E.Voiskunsky, I.Lukodyanov. The Crew Of The Mekong
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Translated from the Russian by Leonard Stoklitsky
First published 1974
(c) English translation, Mir Publishers, 1974
OCR: http://home.freeuk.com/russica2
Original title: Экипаж "Меконга"
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Being an account
of the latest fantastic
discoveries, happenings of the
eighteenth century,
mysteries of Matter,
and adventures
on land and at sea
THE MERCURY HEART
NAVAL LIEUTENANT FEDOR MATVEYEV
A HALF-TWIST SPIRAL
IPATY ISLAND
I'll die if I don't see the Caspian.
ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT
THE MERCURY HEART
If you wish to subject an unknown substance
to the action of an unknown force you must
first study this substance.
Honore de Balzac -LA PEAU DE CHAGRIN
IN WHICH A STRANGE OCCURRENCE TAKES PLACE ON BOARD THE M.S. UZBEKISTAN
There is a great temptation to start a novel of adventure with a
shipwreck. Something like this:
"With a sickening crunch the three-masted bark Aretusa, sailing from
the New Hebrides with a cargo of copra, listed heavily to starboard. The
raging sea swept over-"
But we did not yield to the temptation. This true story of ours will
open without a shipwreck. Since we wish, however, to conform throughout to
the dictates of good style, we solemnly promise to arrange one later on.
So much for that.
One fine summer day the m.s. Uzbekistan was approaching a large Caspian
town. The time was shortly after lunch, and the promenade deck was deserted
except for a man in a green check suit. He was taking his ease in a deck
chair, sheltered from the broiling sun by an awning.
Nikolai Opratin, a person destined to play no small role in this story,
was a lean, dapper man in his late thirties. He had an energetic face, with
a bony chin, thin lips and a high brow ending in a carefully concealed bald
patch. His close-shaven cheeks and the aroma of his aftershave lotion
created the impression that he had just stepped out of a barber's chair.
Postprandial naps were a pernicious habit in which Nikolai Opratin did
not indulge. He reclined in his deck chair, gazing at the ship's broad,
foamy wake. On his right he could see the grayish-yellow strip of coastline
rising out of the blue sea. The long hilly island at the entrance to the bay
was already in sight.
The island had been much smaller twenty years ago, Opratin reflected.
Through the centuries the level of the ancient Caspian had often risen and
fallen, sometimes by as much as eighty metres. In recent years it had
dropped greatly. Man, no longer willing to be just a passive observer, had
now set himself the difficult task of raising the level of the Caspian. One
of the ideas suggested was to seal off, with a dam, the Bay of
Kara-Bogaz-Gol, where the hot desert sun evaporates fourteen cubic
kilometres of Caspian water annually. Another was to divert northern rivers
into the Caspian. Under this bold scheme, the Kama, Vychegda and Pechora
rivers were to be pumped across the watersheds and made to flow southwards
into the Volga, which empties into the Caspian Sea.
Even if Kara-Bogaz-Gol Bay were cut off from the sea, northern rivers
diverted, and water from Central Asia's great Amu Darya river added, the
level of the Caspian would not rise by the desired three metres before the
year 2000.
That was far too long to wait. Actually, the addition of only one
thousand cubic kilometres of water to the Caspian in the course of one year
would do the trick.
But this was easier said than done. Several thousand giant pumps and a
power station with a capacity of scores of millions of kilowatts would be
required to shift that amount of water from the Black Sea, say, to the
Caspian in one year.
Nikolai Opratin, Candidate of Science (Tech.), had all these figures at
his fingertips because he was the man in charge of the key aspect of a
Caspian-level scheme at the Research Institute of Marine Physics.
Although the level of the Caspian had dropped, the sea was still more
than deep enough for the Uzbekistan. The town came into view, rising slowly
out of the blue bay. Smokestacks and the delicate tracery of TV aerials
could be seen with the naked eye.
The decks now swarmed with passengers. Many were holiday-makers
returning home from a cruise along the Volga.
A trio of sailing enthusiasts leaned on the rail as they discussed the
merits of a white sailboat that was overtaking the ship.
Young men and women in blue jerseys with white numbers on their backs
tirelessly took snapshots of one another.
A husky, well-built man in a striped shirt worn over his trousers
strolled along the deck with his plump wife on his arm. From time to time he
paused to give a young photographer some pointers about which aperture to
set and which shutter speed to use.
"What a pity our holiday is coming to an end, Anatole," a woman
somewhere behind Opratin remarked in a high-pitched voice.
"Thank goodness it's over-that's what I say," a man's voice replied.
"Just think of all the time lost." The voice struck Opratin as familiar. He
turned round to see a slender young blonde in a red sun-dress, and a
middle-aged man in a crumpled pongee suit. The man had a broad,
large-featured face, puffy eyelids and an unruly shock of brown hair.
The couple, deep in conversation, stopped by the rail not far from
Opratin's deck chair.
Opratin rose, straightened his jacket, and walked over to them. "Good
afternoon, Benedictov," he said in a low voice.
The man in the pongee suit stared at him coldly. "Ah, the expert who
writes reviews," he remarked. He reeked of brandy.
"I saw you in the restaurant during lunch but didn't venture to impose
on you," said Opratin. He turned to Benedictov's companion with a slight
bow. "My name is Nikolai Opratin."
"How do you do," she replied. "I'm Rita Benedictov. I've heard about
you."
Opratin lifted the corners of his mouth in a smile. "I don't doubt it.
Nothing very flattering, I'll wager." His tone was half-questioning,
half-affirmative. The young woman merely shrugged. With the sun on her face,
her brown eyes were warm and clear, but there was a hint of melancholy in
them.
"Were you on the Volga cruise too?" she asked.
"No, I came aboard last night at Derbent. Business. By the way, a
curious thing happened to me in Derbent-"
A glance at Benedictov's face told Opratin that he couldn't care less
about anything that had happened at Derbent.
"Tut-tut, he still holds a grudge against me," Opratin thought.
That spring a scientific journal had asked Nikolai Opratin to write a
review of an article submitted for publication by a biophysicist named
Anatole Benedictov. The article had impressed him. Benedictov began by
analysing, in the light of modern physics, the phenomenon of ionophoresis,
known since 1807 when Professor Reiss of Moscow discovered that drops of one
liquid are capable of moving through another liquid. Further, Benedictov
gave an account of his observations of fish having electric organs and cited
interesting information about them. The electric ray, Torpedinidae, for
example, generates 300 volts at eight amperes, and the electric eel,
Electrophorus Electricus, as much as 600 volts.
Benedictov maintained that such fish, Nature's largest living power
generators, created an electric field the action of which makes water pass
through their scales into their bodies. He had planted contacts in fish to
measure differences in the action potential of the skin and the internal
organs, and had concluded that under certain definite electrostatic
conditions liquids penetrate through living tissue. Benedictov put forward
the hypothesis that it would soon be possible to subject fish to special
irradiation that would make them both penetrable and able to penetrate
through solid matter when required. For example, fish would be able to pass
freely through concrete dams on rivers.
In his review Opratin had spoken highly of the fish experiments but had
politely ridiculed the penetrability hypothesis. The editor of the journal
had introduced him to Benedictov. Benedictov had disagreed with Opratin's
conclusions, called the review "narrow-minded", and refused to let his
article be published.
All this had taken place about three and a half months earlier. Now the
author and the reviewer were meeting for a second time.
"There was no need to take offence, Benedictov," Opratin said mildly.
"Your article had a lot of interesting points, as I noted in my review-"
"I didn't take offence," Benedictov interrupted.
"It's just that I don't think you- hm, well, that you know much about
bioelectricity."
Opratin took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead. "Let's not
argue about it," he said quietly. "You know more about some things and I
know more about others. Isn't that so?"
"In that case, stick to what you know and don't go poking your nose-"
"Anatole, please," the woman said, putting her hand on her husband's
arm.
"I shouldn't have spoken to him," Opratin thought. "He's all keyed up."
Aloud he said: "I have no intention of interfering in your affairs. I hope
you'll finally realize your hypothesis is groundless. Ionophoresis and
reciprocal penetrability of bodies are immeasurably far apart. Goodbye."
Opratin made a dignified turn but before he had taken two steps
Benedictov called to him. "Look here", he said. "Want a demonstration of
penetrability?"
"Stop it, Anatole," said the woman. "Don't, I beg you."
Benedictov waved her aside. "Look!" He thrust his hand inside his shirt
and drew out a knife.
Opratin took an involuntary step backwards.
The husky man in the striped shirt strode over to Benedictov. "Hey,
none of that! Put that knife away."
Benedictov ignored him. "Here's penetrability for you!" he exclaimed.
He pushed up his left sleeve and slashed his forearm with the knife.
Someone gave a stifled scream. A crowd started to gather.
"See that?" Now Benedictov plunged the knife into his arm. The narrow
blade, on which a wavy pattern was engraved, passed straight through his arm
without even leaving a scratch on it.
The crowd was struck dumb. Benedictov laughed. As he was putting the
knife away the husky man stepped towards him again.
"Give it here," he said. "I'll teach you to frighten people." He made a
grab for the knife but his hand closed over emptiness.
"Keep out of this!" Benedictov shouted. But the man twisted
Benedictov's arm, and the knife dropped to the deck, dangerously near the
edge. Several hands reached for it.
The next instant a slim figure in a sleeveless red dress pushed forward
through the crowd, ducked under the railing and dived down towards the
water, six metres below.
"Man overboard!" someone shouted.
Life preservers plopped into the sea and lifeboat tackle began to
creak. The ship started on a circle that would bring it back to the spot
where the passenger had fallen overboard. But this turned out to be
unnecessary. The white sailboat, then about a hundred metres from the ship,
made a wild turn into the wind. Listing heavily, the boat raced towards the
head bobbing among the waves.
As the crowd looked on, a tall, bronzed young man dived into the sea. A
few minutes later the red sun-dress was to be seen on the deck of the
sailboat.
The Uzbekistan approached the sailboat from the lee side.
"Any help needed?" the officer of the watch called out.
A woman's voice floated up. "No, thanks. They'll take me ashore."
The passengers excitedly discussed the rescue. Cameras were focussed on
the sailboat. Anatole Benedictov, his face white as a sheet, stood apart
from the crowd. He gripped the railing and stared down fixedly at the sea.
When Nikolai Opratin raised his head after looking in vain for the
knife on deck his eyes met the intent gaze of the husky man.
"A tricky little knife," the man remarked. "A pity the fishes will get
it."
Opratin turned away.
IN WHICH THE READER IS INVITED
TO GO SAILING TOGETHER WITH
THE MAIN CHARACTERS
Now let us turn back the clock a few hours and shift the scene to the
bazaar in that large town on the Caspian Sea.
It was Sunday, and the bazaar was so thickly packed with people that it
could have been described as a dense substance, all the constituent elements
of which were in constant motion. Motivated by the law of supply and demand,
buyers and sellers were attracted to one another like bodies possessing
different electric charges. They moved towards one another, overcoming an
opposing force, namely, different ideas about prices.
