d-drummed out of here, V–Vibegallo,” pronounced Feodor Simeonovich in an unexpectedly calm voice. “It turns out you are quite an unsavory figure.”

“It’s criticism, criticism that you can’t abide,” responded Vibegallo, puffing.

And here, at last, Janus Poluektovich spoke up. His voice was powerful and even, like that of a Jack London captain.

“The experiment, in accordance with Ambrosi Ambruosovitch’s request, will take place today at ten-zero-zero. In view of the fact that the experiment will be accompanied by considerable destruction, which could include human casualties, I designate the far sector of the polygon fifteen kilometers outside the city limits as the site of the experiment. I take this early occasion to thank Roman Petrovich for his initiative and courage.”

Apparently everyone was disgesting this decision for some time. Janus Poluektovich had an undoubtedly strange manner of expressing his thoughts. But everyone willingly accepted that his vision was the better. There were precedents.

“I’ll go call for the truck,” Roman said suddenly, and probably went through a wall, as he didn’t pass me by in the reception room.

Feodor Simeonovich and Junta probably were nodding agreement, while Vibegallo, regaining his composure, cried out, “A correct decision, Janus Poluektovich! You have given us a timely reminder of our forgotten vigilance. Farther, yes farther, from extraneous eyes. Only thing is, I’ll need some stevedores. My autoclave is heavy; that is, it is a good five tons.

“Of course,” said Janus. “Issue your orders.”

Chairs were being moved in the office and I quickly finished my coffee.

During the next hour, in the company of those who still remained in the Institute, I hung about the entrance watching the autoclave, stereo telescopes, armored shields, and contingency supplies being loaded. The blizzard had blown itself out and the morning was clear and frosty.

Roman drove up in a half-track truck. Alfred, the vampire, herded in the hekatocheire stevedores. Cottus and Gyes came willingly, conversing animatedly in a hundred voices, rolling up their sleeves on the go. Briareus dragged behind, displaying his damaged finger, and complaining that several of his heads were dizzy, that it hurt, and that he didn’t sleep last night. Cottus took the autoclave, Gyes carried everything else. When Briareus saw that there was nothing left for him, he began giving orders, directions, and helping with advice. He ran ahead, opened and held doors, kept squatting down, looking under the loads, yelling “Steady as she goes,” or “Bear off to the right. You’re getting snagged!” In the end he got his hand stepped on, and his body squeezed between the autoclave and a wall. He broke into sobs and Alfred walked him back to the vivarmum.

Quite a few people climbed aboard the truck. Vibegallo got into the cab. He was considerably put out and kept asking everyone what time it was. The truck started off, but came back in five minutes, as it developed that the correspondents had been forgotten. While they were being sought, Cottus and Gyes started pelting each other with snowballs to warm up and broke two windowpanes. Then Gyes quarreled with an early drunk who was yelling, “All against one, right?” He was dragged back and stuffed into the van. He kept swiveling his eyes and cursing in ancient Greek. G. Perspicaciov and B. Pupilov showed up, shivering and half awake, and the truck finally drove off.

The Institute emptied out. It was half-past eight. The whole town was asleep. I was very eager to go to the polygon with everyone else, but there was no way for me to leave, so I sighed and started on another round.

Yawning, I went up and down the halls, turning off lights until I came to Victor Korneev’s lab. Victor was not interested in Vibegallo’s experiments. He was wont to say Vibegallo and his ilk should be mercilessly handed over to Junta as experimental animals to determine whether they were reverse mutations. Consequently, Victor didn’t go anywhere, but sat on the translator-sofa, smoking a cigarette and lazily conversing with Eddie Ainperian. Eddie reclined nearby, sucking on a hard candy and pensively contemplating the ceiling.

The perch was vigorously swimming about in the tub.

“Happy New Year,” I said.

“Happy New Year,” Eddie responded cheerily.

“Let Sasha decide,” offered Korneev. “Sasha, is there such a thing as nonprotein life?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t seen any. Why?”

“What do you mean, you haven’t seen any? You have never seen an M-field either, but you compute its intensity.”

“And so?” I said. I was watching the perch in the tub. It was going around and around, leaning hard into the turns, so that you could see that it had been gutted. “Victor,” I went on, “did it work after all?”

“Sasha is reluctant to talk about nonprotein life,” said Eddie. “And he is right”

“It’s possible to live without protein,” I said, “but how does he live without innards?”

“But here is comrade Amperian, who says that there can be no life without protein,” said Victor, forcing a stream of tobacco smoke to turn into a miniature tornado that traveled about the room, curving around the furniture.