Two tall young men strode quickly towards the bazaar. The tow-headed,
blue-eyed man, whose name was Yura Kostyukov and who wore a bright red
short-sleeved shirt and sand-coloured trousers, glanced at his watch.
"It's a quarter to nine already. Val is probably waiting for us at the
yacht club."
"Let her wait," his friend Nikolai Potapkin said. "The worst that can
happen is she'll give you a tongue-lashing." Nikolai had a high forehead,
prominent cheekbones and a shock of dark hair. His grey eyes were calm and
somewhat quizzical. The rolled-up sleeves of his white shirt revealed a pair
of hairy muscular forearms.
The two friends passed through an arched gateway and came out near a
display of paintings, some of them executed on cardboard, some on oilcloth
and some on polythene film. They were the kind of paintings you will see
only at bazaars. Most of them were crude copies of well-known canvases. The
two young men stopped in front of one of them which depicted a plump nude
with pinkish-purple skin reclining on the bright blue surface of a pond
beside a dazzlingly white swan.
"Just look at that," Yura remarked. "What a wealth of colour!"
"It's Leda and the swan, from Greek mythology," said Nikolai.
Yura laughed. "You mean that fat lady is Leda, the Spartan beauty? The
mother of Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra? The mother-in-law of King Menelaus
and King Agamemnon?"
"But look at how she's lying on the water," Nikolai said.
At that moment a man in his forties, wearing large, horn-rimmed
eyeglasses, with greying hair, plump tanned cheeks and a small pot-belly,
came up to them.
"Fie," he said in a low voice. "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves."
The two young men turned round. "Why, it's Boris!" Yura exclaimed.
"Fie," the plump man repeated. Boris Privalov was head of the
department in which the two young men were employed as research engineers.
"Staring at a nude!"
"No- I'm intrigued by the way she's floating on top of the water,"
Nikolai said. "You might think she was lying on a sofa."
Boris Privalov examined the pinkish-purple lady more closely. "H'm,
yes, indeed. An extraordinary case of surface tension. But you didn't come
here to buy a painting, did you?"
"Of course not. We're looking for a pulley-block for our stay-sail
halyard," Yura explained. "We were at the marina, giving the boat a
onceover, and we saw a block had to be replaced. We couldn't find anything
suitable in the store-room there. Dockmaster Mehti said we were getting to
be as finicky as pampered lap dogs. He said that if we didn't like the block
he offered us we could trot down to the bazaar for one. So that's that. Are
you looking for anything in particular?"
Before replying, Privalov glanced about. "No, just browsing, so to
speak."
"Do you suppose it would be possible to build up surface tension
artificially?" Nikolai asked.
"Build it up, you say?"
"Yes." Nikolai put a finger on the blue surface of the water in the
painting. "So that a person could stretch out on the water, the way she's
doing."
"But what for?"
Nikolai lifted his shoulders. "I don't know. It simply occurred to me."
"An interesting point," Privalov said after a pause, during which he
glanced about again. "But first you would have to examine the question of
just what a surface is in general." He looked first at Nikolai, then at
Yura, then began to talk. He loved to discuss scientific problems, and when
some point caught his fancy he could talk about it for hours.
A cluster of people formed around them as first one passer-by stopped
to listen, then a second, then a third.
"Boris! Where've you disappeared to?" a woman's voice called.
Privalov stopped short. "I'm here. Olga," he said to a round-faced,
thick-set woman who was pushing her way towards him through the crowd. "I
ran into a couple of my men-"
"So I see." The woman glanced with distaste at the painting. "How could
you stand here looking at that abomination?"
"Good morning," said Yura, an earnest smile on his face. "You see, it's
really our fault-"
"How do you do," the woman replied. "Come, Boris. I've found a
hand-chased copper jug for your collection-if someone hasn't snatched it up
already."
Privalov nodded to the two young men and followed his wife. But after a
few steps he halted and squatted to examine a pile of metal junk.
"Here's the block you're looking for, boys," he called.
Nikolai came over to him, picked up the block and examined it. "It'll
do," he said.
"Boris!" Privalov's wife called.
"Just a moment." Still squatting on his haunches, Privalov pushed his
glasses up onto his forehead and studied a small bar of rusty iron that he
had picked up. He tapped it with a forefinger.
Nikolai paid for the block. With a wave of his hand the owner of the
pile of junk threw in the bar of rusty iron for the same price. Privalov
wrapped it in a page from a newspaper and put it in his pocket.
"What do you want the piece of iron for?" Yura asked.
"Oh, it just caught my eye. Well, so long, Siamese twins."
"We're thinking of going out in the boat to take a look at the site,"
said Nikolai, lowering his voice.
Privalov's face brightened. "That's a good idea, a wonderful idea, in
fact. I was just- Wait a moment-"
Ho stepped over to his wife and whispered something to her.
"Of course not!" she exclaimed. "What talk can there be about the
pipeline? Today's Sunday and everybody's off."
"Sunday is a working day on the project because the power supply is
better than on weekdays."
"But you wanted to look for some old copper wares, Boris."
"I'll get along meanwhile," Privalov said firmly. "Now don't fret,
Olga. I'm sorry but I must go. I'll be back for dinner."
With a sigh, Olga gazed reproachfully at her husband's back.
Privalov and his young companions left the bazaar, took a trolleybus
and in fifteen minutes reached the marina.
A dark-haired girl in a white blouse and gay-coloured skirt was sitting
on the edge of the pier dangling her tanned legs above the water and reading
a book. When Yura caught sight of the girl he hastened out along the pier
towards her. .
"Hallo there, Val!" he called.
The girl slammed her book shut and sprang to her feet.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" She snatched off her sunglasses
to glare at Yura. "We made a date for eight o'clock and now it's going on
for ten."
"We had an urgent job to do for Mehti," Yura explained. "Val, I want
you to meet Boris Privalov."
Privalov held out his hand. "It's a pleasure," he said. "I've spoken
with you on the phone. You're the girl who rings up Yura, aren't you?"
Val smiled. "Why, yes. But maybe I'm not the only one."
"Of course you're not," Nikolai put in. "Half of the girls in town ring
him up."
"Can I help it if I'm popular?" Yura asked plaintively.
Val gave a giggle and pinched his arm.
They went aboard a sailboat that was tied up at the pier. It had the
name Mekong on its bows.
Why was this Caspian boat named after that great river, 4,500
kilometres long, which flows through China, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia
and Vietnam?
Well, sailing enthusiasts prefer lyrical names like Orion and Sputnik
to the old-fashioned Swift or Hurricane. The man formerly in charge of this
white sailboat had taken a liking to the Greek word meconium, which conjured
up some sort of mythological picture in his mind. But as soon as he painted
this name on the bows he found himself the butt of curious jokes and
innuendoes. Looking up the word, he learned that it was indeed Greek, but
had nothing to do with mythology at all. He never showed up at the marina
again.
The boat was turned over to Nikolai and Yura. Instead of racking their
brains for a totally new name they simply changed Meconium into Mekong.
The stay-sail halyard block was quickly replaced by the new one. Soon
after, the Mekong, heeling to starboard, was sweeping across the bay towards
the sea.
"Haul the sheets home!" commanded Nikolai, who was the skipper.
Privalov had crewed for them for more than a year but he much preferred to
spend his weekends at home on the sofa with a book. He did not turn up at
the marina very often, although he liked sailing.
After making fast the stay-sail sheet Privalov stretched out on the hot
boards of the deck. How wonderful it was to lie there not thinking about
anything, feeling the sun warm your bare back, watching the city with its
hustle and bustle recede into the distance, and listen to the chatter and
laughter of the two young men and the girl!
How wonderful it would be not to think about anything! But the pipeline
kept intruding.
Quite some time had already passed since a bold project for laying an
underwater pipeline between the mainland and the Neftianiye Reefs, a famous
oilfield in the Caspian Sea, had been developed at Privalov's Oil
Transportation Research Institute. It was an ingenious scheme that involved
winding forty kilometres of pipes onto a gigantic wheel lying in the water
just off the shore and then gradually unwinding the line and towing it to
the Neftianiye Reefs. Meanwhile the oil extracted there was being shipped
out in tankers.
Privalov's plan had been approved, although many people thought it too
risky.
During the past week the pressure of affairs at the Institute had
prevented Privalov from visiting the pipeline site. Running into Yura and
Nikolai at the bazaar had been a piece of luck for him.
A gentle northerly breeze carried the boat smoothly seawards. As he lay
on his chest at the edge of the deck, Privalov reflectively observed the two
resilient bow-waves formed by the boat. The Mekong seemed to be folding the
water apart rather than cutting through it.
The water was resisting. Surface tension. Privalov raised himself on
his elbows and looked at Nikolai seated at the tiller.
"Now listen," he said. "If strong enough, the surface tension of a
liquid could replace a pipe." "I don't get it, Boris," said Nikolai. Yura,
sitting on the other side with Val, moved his head, tightly bound in a red
kerchief, from under the stay-sail and stared inquisitively at Privalov.
"You don't get it?" Privalov reached over to his trousers, brought out
his cigarette case and lit up. "Take an underwater pipeline. The oil is
separated from the sea by the wall of the pipe. If we could make its surface
tension strong enough, oil would flow in a separate stream, its own surface
tension acting as a sort of film, or casing, and then you wouldn't need a
pipe. See?"
"That's fabulous!" Nikolai exclaimed. "A pipe-less pipeline! But how
could you increase the tension?"
Privalov lay back. "It's all out of this world," he said, screwing up
his eyes against the sun.
"Out of this world?"
"Well, yes. Surfaces have specific properties that no one is able to
control. Forget it. The whole thing's just a daydream."
Privalov fell silent. He did not utter another word until their
destination came into sight.
The sailboat rounded the yellow tongue of the cape and headed for
shore. They had to drop anchor about a hundred metres from the beach because
the bay was too shallow for them to proceed any further. Privalov shaded his
eyes with his hand and studied the structures on the beach. They were
surrounded by barbed wire.
"Might think we were in a desert," he muttered. "I had a feeling
there's something wrong. Well, let's take a swim and go back home."
It was mid-afternoon by the time they lifted anchor and set out on the
return trip. Nikolai lay on the deck beside Privalov, his hand on the
stay-sail sheet, watching a big white passenger ship overtake them. Yura was
now at the tiller. Val was perched beside him.
"Yura," she whispered. "Do you know if Nick has a girl friend?"
"Why don't you ask him yourself?"
Val laughed. "Oh, I couldn't. I'm afraid of him." After a pause she
said, "You know my friend Zina, don't you? Let's introduce her to him."
"Better riot," said Yura. "He's very choosy."
Val frowned. "Humph!" she said with a pout.
Yura struck up a song and Nikolai joined in. Sometimes they thought up
their own words to popular songs, and sometimes they set poems to well-known
tunes.
Meanwhile, the ship had drawn abreast of the sailboat. "Look at the
crowd on deck," Nikolai remarked. "Some sort of a brawl, judging by the way
they're milling about."
At that instant a slim figure in red plunged over the side of the ship.
"Veer!" Nikolai shouted.
Yura leaned on the tiller. The blocks creaked and the mainsail
described a wide arc as it swung over to the other side. The boat, listing
heavily to starboard, sped towards the ship.
"Take it, Val! Brace yourself with your feet!" Nikolai gave the girl
the stay-sail sheet and dived into the water.
IN WHICH OPRATIN TELLS PRIVALOV SOMETHING AND LEARNS SOMETHING IN
PASSING
Towards the end of the day Privalov's old friend Pavel Koltukhov, the
Institute's chief engineer, dropped in to see him.
"Looks like smooth sailing at last, Boris," he said, sitting down and
stretching out his legs. "Work will be resumed at the site tomorrow."
"Thank goodness!" Privalov flung himself back in his chair. "Those
self-styled efficiency experts! To claim that it's cheaper to transport oil
by tanker than by pipeline! But they forgot that tankers return empty. They
close their eyes to the cost of taking on ballast water and then discharging
it. To say nothing of the number of stormy days on the Caspian."
Koltukhov nodded his bald head in agreement. Then he stuck a cigarette
between his lips and gave Privalov a sharp glance from beneath beetling
eyebrows.
"You don't have to persuade me a pipeline is better," he said. He
walked over to a big map of the Caspian hanging on the wall.
"Forty kilometres of pipeline," he said. "Three more parallel pipelines
will make it a total of 160 kilometres. A pipeline across the whole of the
Caspian will add another 300 kilometres. We'll be paving the floor of the
Caspian with steel."
"We'll be paving it with millions of roubles too," Privalov added,
joining Koltukhov in front of the map. "Here we are in the twentieth century
and the only way we know of transporting liquids is through pipes, just like
in the first century."
Koltukhov chewed his lip. "Have you read Arshavin's latest article?" he
asked.
"About towing oil across the sea in containers made of thin polythene
film? Yes, I've read it."
"Not a bad idea," Koltukhov remarked. "It's been picked up abroad. So
don't say we don't know how to transport liquid goods."
"There's an idea that keeps preying on my mind." said Privalov. "It
concerns the physics of surfaces. All surfaces possess energy, don't they?
Suppose we found a way of using this energy to alter the properties of
surface tension. I mean, building up surface tension to such a degree that a
stream of oil would be contained in a 'skin' of its own surface."
"Where'd you get that idea?"
"At the bazaar." Privalov told Koltukhov the gist of his talk with the
two young engineers.
"Why, I see you're just an old day-dreamer." Koltukhov gave a short
laugh. "You'll lead those young men of yours astray. I'd advise you not to
read Jules Verne the last thing before going to sleep."
"Oh, all right, all right."
"You're too long in the tooth for that sort of thing, Boris."
"What's age got to do with it? I read what I like, and I like Jules
Verne. He's refreshing."
The telephone rang. Privalov lifted the receiver. "Yes? How do you do.
Certainly you may." He put down the receiver. "Opratin from Marine Physics
is dropping in."
"Oh, our old acquaintance. Do you see much of him?"
"No, not really. I'm better acquainted with the surveyors from that
outfit. They're helping us to lay out the route."
Koltukhov glanced out of the window at the building of the Marine
Physics Institute on the other side of the street. He watched a lean man in
a straw hat step out of the front door and stride quickly across the street.
"Our neighbour's in a hurry," he remarked. "They say he's efficient.
I'll wager he hasn't read Jules Verne since he was a boy."
A few minutes later there was a knock on the door. "Come in," Privalov
said.
Opratin opened the door and, removing his hat, stepped into the room.
He smoothed down his thinning hair. "How have you been keeping?" he
asked Koltukhov. "Haven't seen you for some time. How are things?"
"Not so bad." When talking with visitors Koltukhov liked to give the
impression that he was just a "plain, down-to-earth Voronezh peasant", as he
put it. And he really did come from Voronezh peasant stock. "I spend my time
making the rounds and giving advice."
"Still dabbling in resins and plastics"?
"We executives don't have much time for anything except organizational
matters," Koltukhov said with an apologetic note. "But I do have a cubbyhole
of my own, with mixers, thermostats and a press. Whenever I see a couple of
young men engaged in idle conversation in the corridor I punish them by
recruiting them to help me make a couple of plastic models. Besides, you
know, those resins have an awful smell." After a slight pause he said, "I
hear you had quite an adventure."
Opratin chose to be noncommittal. "Really?"
"Your director told me you fell into a pit in Derbent while on a
business trip and had to prolong your stay there."
A shadow flitted across Opratin's face. "Yes," he said, "I did run into
a bit of unpleasantness."
Koltukhov glanced at his watch. "Well, I'll leave you two together now.
It's time I was off."
He nodded to the two men and walked unhurriedly to the door.
The name of the old Caspian town of Derbent means "Iron Gates". The
town once guarded the narrowest place on a caravan route running between the
mountains and the sea. Nikolai Opratin had been sent there to examine the
ruins of fortress walls in order to obtain more precise information about
the level of the Caspian in ancient times.
On his last day in Derbent Opratin wandered into an old stone quarry on
the deserted shore. While clambering about the quarry he caught his foot in
a fissure. Suddenly the rocks gave way. His heart missed a heat as lie felt
himself falling into nothingness. He landed with a splash in a pool of mud
about a dozen feet below.
He picked himself up and paused to catch his breath. Just a moment ago,
a hot blue sky had stretched above him; now he was surrounded by musty
semi-darkness. He took out his flashlight and swept its beam to right and
left. He saw damp, moss-covered walls.
This prompted the thought that he had probably fallen into the
underground passage that had once connected the Naryn Kale Fortress with the
sea. The passage was mentioned in legends but so far no one had been able to
find it.
The flashlight beam moved downwards. Opratin was a self-possessed man,
but the sight of a human skeleton filled him with horror. He turned to flee
and stumbled into a pool of cold water. This brought him to his senses.
Besides, whom was he fleeing from?
He returned to the skeleton, to which the remnants of clothing still
clung. The poor devil must have fallen into the passage and been crushed by
rocks. Opratin's flashlight picked out a half-rotten sack. He gave the sack
a push with his shoe. A gun fell out of it.
"It's a German pistol, a Luger," Opratin said to himself. "How odd!"
Poking through the contents of the sack he found a portable radio
transmitter, several sticks of dynamite and some cartridges covered with
green mould.
He turned his flashlight back on the skeleton. Something sparkled in
the neck of the torn shirt. Bending down to take a closer look, he saw a
shiny metal chain on which hung a small crucifix and a flat rectangle of
iron with letters on it. Opratin wiped the iron rectangle with a corner of
the sack and read:
A M D G
Below these were smaller letters.
Only a Catholic would wear a crucifix round his neck, Opratin
reflected. How long had the man lain there? Then suddenly he came out of his
reverie. He certainly had no intention of becoming a corpse to keep the
skeleton company. He picked up the pistol, saw that it was in working order,
and fired at the spot of blue sky above his head. Minutes passed, minutes
that seemed hours to Opratin. He fired again. The passage rumbled like an
active volcano, but no sound came from above.
Opratin fired again and again until all the cartridges were gone.
Breathing heavily, he leaned against the damp wall. Despair swept over him.
Suddenly he heard alarmed voices overhead. He shouted. Choking from the
stench of the passage and the smell of gunpowder, he shouted until he was
hoarse. The faint light from above was blotted out by a head that appeared
in the opening.
"Who fired those shots?" a voice demanded from above.
A few minutes later a rope was lowered through the hole and Opratin was
hauled out.
Opratin had to postpone his departure while he answered questions put
by the local authorities and set forth the whole matter in writing. That was
a nuisance, for Opratin hated to waste time.
Nikolai and Yura sat side by side at a desk, bent over a blueprint of
the pipeline route. They were checking the figures indicating the depths.
Valery Gorbachevsky, a young lab technician, glanced at his watch, then
walked over to the mirror and smoothed down his black sideburns and
moustache, meanwhile singing a song about a lad named Chico who came from
Puerto Rico.
"My dear Valery," said Yura, "do you know where Puerto Rico is?"
The lab technician shrugged a shoulder. "Of course. You don't doubt it,
do you?"
"Not very far from Madagascar, isn't it?"
"Well, yes, you could put it like that," Valery said hesitatingly.
"Now you see, my friend, how disastrous it is-" Just then the telephone
rang, and Yura broke off to pick up the receiver.
"The chief wants you, Nikolai. With the route plan."
Nikolai went up to the next floor, taking the steps two at a time, and
entered Privalov's office. Privalov had a visitor, a man in a green suit,
whom Nikolai had never seen before. The visitor gave Nikolai a keen glance,
nodded and said, "My name's Nikolai Opratin."
Nikolai introduced himself and sat down.
"Nikolai Opratin comes from the Institute of Marine Physics across the
street," Privalov said to Nikolai. "He has given me some interesting
information which we will have to take into account. Yes, indeed." Here
Privalov pushed his glasses up onto his forehead and bent over the plan of
the pipeline route. "Now take this shoal that's to be deepened by blasting."
Opratin crossed his legs. "That won't be necessary," he said with a
glance at Nikolai. "I've just told your chief the level of the Caspian will
rise in three years' time. That means there isn't any need to deepen the
route."
"Is your information reliable?"
Opratin smiled. "The most reliable there is."
Privalov leaned back in his chair. His glasses slid down to the tip of
his hose.
"Well, we'll just have to revise our calculations," he said, rubbing
his forehead. "I'd like you to step over to the Institute of Marine Physics
tomorrow, Nikolai. Will that be all right?" he asked, turning to Opratin.
"Certainly. After lunch, preferably."
"Fine. You can't imagine how much worry this pipeline is causing us.
Doubting Thomases are holding up the work. We visited the site last Sunday
and-oh, well, you understand."
Opratin nodded sympathetically. "Yes, I do. By the way, I didn't know
you went in for sailing."
'"Indeed?"
"I saw you in a sailboat last Sunday."
"Where were you?"
"Aboard the Uzbekistan."
"Well, well. Why did you drop a lady overboard?"
Opratin's thin lips spread in a faint smile.
"It wasn't me who dropped her," he said. "There was some sort of row on
deck. I don't know whether she was pushed overboard or just fell in. It
seemed to me she was holding some metal object in her hand."
"A metal object?" Privalov glanced at Nikolai. "Did you see anything
like that when you fished her out of the sea?"
"The only metal I saw was the buckles of her sandals."
Opratin rose. "Anyway, there was something else about that particular
spot besides the rescue of the lady. I saw bubbles rising to the surface.
Could have been natural gas, couldn't it?"
"It could. You ought to inform the gas experts."
"How can I if I don't know the exact spot? It's not like on shore,
where you have landmarks."
"If I remember rightly, the TV tower was straight ahead of us at that
moment," said Nikolai. "The refrigeration plant was at right angles to it.
The No. 18 buoy in the channel was about a hundred metres to the north.
Those points should be enough to find it, I think."
"Thank you," said Opratin. "I'll be expecting you tomorrow." He said
goodbye and left.