“I say that life is protein,” argued Eddie.

“I don’t sense the distinction,” said Victor. “You say that if there is no protein, there is no life.”

“Yes.”

“And what, then, is this?” asked Victor. He waved his hand feebly.

On the table next to the tub appeared a revolting creature resembling both a hedgehog and a spider. Eddie raised himself up and looked at the table.

“Ah,” he said, and lay down again. “That’s not life. That’s un-life. Isn’t Koschei the Undead nonprotein life?”

“What more do you want?” asked Korneev. “Does it move? It moves. Does it eat? It eats. It can reproduce, too. Would you like it to reproduce right now?”

Eddie raised up for the second time and glanced at the table. The hedgehog-spider was shuffling about clumsily.

It seemed to be trying to move in all four directions simultaneously.

“Un-life is not life,” said Eddie. “Un-life exists only insofar as there is intelligent life. You could even say more accurately — only insofar as there are magi. Un-life is a by-product of their activity.”

“All right,” said Victor.

The hedgehog-spider vanished. In its place appeared a miniature Victor Korneev, an exact copy the size of an arm. He snapped his tiny fingers and created a micro-double of even smaller size. This one did the same. A fountain-pen-sized double materialized. Then one the size of a matchbox. Then a thimble.

“Enough?” asked Victor. “Each of them is a magus. Not one has a single protein molecule.”

“An untoward example,” Eddie said with regret. “In the first place, they do not, in principle, differ from a programmed lathe. In the second place, they are not a product of development but of your protein mastery. It’s hardly worth arguing whether evolution could produce self-reproducing programmed lathes.”

“A lot you know about evolution,” Korneev said rudely. “A new Darwin! What’s the difference whether it’s a chemical process or a conscious act? Not all your ancestors were protein either. Your great-great-great-grandmother also, though quite complicated, I admit, was not a protein molecule. It may be that our so-called conscious activity is also a variety of evolution. How do we know it was the aim of nature to create a comrade Amperian? Maybe the aim of nature was the creation of un-life at the hands of Amperian. It could be.”

“Indeed, indeed. First an anti-virus, then protein, then comrade Amperian, and then the whole planet is filled with un-life.”

“Exactly,” said Victor.

“And all of us are dead out of sheer use…”

“And why not?” said Victor.

“I have an acquaintance,” said Eddie. “He asserts that man is just an intermediary link that nature requires for the crown of its creation: a glass of cognac with a lemon slice.”

“And why, in the final analysis, not?”

“Just because it doesn’t suit me,” said Eddie. “Nature has her aims and I have mine.”

“Anthropocentric,” Victor said in revulsion.

“Yes,” Amperian said haughtily.

“I’ll not debate with anthropocentrics.”

“In that case, let’s tell anecdotes,” Eddie calmly offered and stuffed another rock candy in his mouth.

Victor’s doubles continued their labors on the table. The smallest was now the height of an ant. While listening to the argument between the anthropocentric and the cosmocentric, a thought entered my head.

“I say, chums,” I came out with ersatz animation. “Why aren’t you at the polygon?”

“And why should we be?” asked Eddie.

“Well, it is still quite interesting.

“I never go to a circus,” said Eddie. “Besides: ubi nil vales, ibi nil velis.(Where you are not competent, there you should not wish to be)”

“That’s in reference to yourself?” asked Victor.

“No. It’ s in reference to Vibegallo.”

“Chums,” I said. “I like a circus very much. Isn’t it all the same to you where you are going to tell jokes?”

“Meaning?” said Victor.

“Stand watch for me, and I’ll run off to the polygon.”

“It’s cold,” reminded Victor. “Frost, Vibegallo.”

“I have a great yen,” I said. “It’s all so mysterious.”

“Shall we let the child go?” asked Victor of Eddie.

Eddie nodded.

“Go, Privalov,” said Victor. “It will cost you four hours of computer time.”

“Two,” I said quickly. I was expecting something like that.

“Five,” Victor said boorishly.

“Then three,” I said. “I am working for you all the time as it is.”

“Six,” Victor said coolly.

“Vitya,” said Eddie, “fur will grow on your ears.”

“Red,” I said, gloating. “Maybe even shot through with green.”

“All right, then,” said Victor. “Go for free. Two hours will fix me.”

We went to the entry together. On the way, the magi took up an incomprehensible debate about something called cyclotation, and I had to interrupt them to get transgressed to the polygon. They had already tired of me, and being in a rush to get rid of me, they transgressed me with such energy that I had no time to get prepared, and was flung backward into the crowd of spectators.