ABOUT A DROP THAT WAS DROP-SHAPED
They left the Institute together and walked down the street in the
bright sunshine.
"Why do you think she fell overboard, Yura?" Nikolai asked.
Yura grinned. "Beware of women who fall overboard. I shouldn't rescue
them if I were you."
"Oh, shut up," Nikolai growled, and quickened his steps.
The woman in the red sun-dress was not exactly preying on his mind, but
there was something about her narrow, dark-eyed face, framed in fair hair,
that vaguely disturbed him. He had a feeling he had seen that face somewhere
before.
She was, of course, an unusual woman. She had not shown a trace of fear
in the sea. When he swam over to her she had said, "No need to rescue me.
I'm a good swimmer." By that time the sailboat was beside them. Yura had
heeled into the wind so sharply that the starboard side was level with the
water and Nikolai did not even have to help the woman climb into the boat.
She thanked them politely, her gaze on a point somewhere between Privalov
and the mast, wrung out her dripping hair and then went down into the cabin.
Val came out of the cabin with the red sun-dress and hung it up to dry in
the sun.
When the boat reached the marina the woman sprang gracefully onto the
pier. "Please don't trouble yourselves," she said. "I'll get home all right
without any help." Her red dress flashed among the trees on the seaside
promenade and vanished. That was the last they saw of her.
The two men turned oft the bustling avenue into quiet Cooper Lane.
"Will you come in for a while?" Nikolai asked, stopping under an
archway that led into a courtyard.
"Can you lend me something to read?"
"Of course I can."
They crossed the yard diagonally. It was a yard they had known from
childhood, with a glassed-in gallery running the length of the two-storey
house. An outside stairway supported by iron posts, down which it had been
so convenient and pleasant to slide, led up to the top floor. In the cellar
the children used to hunt for buried treasure and hide from pursuit, sending
arrows flying through the air.
Yura and Nikolai had grown up in this wonderful courtyard which could
be turned, in the twinkling of an eye, into a prairie or the deck of a
frigate. Here they had invented their earliest games and read their first
books. They had raced about the yard, shooting arrows from their bows and
lassoing the rubber plants set out for watering.
One of the ground-floor tenants in those days was a sailor. The boys
used to gaze respectfully at his black cap with its gold emblem and the gold
stripes on his sleeve. The sailor would be away for weeks at a lime, leaving
behind, at home, a live turtle and a daughter with freckles and yellow
braids.
Although girls were not invited to play Red Indians, Yura and Nikolai
made an exception in the case of the sailor's daughter. Yellow Lynx, as they
named her, could run like the wind and slide down the stairway posts like a
cat. She did not cry when they pulled her by her braids. She plunged
courageously into courtyard battles, using her fingernails and screaming in
a high, piercing voice.
Besides the live turtle there were other interesting things in the
sailor's flat. A real dirk hung on one wall and a barometer on another. On
the desk, beside a bronze inkwell, lay two pieces of iron with mysterious
letters carved on them. Yellow Lynx and the boys resolved that some day they
would discover the meaning of those mysterious letters.
The sailor and his daughter left for Leningrad early in the spring of
1941. Nikolai copied a picture from a volume of Pushkin's Tales showing a
ship with a huge taut sail decorated with a drawing of the sun, approaching
a wharf on which men in old-fashioned long robes were firing cannons. He
presented it to Yellow Lynx as a farewell gift. They were both about nine
years old at the time.
Soon after, a husky young man by the name of Bugrov, whom the boys
addressed as Uncle Vova, moved into the sailor's flat. He had a blue
motorcycle on which he sometimes took the boys riding. What is more, he
taught them the Greco-Roman style of wrestling. A circus poster on the wall
of the new tenant's room showed him among the other performers, very
handsome and muscular in black tights, his chest bulging.
When the war broke out Uncle Vova locked up his flat and went into the
army. Nikolai's father, who worked at a railway-carriage repair shop, was
also drafted. Yura's father, an oil refinery engineer, was given a draft
deferment.
Now the boys played army scouts and guerrillas. Life was hard,
especially for Nikolai and his mother, who was a nurse and worked day and
night at an army hospital.
Nikolai's father was killed in a battle on the Dnieper River.
After seven years of schooling Nikolai told his mother that he wanted
to go to work. She tried to persuade him to stay in school but he would not
be moved. Yura's father found a job for Nikolai as an apprentice fitter in
the oil refinery's maintenance shop and persuaded him to attend night
school.
Soon after, Yura's family moved to another part of town and Nikolai was
left without a playmate. But this did not matter because he had no time for
play.
Yura felt that fate had been unkind to him for making him sit over his
books all through the war instead of letting him fight the Nazis. Besides,
he envied Nikolai's hands, with their traces of grease and metallic dust.
And so, after finishing the eighth grade at school Yura went to work in the
maintenance shop, side by side with Nikolai. They went through night school
together and then entered the evening department of a college. Shortly after
graduating with degrees in engineering the two young men were assigned to
jobs in the Oil Transportation Research Institute, where they worked under
Boris Privalov.
They crossed the courtyard, climbed the stairs, walked down the
glassed-in gallery and entered Nikolai's room. There, it was pleasantly
cool. Bookshelves lined the wall above Nikolai's desk. A photographic
enlarger stood on the floor in a corner of the room, like a stork on one
leg.
Yura picked up the underwater gun Nikolai was making and examined it.
"The spring's a bit tight."
"No, it's just right," said Nikolai. "Can't have it any looser."
"If you finish it by Sunday we can do some shooting."
"We're racing on Sunday."
"Why, so we are. I forgot." Yura stretched out luxuriously on the sofa.
"I want you to look at this," said Nikolai, producing several sheets of
paper covered with sketches and figures from a drawer of the desk. "What do
you think of it?"
Yura glanced at the sketches. "They look like pears." He yawned. "Take
these drawings away. I'm too lazy to think."
"But first listen. Remember that conversation about surface tension and
the interesting idea Privalov suggested?" "He told us to forget it."
Nikolai lost his temper. "You're an idiot! I can't discuss anything
with you nowadays. All you can think of is Val."
"You're the idiot," Yura replied cheerfully. "All right, let's have
it."
Nikolai turned on the fan. "What shape does a liquid have?" he asked,
lighting a cigarette.
Yura lifted his eyebrows. "It takes the shape of the vessel into which
it's poured. Primitive man guessed that much."
"Very well. Now take a drop of liquid. What keeps the liquid in a
droplet? Surface tension. No vessel is needed. A sphere is the ideal shape
of a minimum surface. But a droplet is not spherical. The earth's gravity
gives it a bulge, making it pear-shaped."
"In short, a drop-like shape." "Exactly."
There was a knock on the door. A tall, husky man in a white singlet and
blue jeans entered. He had a broad, heavy-jawed face, and there was a tuft
of red hair on top of his head.
"Caught you in at last, Nikolai," he said in a deep, hoarse voice.
"Where've you been hiding?"
"What can I do for you, Uncle Vova?" Nikolai asked. "I want to borrow
your aqualung for a couple of days."
"My diving gear?"
"Don't worry, you'll get it back in perfect condition," he said
reassuringly, 'I'll refill the cylinders too."
"All right, take it,"
Uncle Vova picked up the aqualung and inspected it.
"Fine workmanship," he remarked. "Thanks."
"When did you return?" asked Nikolai.
"Sunday. By the way, I saw you pull that girl out of the sea. You made
a neat job of it."
"Why, it looks as though the whole town saw it."
"Really?" Uncle Vova pricked up his ears. "Who else?"
"The whole ship. You were on the Uzbekistan too, weren't you?"
"Oh, I don't give a damn about the Uzbekistan" Uncle Vova replied
vaguely. "Well, I'm off." He nodded and went out.
"Now Yura, listen to what-" At this point Nikolai noticed that Yura,
his long legs hanging over the edge of the sofa, was sound asleep. Nikolai
shook him by the shoulder. Yura jerked a leg and pushed his friend away
without opening his eyes.
"Wake up this instant or I'll shake the life out of you!" Nikolai
shouted.
Yura opened his eyes. "I must have dozed for a moment," he remarked
with a conciliatory smile.
"You certainly did. Get off the sofa."
"I'm more comfortable on it. You can continue talking. We stopped on
droplets being droplet-shaped. It sounds fascinating."
"Are you trying to be funny?"
"Not 'for the world."
"Then listen. The size of a droplet depends on the magnitude of the
surface tension. In the case of water"-Nikolai glanced at his notes- "the
surface tension is 72.8 ergs per square centimetre. The surface tension of
alcohol is a little more than 22 ergs."
"What is it for mercury?"
"Mercury? Just a minute." Nikolai took down a thick reference book from
a shelf and leafed through it. "Just listen to this! The surface tension of
mercury is 470 ergs. That's terrific!"
"You can increase the tension by passing an electric current through
the mercury. Don't you remember reading about that old 'mercury heart'
experiment?"
"Why, that's right. Thanks for recalling it, Yura."
Yura made a regal gesture. "Think nothing of it."
"We'll set mercury aside for the time being," said Nikolai. "Now
consider the following. Have you noticed the way water runs along telegraph
wires in the rain?"
"An intriguing sight, isn't it?"
"The flow has a droplet-like cross-section," Nikolai went on. "Suppose
we use an electric ray instead of a wire. The ray creates a field. The field
increases the surface tension, and the cross-section builds up."
"Better not tangle with fields, old man. You and I don't know much
about them."
"We won't really tangle with them. All we need is a high-frequency
generator."
"Let's have a look at those papers," said Yura after a pause. "What
does this diagram represent?"
Nikolai sat down on the sofa beside him.
"Look here," he said. "We'll string up an inclined wire and send water
down it to a vessel at the bottom. Since we know the time and the amount of
water we'll be able to calculate the speed at which it moves. We'll measure
the cross-section of the droplets and calculate their surface tension. Then
we'll put a spiral round the wire-"
"I get the point-a resonance circuit and superimposed frequencies."
Yura sprang to his feet. "Give me some wire!"
Nikolai's grey eyes wrinkled in a smile. Once Yura was hooked on an
idea his energy knew no bounds.
Yura pulled off his shirt, tossed his hair back off his forehead and
produced a screwdriver from his pocket. It was his favourite screwdriver,
for which he had made a hollow plastic handle, with a neon indicator lamp
inside it, in his student days. He carried the screwdriver everywhere he
went. Like Roland's sword, it had a name of its own. It was called Durandal.
"We'll disembowel your radio set for a start," Yura said. "But don't
worry, we'll only remove the input circuit. And the heterodyne." He turned
the set Over on its side and went at it with his screwdriver. "We'll take
out the giblets. Don't just stand there, Nick. Go out on the gallery and put
the wire up."
Working away busily, Yura went on. "A great man once said the true
experimenter can set up any kind of experiment with three sticks, a piece of
rubber, a glass tube, and some of his own saliva."
IN WHICH THE READER GETS TO KNOW ANATOLE BENEDICTOV BETTER
Anatole Benedictov switched on the motor. The belt drive made a
rustling sound and the glass disc of the electrostatic machine began to
revolve. Blue sparks crackled.
A round aquarium on the table had wire wound around it, with thick
copper tubing on top of the wire. A copper disc hung above the aquarium
parallel with the surface of the water. Small fish darted about in the
greenish water.
Benedictov turned the levers of the valve oscillator. Then, slowly
tightening a screw, he brought the copper disc close to the water.
The fish stopped darting about. They seemed to fall asleep instantly.
Benedictov looked at his watch, dropped heavily into an armchair and closed
his eyes.
The room was shrouded in semi-darkness. Rita sat on the sofa. A black
cat lay at her feet.
"You ought to give up these experiments, Anatole," she said
thoughtfully. "You're biting off more than you can chew."
"It's too late, Rita. I can't give up now."
There was a silence. The electricity crackled. The fish in the aquarium
slept.
"Why do you keep experimenting with living creatures, Anatole?" Rita
asked, leaning forward. "Your old-time predecessors used inorganic matter."
"You know why. Living matter gives me something a piece of wood or a
chunk of metal never could. It gives me action potentials."
"But the knife is lost. How can you continue experimenting without it?"
"I don't know. I need that knife all the time." Benedictov paused, then
added, "Did you actually see it fall overboard? Could someone in the crowd
have grabbed it?"
"No, it went overboard. I dived after it at once, but the knife sank to
the bottom."
"What a thing to have happened!" Benedictov rubbed his shaggy head
furiously.
The doorbell rang. When Rita opened the door she found a husky man in
blue overalls and a cap pulled down over his eyes standing there.
"I'm from the municipal electricity board," he said. "I've come to
inspect the wiring."
"Step in," said Rita. "The meter's over there."
The electrician removed the fuses and inspected them.
"These have to be replaced," he said. "They're defective."
"Rita!" Benedictov called from his room. "Why did you switch off the
electricity?"
"Hurry up and put those fuses back," Rita told the electrician.
"Are you in a hurry to be fined?" said the electrician, but he put back
the fuses. "Where's the Хkitchen?" He went through the rooms, his head
tipped back, looking at the wiring. Suddenly he stopped short. "Is that a
motor running?" he asked. "Got a license for it?"
"Rita!" Benedictov called impatiently.
"Excuse me a moment," Rita said to the electrician as she turned
towards Benedictov's study.
The electrician heard her explaining what the matter was. A man's voice
said, "To hell with him! Let him look. Here, hold this fish."
"Ouch!" Rita exclaimed.
The electrician glanced into the room in time to see the woman drop the
fish and a big black cat spring to seize it.
"Shoo!" cried Benedictov.
The electrician jumped back from the doorway as the cat, covered with
blue sparks and screeching piteously, dashed into the passage. Its fur stood
on end, the sparks crackling. The cat ran frenziedly between the
electrician's legs, received a kick, and bounded down the passage.
"The cat thought I tossed the fish to her," Rita said with a laugh as
she came out of the study. "Have you finished looking things over?"
Benedictov followed his wife into the passage.
"Who are you?" he asked the electrician in alarm. "What do you want?"
"I ought to fine you for such goings-on," the electrician growled
hoarsely, tugging his cap down over his forehead. He strode to the door,
pulled it open and went out, slamming the door behind him.
After the war Bugrov returned home to his flat in Cooper Lane where a
circus poster, now yellowed, still hung on the wall beside his bed.
Soon afterwards he married a stately, imperious woman named Claudia.
She hid the poster in the lower drawer of the bureau, placed little rugs and
embroidered cushions here, there and everywhere.
Bugrov did not return to the circus. He obtained a medical certificate
stating that he was a disabled veteran and began to make spring dynamometers
at home for a small producers' co-operative of disabled war veterans.
When Bugrov saw Benedictov's strange knife on board the Uzbekistan on
his way home from a holiday on the Volga he immediately realized that such a
knife could be a gold mine in a circus act. He carefully noted the place
where the woman in red had dived overboard. When the passengers from the
Uzbekistan went ashore he took a taxi and followed Benedictov to his home.
Bugrov hesitated for several days before finally deciding on direct
action to learn whether the man still had the knife or whether it had sunk
to the bottom of the Caspian.
"It was a waste of time," Bugrov thought gloomily as he walked to the
trolleybus stop. "I didn't learn anything about the knife. All I did was
tangle with a cat." Recalling the black cat covered with sparks he spat on
the ground in fury.
Vova Bugrov did not know that cats possess excellent electrical
properties, although they could hardly be a source of electric power. It has
been estimated that if 1,500 million cats were stroked simultaneously they
would generate a mere 15 watts.
"But maybe it wasn't a complete loss, after all," Bugrov reflected in
the trolleybus. "The cat's owner was out of sorts. He swore and shouted at
his wife. He might have been upset because the knife sank into the sea. Why
didn't I grab it? I should have kept my eye on the handle. Well, I'll have
to search the sea bottom."
Bugrov fell into a daydream about a wonderful circus act. The day he
arrived in a small town posters would be pasted on all the fences showing
Bugrov in a red robe-no, a green robe would perhaps be better-and a turban,
with a knife piercing his throat. "Famous Fakir so-and-so" the poster would
read. He'd have to think up a good name for himself. The hall would be
jammed to the rafters as he, Vova, emerged on the stage in a green robe, or
maybe a black robe.
He'd have to borrow his neighbour's scuba gear and do some diving.
There was no silt in that place. Just sand. He was sure he would find the
knife.
Bugrov pushed his cap to the back of his head and winked at his
reflection in the trolleybus window.
IN WHICH NIKOLAI OPRATIN TAKES THE BULL BY THE HORNS
Nikolai Opratin saw Benedictov as soon as he opened the door into the
laboratory. Corpulent and dishevelled, the biophysicist stood beside a table
around which ran a thick copper coil. He was unfastening the harness in
which a brown and white dog hung. When he set the dog on the floor it shook
itself and began to sniff angrily at the experimenter's feet.
"Good morning," Opratin said.
"What do you want?" Benedictov asked coldly.
"Your advice about fish."
Benedictov turned away. "Ask someone else."
"I'm sorry about that argument we had on board the ship," Opratin said
softly. "I'm ready to take back my words."
The biophysicist was silent. Then he nodded in the direction of the
glass partition at the end of the laboratory. "Come this way," he said
jerkily.
They sat down opposite each other at a table covered with papers and
blocks of paraffin cut into cubes.
"The problem we're working on is the level of the Caspian, that is, how
to raise it," Opratin explained. "We plan a series of experiments in the
course of which ionized water will appear in the sea. My question is: how
will this affect the fish?"
Benedictov gave a cough but said nothing.
"Our Institute will of course get in touch officially with yours,"
Opratin went on, his gaze fixed on Benedictov's face. "But I'd like to know,
ahead of time-"
"What are your ionization figures?" Benedictov asked, moving closer a
spirit lamp on which stood a nickel-plated tray.
The conversation faltered. Benedictov answered questions in unwilling
monosyllables. He coughed and squirmed in his chair. His bloodshot eyes were
evasive.
Suddenly he rose, murmured an excuse, and left the room. Opratin let
his eyes roam over the table. He noticed an empty glass ampoule. As he read
the Latin inscription on it his thin lips twisted in an ironic smile.
Benedictov returned looking a completely different man, fresh-faced,
cheerful, with sparkling eyes.
"Please continue," he said on his way to his desk.
"Look here," said Opratin softly. "Did you try to magnetize that
knife?"
Benedictov stopped short. Opratin's pale blue eyes stared steadily at
him without blinking. Benedictov felt acutely uncomfortable.
"What's it to you?" he muttered.
The ensuing silence lasted several seconds. Benedictov was the first to
lower his eyes.
"Sit down," Opratin said. "I'm not asking out of idle curiosity. I've
been thinking a lot about your knife and it seems to me I've guessed a few
things. Can it be magnetized?"
"Suppose it can? So what?"
"This is extremely important. Don't look at me as if you wanted to tear
me to pieces. I've come here to help you."
"I don't need any help."
Opratin let this remark pass. "Did you measure the knife's electric
resistance?" he asked. "Did you test it for use as the core of an
electromagnet?"
Benedictov had not done that either.
"Did you try it on a voltaic arc?"
Benedictov shook his head thoughtfully.
"How does the knife react to chemical substances?"
He flung question after question at Benedictov. Benedictov gave
reluctant replies. He had not performed half of the tests about which this
uninvited inspector was asking him.
"Well, well," said Opratin. He smoothed his thinning hair. "To all
appearances, my dear man, you have followed the wrong path."
"What path I follow is my own business," Benedictov growled.
"Yes, to be sure." Opratin drummed his fingers on the table. "You're a
biologist and I'm a physicist. Don't you think that if we combined forces
we'd reach the goal faster?"
Benedictov said nothing.
"I won't lay claim to any of your laurels. I just want to help you. All
I'm interested in are the scientific results." Opratin looked searchingly at
Benedictov. "What do you say?"
The biophysicist glanced out of the window. "Damn it!" he said flatly.
IN WHICH A REGATTA BRINGS THREE OF THE CHARACTERS STRAIGHT TO THE PLACE
WHERE THE AUTHORS WANTED THEM TO BE
Early Sunday morning Nikolai Potapkin ran down the steps and out into
the courtyard, swinging his little suitcase. The sleeves of his white shirt
were rolled up above the elbows, his open collar exposed a tanned chest.
Glancing up at the cloudless sky, he shook his head. Not a breath of wind!
Yet this was the day of the big regatta. He arrived at the marina to find
preparations in progress only on the centreboard and Star class boats, for
which even a slight breeze would be enough. The crews of the L-4 boats,
discouraged by the absence of wind, were gathered in their cabins in front
of TV sets watching a children's programme.
Nikolai found Yura sitting on the edge of the pier in his bathing
trunks, his long arms wrapped round his knees, singing a song from an Indian
film in a mournful voice. He sat down beside Yura and took up the refrain.
They sang until dockmaster Mehti stuck his head out of the window of the
boathouse and begged them to stop. "This isn't an opera-house," he
complained.
"You shouldn't have lent uncle Vova your scuba gear," Yura remarked
after a while. "We could have done some diving."
"Why not come over to my place if the races are cancelled? We might try
to change the pitch of the spiral."
"I don't want to."
"Why not?" Nikolai looked at his friend. "Ah, yes, of course. A date
with Val."
"No, I-"
"Then what the devil-"
"Nothing will come of it, Nick. The surfaces of substances are a hazy
subject. If famous scientists don't know how to handle them, then what's the
use of us trying?"
"You needn't if you don't want to. I'll get along without you."
"You can't. At least I know my way about electronics, which is more
than you can say."
"Anyway, I won't give up. There must be a field in which surface
tension increases."
"A field!" Yura repeated derisively. "'Oh, field, broad field, who
strewed you with whitened bones?'"
Boris Privalov came up to the young men. "Good morning, boys. Doesn't
look as though there'll be any racing today, does it?"
"The races haven't been officially called off yet," said Yura. "We're
waiting. Take a seat."