Everything was in readiness at the polygon. The public hid behind the armored shields. Vibegallo, poking out of the freshly dug trench, was looking jauntily through the big stereo periscope. Feodor Simeonovich and Cristobal Junta, forty-power binoculars in hand, were exchanging words quietly in Latin. Janus Poluektovich, in a heavy fur coat, stood to the side, dabbling his walking stick in the snow. B. Pupilov sat on his haunches by the trench with an open notebook and pen at the ready. G. Perspicaciov, hung about with still and movie cameras, was rubbing his frozen cheeks and stamping his feet behind him.

The sky was clear and a full moon was sinking in the west. Blurred shafts of the northern lights appeared shimmering amid the stars and disappeared again. The snow glistened on the plain, and the large rounded cylinder of the autoclave was clearly visible some one hundred meters away.

Vibegallo tore himself from the periscope, coughed, and said, “Comrades! Com-m-r-ades! What are we observing in the periscope? Overwhelmed with complex feelings and faint with expectations, comrades, we are observing how the protective lock is beginning to unscrew itself automatically…. Write, write,” he said to B. Pupilov. “And most accurately…. That is, unscrewing automatically. In a few minutes we will see the appearance among us of an ideal man — chevalier, that is, sans peur et sans reproche!”

I could see with my naked eye as the lock turned and fell soundlessly in the snow. A long streamer of steam shot out of the autoclave, all the way, it seemed, to the stars.

“I am clarifying for the press — “ Vibegallo started to say, when a horrendous roar sounded.

The earth slid and tossed. A huge snow cloud soared upward. Everyone fell against each other and I, too, was thrown and rolled. The roar kept increasing, and when I stood up with an all-out effort, grasping the treads of the half-track, I saw, in horrified terror, that the horizon was curling up and rolling like a bowl’s edge toward us. The armored shields were swaying threateningly, and the people were running and falling and jumping up again covered with snow. I saw Feodor Simeonovich and Cristobal Junta, encased in the rainbow-hued caps of their protective shields, backing under the press of the storm and raising their hands trying to stretch their defenses over the rest of us. I saw, too, the gusts tearing that defense into shreds that were carried off across the plain as so many huge soap bubbles bursting against the starry sky. I saw Janus Poluektovich, collar raised, standing with his back to the wind, planted firmly on his walking stick buried in the bared earth, looking at his watch. Over there, at the site of the autoclave, a thick cloud of steam, red and lighted from within, twisted in a tight vortex, while the horizon steeply curved higher and higher till it seemed we were at the bottom of a vast pitcher. And then, right near the epicenter of this cosmic abomination, Roman suddenly appeared, his green coat flying in shreds from his shoulders. He flung his arm in a wide arc, threw something large and glinting like a bottle into the howling steam, and immediately fell to the ground, covering his head with his arms.

The foul and enraged face of a jinn rose above the cloud, eyes rolling in fury. His mouth gaping in soundless laughter, he flapped his extensive hairy ears. A burning stench permeated the blizzard and then the ghostly walls of a magnificent castle arose and slumped, oozing down, while the jinn himself, turned into a long tongue of orange flame, vanished into the sky.

There was quiet for several seconds. The horizon sank back down with a heavy rumble. I was thrown high and regaining my senses, discovered that I was sitting not far from the truck, my arms braced against the earth. The snow was all blown away. The field around us was bare and black. Where the autoclave had stood a minute before now yawned a large crater. A wisp of white smoke curled above it, and there was a smell of fire.

The spectators started climbing back upon their feet. Faces were dirty and distorted. Many were speechless, coughed, spit, and moaned softly. They set to cleaning themselves up a bit, whereupon it developed that quite a few were disrobed down to underwear. There was grumbling, then cries of, “Where are my trousers? Why am I without trousers? I was dressed in trousers!”

“Comrades, has anyone seen my watch?”

“And mine, also!”

“Mine, too, has disappeared!”

“Platinum tooth is gone! It was put in just this summer.”

“Oh, no! My ring is gone.. and my bracelet.”

“Where is Vibegallo? What sort of disgrace is this? What’s it all mean?”

“To hell with all the watches and teeth! Are the people all right? How many were there?”

“What has actually happened? Some sort of explosion the jinn… and where is the colossus of the spirit?”

“Where is the consumer?”

“Where is Vibegallo, damn it!”

“Did you see that horizon? Do you know what that implies?”