The three of them sat side by side on the pier, dangling their feet in
the water, the sun warming their backs, waiting for the wind to come up.
"Do you recall our talk about surface tension, Boris?" Nikolai asked in
a determined voice.
The sun flashed on Privalov's glasses as he turned to look at Nikolai.
"Yes, I do."
"Well, it's like this." Nikolai launched into a description of the
experiment with water and a wire, and mentioned the spiral and the desired
field.
Privalov listened closely, frowning and screwing up his eyes.
"It's amateurish," he said finally. "You can't go in for that sort of
thing without thorough preparation. There's a book by Adam on the physics
and chemistry of surfaces. I'll lend it to you." He was silent for a while.
"Besides, at the moment we have more than enough work on our hands, and
later there will be a pipeline across the whole of the Caspian."
"I've been hearing about a transcaspian pipeline for years," said Yura.
"We're beginning to wonder whether it will ever be built."
"It will. I forgot to ask you yesterday, Nikolai, if you went over to
Opratin's."
"Yes, I did."
"See anything interesting?"
"Not particularly. I think they're setting up a big electrostatic
installation."
"Electrostatic, you say?" Privalov looked thoughtful.
Yura sprang to his feet. "A wind! A wind's coming up!"
A light southerly sea breeze ruffled the surface of the bay and rustled
in the trees along Seaside Boulevard. The flag of the Chief Judge fluttered
tautly.
A ship's bell tinkled. The class M flag was run up.
"The centreboard boats are getting ready," Yura said excitedly. "If it
blows a little stronger the keel boats can follow suit. Let's go."
After the centreboards the Star class boats started off. There was
enough wind for these small, light boats which carried a great deal of sail.
The wind freshened, and half an hour later boats of the L-4 class were
announced. Soon the steady ringing of a ship's bell informed the competitors
that five minutes were left before the start.
Ah, those last five minutes! What a tricky business it was getting as
close to the starting line as possible within those five minutes, but not
crossing it ahead of time!
Four rings of the bell meant four minutes were left, then three, two,
and one. Finally, a quick ringing of the bell gave the signal for the start.
Beating against the wind, the boats entered the first lap of the
fifteen-mile course.
Wind filled the sails as the sheet, held in strong hands, quivered; the
sea whispered to the boats sliding through it; the sun bathed everything in
gold against the blue of the sea.
The Mekong was among the first to round the mark. Following an
advantageous course, it approached its closest rival on a parallel course
windward, but the other boat did not let the Mekong overtake it. In the
excitement both crews forgot about the other competitors. When the Mekong
finally forged ahead, the crews discovered that almost all the other boats
had overtaken both of them, were rounding the second buoy and were raising
their spinnakers, the big triangular sails used when running before the
wind.
Yura, who was sitting on the deck, raised himself on one knee.
"Obstacle ahead!" he shouted. "Two boats lying at anchor!"
When the Mekong came closer they saw a man in a straw hat sitting in
one of the boats. They could hear the motor running, but the boat was not
moving.
The second boat, some distance away, was empty.
"Ahoy there!" Yura shouted, leaning over the side. "Watch out!"
Just then the wind died down, prompting the thought that Nature is
sometimes actively hostile to man. Why else should the wind die down at noon
on a Sunday just when a regatta is at its height?
The sails flapped several times and then hung limp. The Mekong
continued to move forward a short distance by inertia before coming to a
full stop about half a cable length from the motor-boat.
"Well, all we can do now is sunbathe. What a race!" said Yura in
disgust. Whistling softly, he scratched the boom with his fingernails, then
threw a ten-kopek coin overboard. But these century-old remedies failed to
call up a wind.
"I've done everything I can," Yura announced. Then he stretched out on
the deck and began to sing in a doleful voice:
The river flows but it doesn't flow;
The day got off to a bad start.
How can I tell you what's in my heart?
But I think you probably know.
Nikolai glanced at the distant shore and the refrigeration plant
outlined against the blue sky.
"Why," he said wonderingly, "I believe this is the spot where we
rescued that young woman in the red dress."
All of a sudden silence descended as the motor of the boat ahead was
switched off. They heard an angry voice say:
"I came here first. Everything I find here is mine."
"Don't be silly," another voice said. "The sea doesn't belong to you.
It belongs to everyone."
"I'll show you who it belongs to!"
The motorboat rocked as the man in the straw hat waved his arms.
"I wonder who he's talking to?" Nikolai looked more closely at the
motorboat. Then he fetched his binoculars from the cabin and trained them on
the straw hat. "Just what I thought. The voice sounded familiar. That's
Opratin."
"Give him my regards," Privalov said.
"Damn it!" Nikolai exclaimed. "You spoke of wanting the scuba gear,
Yura. Well, there it is."
Taking the binoculars, Yura clearly saw Bugrov's big head in the water
beside the motorboat. The mask was pushed up on Vova's forehead and he was
clinging to the boat with one hand.
Yura lowered the binoculars. "You're right. The diving gear is in
danger. It looks as though they want to drown each other."
"I'd like to know what they're doing here," said Nikolai. "Do you mind,
Boris, if I take a short swim?"
"Don't be too long. The wind may come up any minute."
"I'll be back soon." With these words Nikolai plunged into the sea and
swam towards the motorboat.
"Come, Yura," said Privalov, lighting a cigarette and letting the smoke
out through his nostrils, "tell me about your experiments once again."
That morning Nikolai Opratin had spent more than an hour on the small
wharf belonging to the Institute of Marine Physics. He had attached a cable
drum to the side of an Institute motor-boat and had wound on it a thin cable
with a strong electromagnet at its end.
Anatole Benedictov had said the knife could be magnetized. If this was
so, then he, Opratin, would find it. How stupid that the knife should have
fallen overboard! And what a scene Benedictov had made on deck! Opratin
recalled the glass ampoule on the biophysicist's desk. A drug addict.
Yet without that scene on deck he, Opratin, would not have learned of
the existence of the mysterious knife. A drop of common sense in a barrel of
nonsense.
Opratin finished equipping the boat, started up the motor, and chugged
out of the bay.
The sea heaved lazily beneath the hot August sun. The red cone of the
fairway buoy with a big white "18" painted on it rocked on the surface. The
TV mast was at Opratin's stern and the refrigeration plant on the left. He
turned the boat a few degrees to starboard.
Now this must be the place. This was where Benedictov's wife had fallen
overboard after the knife had dropped into the sea. An interesting woman, no
doubt about that. Had she fallen or had she jumped?
An empty boat bobbed in the water about twenty metres away. Where was
the owner? Had he drowned? Or had the boat torn free of its moorings and
drifted out of the bay? Opratin was not in the least interested. He pushed a
lever which switched the motor's drive from the propeller to a generator to
which the cable with the electromagnet was attached. The cable wound off the
drum into the water. Opratin wondered how soon his particular fish would
bite.
At the end of the cable was an electromagnetic underwater probe
connected with an ultrasonic range-finder. The zigzagging green line on the
oscillograph screen would show the shape of metallic objects on the sea
floor. If Opratin wanted some object he could switch on the electromagnet
and pick it up.
Using the oars, Opratin slowly moved the boat back and forth, combing
the place. Suddenly the cable jerked. Bubbles rose to the surface, then a
huge hand was thrust out of the water, followed by a head, the face covered
by a mask. The mask was connected by a hose to a cylinder on the man's back.
The diver closed the valve of the aqualung and pushed the mask up onto
his forehead, revealing a broad face with a heavy jaw. Opratin recognized
him at once. He was the man who had tried to take the knife from Benedictov
aboard the Uzbekistan. It was obvious why he was at this particular spot in
the sea. An unpleasant situation.
While the diver coughed and spat out water Opratin decided to take the
offensive.
"Hey you, there!" he shouted. "Why the devil did you pull my cable?"
"You'll soon find out!" came the answer in a threatening tone. The man
swam over to Opratin's motorboat, reached up to grip its side, and let loose
a stream of obscenities that set Opratin's teeth on edge. The substance of
Bugrov's monologue was that law-abiding citizens could not go in for
skin-diving on their day off because "others"-a word which Bugrov proceeded
to define-played all kinds of dirty tricks on them.
Bugrov had been combing the area in circles. He would anchor his boat,
dive down and swim around in a circle, studying the firmly-packed sandy
bottom. His supply of air was almost half used up when he saw a black
cylinder suspended from a cable slowly moving over the bottom. He swam up to
the cylinder and tugged at it, gripping the place where it was attached to
the cable. An electric shock galvanized him, and he tore his hand away with
difficulty. Dazed and angered, he headed for the surface.
Bugrov had been having bad luck with electricity lately.
"Get going, quick-before I turn your tub upside down!" he roared.
Opratin did not want any trouble, the more so that a sailboat was
approaching. He moved over to the stern and said in a placative tone,
"Listen, how was I to know you were swimming here?"
"Couldn't you see my boat? Stop acting innocent, you scum!"
They wrangled for another few minutes, until Opratin realized he was
being foolish and would have to get rid of the man some other way. He
switched off the motor, gave the becalmed sailboat a fleeting glance, and
said, "I know what you're looking for, but you'll never find it with an
aqualung."
Bugrov blinked in disbelief.
"D'you take me for a fool?" he asked hoarsely. "Get out! I came here
first. Everything I find here is mine."
"Don't be silly! The sea doesn't belong to you. It belongs to
everyone."
"I'll show you who it belongs to!" Bugrov began to rock the motorboat.
Opratin had to throw out his arms to keep his balance.
"All right, I'm leaving," Opratin said, strongly tempted to hit the man
over the head with his anchor. "But you'll never see that knife. You can
take my word for it as a scientist."
This made an impression on Bugrov, who had a deep faith in the
omnipotence of science.
"Are you looking for the knife too?" he asked in what was almost a
civil tone.
"There, that's the way to talk," said Opratin. "Yes, I am. If I don't
find it I'll make one just like it."
Bugrov gave the face under the straw hat a thoughtful glance.
"I'm apt to be quick-tempered," he said. "Maybe I said some things I
shouldn't have."
Opratin gave a wry grin.
Nikolai quickly covered the hundred metres or so to the motorboat in a
noiseless breast stroke. As he approached it he heard Bugrov say, "All I
want is the knife. I'm willing to make sacrifices for science."
"I'm glad to hear it," said Opratin.
"I am what I am," Bugrov said modestly. "Will I be going to the island
often?"
"No, not very."
"There's a fishery nearby. I can get caviar cheap there." He fell
silent, his head filled with visions of future profits.
At that moment Opratin caught sight of Nikolai beside the boat. He
removed his dark glasses to take a better look.
"Is that you?" he asked with a pleasant smile. "What an unexpected
encounter!"
"Hi, there," called Bugrov, recognizing his neighbour. "Where" d you
drop from?"
"That sailboat," Nikolai caught hold of the motorboat's life line.
"We're becalmed, so I decided to take a swim."
An awkward silence followed.
"I'll be on my way," said Bugrov, pushing off from the motorboat. "Do
you want your scuba gear now?"
"No," said Nikolai. "Bring it to me at home."
Bugrov swam back to his rowboat.
"I see you know him," remarked Opratin.
"Yes, we live in the same house." Nikolai stared at the generator, the
face plate of the cathode-ray tube of the oscillograph and the drum with the
cable running into the sea.
Opratin smiled. "How I envy you. Sailing is a wonderful sport. But I,
as you can see, have to carry out investigations on Sundays too."
"Yes, I see," said Nikolai, trying feverishly to make out what sort of
cable it was. "Well, good luck."
He pushed off from the motorboat and swam back to the sailboat. If only
he had known the circumstances under which he would cling to the life line
of that motorboat a second time!
IN WHICH PRIVALOV ACQUIRES A NEW ALLY
The wheel now worked well. Unwinding the "spool", a tug had laid the
first pipeline to Neftianiye Reefs. The pressure trials completed, they
returned home towards evening. At this time of day there was not much
traffic on the road, which ran between vineyards, with oil derricks beyond
them, and their sleek grey car made good time.
Privalov relaxed in the back seat, satisfied after two days of
intensive work. Pavel Koltukhov, who sat beside him, dozed and smoked
simultaneously; he woke every now and then to take a puff or two on his
cigarette and then closed his eyes again.
Nikolai was at the wheel. Beside him Yura was going through his notes
on the pressure trials.
"That's a load off my mind," Privalov said with a sigh. "I hope the
builders will be able to handle the parallel pipelines without us."
"You can gird your loins for another job," said Koltukhov.
"You mean the transcaspian pipeline? But the project hasn't been
approved yet."
"Approval was wired yesterday. Is your survey programme ready?"
"It's been ready a long time."
"That's fine. We'll discuss it tomorrow."
Nikolai slowed down as they passed through a small town and then put on
speed when they came out into open country again.
"How are things going, boys?" Privalov asked in a low voice. "Have you
read that book by Adam?"
"It isn't what you'd call light reading," Nikolai replied. "We're
stuck, Boris. We're thinking of experimenting with mercury."
The remainder of the drive into town passed in silence. After the young
men got out on the corner of Toilers of the Sea Street, Privalov took the
wheel and drove to the Institute.
"Look here, Boris," said Koltukhov. "Do you think it's fair to let your
imagination run wild and make those two young men pay for it by wasting
their time and energy?"
"I'm not making them do anything. They started experimenting without
sufficient theoretical grounding. I told them what to read and gave them
some advice. That's all."
"Then why does Nikolai spend every free minute of his time in the
automation department, showering everyone there with questions?"
Privalov shrugged his shoulders. "Aren't you letting your own
imagination run wild? Dabbling in resins like an alchemist, in between
conferences?"
"I'm doing something useful. I'm improving pipeline insulation
materials."
"But you've done that already. Now you're making some smelly new
compounds. People have to hold their noses when they go past your den under
the stairway."
Koltukhov merely grinned.
"All right," he said, lighting another cigarette. "I'll let you in on
my secret. My idea is a much better one than yours. How do we protect our
pipes and steel structures from corrosion by sea water? By covering them
with insulation. Besides being expensive, this method isn't always
dependable. When cracks form in the insulation, corrosion goes ahead faster
than ever, as you yourself know. Another way of controlling corrosion is by
using electricity, but this is expensive too, and it involves a lot of work.
You have to string transmission lines and bring a positive charge to the
pipeline. My idea is a plastic coating that would serve as insulation and
have an electrostatic charge at the same time."
"Not a bad idea," said Privalov. "But mine is better. It does away with
both pipes and insulation."
Koltukhov dismissed it with a wave of his hand. "You talk like a
college boy, Boris."
The car drove into the Institute yard.
"Is old man Bagbanly in town?" Privalov asked.
"I think so. Why?"
"I'd like to get in touch with him."
"Yes, do go and have a talk with him. He'll throw cold water on your
idea, if anyone does."
They sat on the balcony drinking tea. Professor Bakhtiar Bagbanly
thoughtfully stirred his glass as he gazed out on the broad crescent of city
lights skirting the bay. A Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences,
he was a clever, erudite man with the skilful hands of a gifted
experimenter. He had been Privalov's favourite lecturer when Privalov was an
undergraduate twenty years before. Many of Professor Bagbanly's former
students dropped in to discuss their work with him. He was generous with his
knowledge and advice, and he addressed all the young people by their first
names. They addressed him in the Eastern fashion as "Bakhtiar Muellim",
meaning "Teacher Bakhtiar".
The old man had a large grey head, black eyebrows and a drooping
silvery moustache beneath a hooked nose.
Professor Bakhtiar Bagbanly fixed his twinkling brown eyes on Privalov
and said, "I didn't understand a thing. Your words are as vague as the
dreams of a camel. Now tell me straight out. What is it that you want?"
Privalov knew that the old man's brusque manner was not to be taken
seriously, and so he let the "camel" bit pass unheeded.
"I'll begin from the beginning", he said, taking a sip of tea. "We're
starting to design a pipeline across the bed of the Caspian."
The old man nodded.
"A pipeline, as you know, is not an end in itself," Privalov continued.
"It is only a means towards an end, which is a regular supply of oil."
"What's wrong with using a pipeline to attain this end?"
"As far as that goes, nothing. But what is the purpose of the pipes? To
separate the oil from the environment."
"That's well put."
"Please don't make fun of me, Bakhtiar Muellim. When it comes to the
technique of transporting oil across a sea, or transporting one liquid
through another in general, our thinking is conservative. How do our
pipelines differ from those used in ancient times? Well, the pipes are more
durable and the pumps more powerful. But the principle of the thing remains
the same. Pipeline delivery is better than using oil tankers, of course.
It's cheaper and it does not pollute the sea. But, you realize-"
"I realize that you don't like pipes. How do you propose to replace
them?"
"This is what came to my mind." Privalov finished his tea and moved his
glass aside. "I recalled Plato's experiment. If we take oil with the same
specific weight as that of water and pour it into the water, surface tension
will cause the oil to assume the minimum shape and form a sphere. Isn't that
so? But suppose we build up surface tension in such a way that it acts along
two axes instead of three? Then one cross-section of the oil will be a
circle and the other- In a word, the oil will take the shape of a cylinder.
The surface of the oil will become a pipe, as it were."
Professor Bagbanly grinned and shook his head. "Ingenious! A pipe
without a pipe. But please proceed."
"Further," Privalov continued enthusiastically, "we must have a field.
Imagine an underwater power beam pulsed along a route. A definite frequency
would generate a field in which the oil stretches along the beam. Do you
realize what that would mean? A stream of oil running through the water from
the west coast of the Caspian to the east coast."
"You've described the design of the steam locomotive to me," the
professor said. "Now tell me how it can travel without being pulled by
horses. What would make the stream of oil move?"
"Perhaps the energy of the beam itself. A conductor moves in a magnetic
field if it crosses lines of force, doesn't it? I don't know yet, Bakhtiar
Muellim. I'm just advancing a bare hypothesis."
"Bare and defenceless," the old man added.
There was a long silence. Then Professor Bagbanly rose and began to
pace the balcony.
"You speak of surface tension," he said finally, "and you hope old
Bakhtiar will gladden your ears with a harmonious concept. You nurse an idle
hope, my son. The surfaces of matter constitute one of the fundamental
riddles of modern physics. The surface tension of liquids is a zone where
the specific properties of surfaces manifest themselves. Surface tension
produces forces that are always directed inwards. The tea in that glass is
in a state of tension. Its surface presses inwards from the top and bottom
and sides with a force of more than ten tons per square centimetre. Hence,
liquids are well-nigh incompressible. Until recently it was thought that
liquids could not be compressed at all. Or take solids. When we cut a piece
of clay with a knife we disunite whole worlds and form new surfaces. In the
process, energy is released."
"Just what lies under a surface?" Privalov asked.
"I don't know, my son. Nobody knows yet. How can you get under it? If
you scrape off a surface, another surface of the substance immediately
forms. It is the interface on which the interatomic forces that hold the
elements of a substance together interact with the ambient medium and
achieve a balance in some specific fashion. How? That is something we don't
yet know. But if we get to know it, then sooner or later we'll penetrate to
the heart of the matter. And once we have fathomed the secrets of surfaces
we will proceed to utilize the colossal force latent in them."
"Do you mean to say that my idea is too far ahead of the times?"
Privalov asked sadly.
"It well may be. Take an example which Shuleikin cites in his Marine
Physics. When an express train brakes suddenly the enormous kinetic energy
it releases is absorbed by the extremely thin surface layer of contact
between the wheels and brake-shoes, yet this does not seem unbelievable.
"Suppose," Bagbanly continued as he walked back and forth, "we succeed
in increasing the surface tension and-"
"You agree, Bakhtiar Muellim!" Privalov almost shouted.
"Don't be in such a hurry. I assume that it is possible-theoretically,
but not in reality."
"Why?"
"Because your oil 'sausage'-if you succeed in making one-will encounter
tremendous resistance as it moves through the water. Friction, my friend.
Friction is also a property of surfaces. The surface layers will tear away
from the inner layers, and the jet will disintegrate."
"Excellent," said Privalov. "That means we have another job-that of
reducing the friction."
Bagbanly dropped into an armchair and burst out laughing.
"You're wonderful, Boris," he said, wiping his eyes with his
handkerchief. "Both friction and surface tension are child's play to you.
You're even prepared to turn matter inside out."
"Well, I'll be going, Bakhtiar Muellim, " Privalov said with a sigh.
"Thanks for your advice."
The old man stared at him intently. "You know what? Take me in as a
member of the team on this project. I'll work on it out of curiosity. Who
knows what may come of it? But only on condition we don't go to extremes.
We'll concentrate on the underlying principles and nothing more."
IN WHICH AN EXPERIMENT NOT ENTIRELY SUITABLE FOR THE HOME IS DESCRIBED
"Are you sure the knife fell overboard, Rita?" Anatole Benedictov said.
"Yes, I'm sure."
"Quite sure?"
"Well, really!" Rita laid aside her book and rose from the sofa.
"Don't be angry, darling. You see, a couple of men have hunted for the
knife on the sea bottom at that place and they failed to find it."
"It would be easier to find a needle in a haystack."
"You've changed lately. Your attitude to my work is different. That's
why I asked."
"You're the one who's changed, Anatole. You're simply stopped noticing
me. Do give up those experiments. Please give them up. They'll drive you
crazy. They've already come between us. Think of how wonderfully we were
getting along before that ill-fated discovery."
"That's true," said Benedictov.
"We were, weren't we?" Rita asked hopefully.
Benedictov glanced at his watch. "A person is coming to see me in a few
minutes. We'll be doing some work together."
Rita shook her head and silently left the study.