“The roll-up of space. I know about these tricks..”

“It’s cold in my shirt sleeves; can someone let me have something..

“W-where is that Vi-Vibegallo? W-where is th-thal moron?”

The earth heaved and Vibegallo clawed his way out of the trench. He was without his boots.

“I elucidate for the press,” he said huskily.

But he was not allowed to elucidate. Magnus Feodorovich Redkin, who came especially to find out once and for all what true happiness was, ran up to him and, shaking his clenched fists, yelled, “Charlatan! You’ll answer for this! Sideshow! Where is my hat? Where is my fur coat? I will put in a complaint about you! I am asking you, where is my hat?”

“In complete accord with the program,” mumbled Vibegallo, glancing around. “Our dear colossus — “

Feodor Simeonovich advanced on him. “You, my fine friend, are bu-burying your talents in the g-ground. They should be used to s-strengthen the de-department of Defensive Magic. Your ideal in-men should be d-dropped or enemy bases. To throw fear into the ag-aggressors.”

Vibegallo backed away, covering himself with the sleeve of his coat. Cristobal Joseevich approached silently measuring him with his eye, flung his dirty gloves at his feet, and left.

Gian Giacomo, hurriedly concocting the image of ar elegant suit, cried from afar, “This is truly phenomenal signores. I always felt a certain antipathy toward him, bul I couldn’t ever imagine anything like this..

Here, finally, G. Perspicaciov and B. Pupilov figured out the real situation. Until then, smiling uncertainly, they had hoped to be at least partially enlightened. Now it dawned on them that all had not gone in complete conformity to plan.

G. Perspicaciov, moving with firm steps, accosted Vibegallo, laying his hand on his shoulder, and saying in an iron voice, “Comrade Professor, where can I get my cameras back? Three still cameras, and one movie camera.”‘

“Also, my wedding ring,” added B. Pupilov.

“Pardon,” Vibegallo said with dignity. “You’ll be called on when needed,” he said in his affected French. “Wait for explanations.”

The correspondents were thrown for a loss. Vibegallo turned and walked toward the crater. Roman already was standing over it.

“What all isn’t in there…” he said yet from afar.

There was no consumer colossus in the crater. Instead, everything else was there and much more. There were still and movie cameras, wallets, overcoats, rings, necklaces, trousers, and a platinum tooth. There were Vibegallo’s felt boots, and Magnus Feodorovich’s hat. My platinum whistle for calling the emergency squad turned up too. Further we discovered two Moskvich and three Volga cars, an iron safe with the local savings-office seals, a large piece of roasted meat two cases of vodka, a case of Zhiguli beer and an iron bed with nickel-plated knobs.

Having pulled on his boots, Vibegallo, smiling condescendingly, announced that now the discussion could get started. “Let’s have your questions,” he said. But discussions did not take place. The enraged Magnus Feodorovich had called the police. Young Sergeant Kovalev dashed up in his police car. We all had to be recorded as witnesses. Sergeant Kovalev went around and around the crater, trying to discover traces of the criminal. He found a huge lower jaw and examined it minutely. The correspondents, having received their instruments back, saw everything in a new light and were listening attentively to Vibegallo, who again poured forth a litany of demagogy about limitless and variegated needs. It was becoming dull and I was freezing.

“Let’s go home,” said Roman.

“Let’s,” I said. “Where did you get the jinn?”

“Drew it out of the stores yesterday. For entirely different purposes.”

“And what really happened? Did he overeat again?”

“No, it’s simply that Vibegallo is a moron,” said Roman.

“That’s understood,” I said. “But why the cataclysm?”

“All from the same quarters,” said Roman. “I told him a thousand times: “You are programming a standard superegocentrist. He will gather up all the material valuables he can lay his hands on, then he’ll fold space, wrap himself up in a cocoon, and stop time….’ But Vibegallo’ could never grasp that the true colossus of the spirit does not consume so much as he thinks and feels.

‘That’s all trash,” he continued as we flew up to the Institute. “That’s all too clear. But you tell me. Where did Janus-U learn that everything would turn out just so and not otherwise? He must have foreseen everything, both the vast destruction and that I would figure out how to terminate the colossus in embryo.”

‘That’s a fact,” I said. “He even expressed his gratitude to you. In advance.”

“Isn’t that really strange?” said Roman. “All this needs thorough thinking through.”

And we did start to think through thoroughly. It took us a long time. Only by spring, and only by chance, were we able to decipher the mystery.

But that’s an altogether different story.