Anatole Benedictov had fallen in love with Rita several years earlier,
when he was teaching at the University and she was a gay, vivacious biology
student there. Shortly before that he had presented a brilliant thesis for
an advanced degree dealing with electric currents in living organisms, and
had published a study of electric fish which had aroused much discussion
among biologists. During one of his lectures he had noticed several girls
giggling and whispering as they passed a sheet of paper through the
auditorium. He strode rapidly over to them and snatched up the paper. He
looked down at it and frowned. What he saw was a sketch of himself,
shaggy-haired, thickset, with a fish's tail, conducting with a trident as
fish danced round him. Beneath the sketch were the words, written in a fine
handwriting:
Neither fish nor fowl, neither physicist nor biologist, He's an
intermediate class electro-ichthyologist.
"Whose work is this?" he asked, letting his angry eyes roam over the
auditorium.
A slender blonde girl rose. "It's mine," she said politely, her brown
eyes gazing boldly into Benedictov's.
It was an announcement rather than a statement.
"Thank you," Benedictov said slowly, in a slightly nasal voice,
thrusting the drawing into his pocket and continuing his lecture.
After they were married, Benedictov admitted to Rita that when she said
"It's mine" he had suddenly felt a wave of heat engulf him.
As for Rita Matveyev, she had long been in love with the brilliant
lecturer.
Rita graduated from the University the year they were married and
started teaching biology in a secondary school. That same year Benedictov
was given a laboratory at a research institute. Here he enthusiastically
continued his investigations in the sphere of action potentials. The young
couple led a fast-paced life, keeping open house for their many friends.
Half a year before their cruise on the Uzbekistan the Benedictovs had
moved into a new flat. On moving day there occurred a strange event which
triggered a series of disasters.
Rita and her husband had decided to leave a lot of their old things
behind when they moved. Anatole naturally protested when he found her
putting an old flower vase and a rusty bar of iron into a packing crate.
"We agreed not to take such things, Rita," he said. "You ought to throw
that trash away."
Rita discarded the vase but insisted that she could not part with the
bar of iron, which had been in the possession of her family for years and
years.
"A Matveyev relic?" Benedictov asked with a laugh, picking up the bar.
He turned it over in his hands and shook it.
The blade of a knife slid out of the side of the bar.
Benedictov stared dumbfounded at the narrow blade. It was covered with
a thin, transparent layer of grease through which a wavy pattern showed. He
cautiously touched the blade. His fingers went through it-just as they would
have passed through empty space.
He pressed his hand to his eyes.
"What's the matter?" Rita asked in alarm. She came up to him and
glanced at the bar. Her eyes widened.
No, she didn't know anything about the bar except, that according to an
old family legend a distant ancestor had brought it back from India. Her
father had treasured the bar all his life, and now she was doing the same.
No one had ever imagined there might be something inside it.
Benedictov held the bar as if it were a rattlesnake. He slowly closed
his fist over the blade. His fingers came together over emptiness.
Rita gave a start. "Wait a minute," she said. "There was another bar
just like this one, all covered with rust. We used it to prop up the old
wardrobe that had a broken leg." She ran into the next room, returning a
moment later to say, "It's gone. We must have thrown it out yesterday when
we carted all that old rubbish away."
The first few moments of astonishment gave way to curiosity. Benedictov
carefully examined the bar. Two lines of letters were engraved on one side.
Between the two lines there was something that looked like a crown. Or it
might have simply been a spot of rust. Benedictov noticed a fine line
running round the outside of the bar. The whole thing was obviously not a
solid bar of iron but a box with a cover.
After a long struggle Benedictov finally pried off the top. Inside the
box lay a knife handle, with a piece of cloth wound round it. The cloth must
have become loosened with time and when the box was shaken the blade dropped
out.
There was nothing extraordinary about the beautiful handle of yellowed
ivory. It could be grasped. He concluded that the section of the blade that
went into the handle must be made of ordinary metal too, otherwise it would
not remain attached to the handle.
But the blade itself! It passed freely through everything without
leaving the slightest trace, as though it were made of thin air.
The first glimpse of the mysterious knife marked a turning point in the
life of the Benedictovs. Anatole determined to get to the root of the
mystery.
"Penetrability. The ability to pass through matter. That's the goal,
Rita. You say this knife has been in your family at least two hundred years?
Well, if they could make a knife that passes through matter you and I can
certainly do the same."
Anatole painted glowing pictures of Altered Matter which man could
easily control. Rita became enthusiastic too. She helped Anatole to set up
experiments and kept a record of their results.
Weeks and then months passed. Benedictov turned his study into a small
laboratory where, more and more frequently, he worked through the night. He
grew impatient and irritable. Rita noticed that his behaviour had become
strange. At times he would be depressed and sullen, and then he would
suddenly become his cheerful, energetic self again, capable of working for
days on end without resting. He fell into apathy just as suddenly.
Rita grew worried. She now realized that Anatole had taken on a job
that was too much for one man. But when she tentatively suggested that he
ought to let the Academy of Sciences know about his discovery he declared
that he could not do this until he himself got to the bottom of it. With
great difficulty she persuaded him to take her on a holiday cruise on the
Volga.
We already know how disastrously their holiday ended.
When the doorbell rang, Anatole jumped up but Rita got to the door
first. She opened it to Nikolai Opratin, who looked his usual dapper self in
an elegant grey suit. Bending his neatly combed head, he touched his cold
lips to Rita's hand and inquired after her health.
"I am in perfect health," Rita said, enunciating the words distinctly.
"Goodbye."
"Hold on, there. Where are you going?" Anatole asked.
"To the pictures." The door slammed shut and the two men were left
alone in the flat.
"All the better without her." Anatole growled, leading the way into his
study.
Nikolai Opratin cast a critical glance over the equipment. Then he
removed his jacket, carefully pulled up his trousers at the knees, and sank
into an armchair. Benedictov sat down opposite him.
"First, Anatole, I want you to tell me in detail about the knife,"
Opratin began.
He listened closely to Benedictov's account.
"Indian magic. If I hadn't seen it myself I wouldn't believe it.
Penetrability ends near the handle, you say?"
"Yes, there's a sort of intermediate zone of about six millimetres. The
part that goes into the handle is ordinary steel."
"Did you weigh the blade?"
"Yes. The weight corresponds to the size."
"That's extremely interesting. It means the knife behaves like ordinary
matter in the gravitational field."
"It seems to me," said Benedictov, "that the bonds between atoms, or
perhaps within atoms, have been changed in some way in this knife.
I am convinced that the properties of living organisms, whose vital
functions are connected with the discharge of energy in the form of action
potentials, will provide the key to the riddle."
He went over to the round aquarium encircled by wire and launched into
a discourse, but Opratin soon interrupted him.
"I get the picture, Anatole," he said courteously but firmly. "You put
the fish between the plates of a capacitor in an oscillatory circuit and
look for a resonance in the bioelectrical frequency of the fish. I don't
think this avenue will lead you anywhere. You're right, though, about one
thing -that the inter-atomic bonds in the knife were altered. But how was
the energy of the intrinsic bonds of this substance overcome? If we only had
the knife now! By the way, you said it lay inside an iron box. You haven't
lost the box too, have you?"
Benedictov took a small iron bar from a drawer and held it out to
Opratin. It looked something like a pencil case.
Opratin sprang to his feet. "What the devil!" he exclaimed. "The same
letters!"
Engraved on the cover were the letters "A M D G". Below the letters a
crown had been engraved, and below that were "J d M" in smaller letters.
Opratin walked the length of the study and back again, his steps
ringing like the pounding of a hammer.
"What's the matter?" Benedictov asked, turning his head to follow
Opratin. "What's upset you?"
"Oh, nothing much. What do those letters stand for?"
"The upper four are the initial letters of a Jesuit motto but I don't
remember it. I don't know what the bottom ones stand for. It's unlikely they
have anything to do with our problem."
"Well, let's not lose time setting up our first experiment. When you
described your generator I got an idea. Was a crate of instruments delivered
to you today?"
"Yes. By the way, were you the one who sent that ape to this place
disguised as an electrician?"
"How could you ever think that? He's my laboratory technician.
Extremely useful, and not a bad fellow at all. But to get back to business.
I think we should begin with a minimum surface, with the point of a needle."
Opratin opened a case and took out a metal holder to which a long,
highly polished needle was attached. Then he briefly set forth the method of
the experiment.
The equipment lay on a small table, under a binocular magnifying glass.
The needle and the holder were placed in a screw-clamp with a micrometer
screw in such a way that the needle point was close to a steel cube. All
this was inserted in a coil between parallel plates and enclosed in a
thick-walled vessel. Wires connecting the apparatus with the electrostatic
machine and the oscillator ran through holes drilled in the glass.
"Now we'll see what your oscillator is capable of," Opratin remarked.
"Well, here we go. We'll try to make the electric field act on the intrinsic
bonds of the substance of this cube."
The disc of the electrostatic machine began to whirl, humming softly.
"Switch on the oscillator," Opratin commanded.
A tumbler clicked. Inside the glass vessel the little motor slowly
turned the micrometer screw, bringing the point of the needle closer and
closer to the cube.
Opratin and Benedictov kept their eyes glued to the magnifying glass.
A bell tinkled as the tip of the needle came into contact with the
cube. The automatic recorders were switched on. The point continued to move,
penetrating into the steel. But the sensitive instruments did not record any
force. The needle was entering the steel cube without meeting resistance!
That lasted only a moment.
The next instant Opratin and Benedictov were flung against the wall.
The glass chamber was shattered to smithereens.
Benedictov looked round. He was overwhelmed. Had it all been a dream?
Opratin rose to his feet. His face was pale. Blood trickled down his
forehead.
"The cube!" he cried. "Where is it?"
They found the cube in a corner beside fragments of the screw-clamp.
When they examined it under a microscope they could not find the slightest
trace of a hole made by the needle. But the automatic recorder, an impartial
witness, told them that the needle had penetrated into the steel to a
distance of three microns.
The two scientists sank into armchairs facing each other. For a time
they were silent.
"What," Benedictov finally said, "do you think of the whole thing?"
"I think it was a great moment." Opratin spoke in a calm voice and his
face now wore a somewhat detached expression. "We achieved penetrability for
an instant by weakening the bonds of the substance of the cube. But the
energy that created those bonds was released-and that was what hit us."
After a long pause he continued, his voice calmer than ever: "We've
made a start, Anatole. But we won't get anywhere working at home. Once we're
invading the structure of matter there's no telling what kind of blasts may
be produced. We must build a big installation. We'll need a Van de Graaff
generator without fail. We're going to conduct a great many experiments."
"What do you propose?"
"I can arrange matters so that I work by myself, without any outsiders
poking their noses in. But what about you? You aren't a member of our staff,
unfortunately." Opratin fell silent. Then he said bluntly: "You'll have to
join the staff of the Research Institute of Marine Physics."
Nikolai and Yura had been experimenting with mercury in the small
glassed-in gallery in Cooper Lane for several days. They had put together a
"mercury heart", an old-fashioned apparatus used to demonstrate how electric
current builds up surface tension.
The device was assembled on one pan of a laboratory scales. A large
drop of mercury was covered with a solution that would conduct electricity.
A screw with a needle lay so that the point of the needle touched the
mercury. The drop of mercury was connected by the conducting solution to the
anode of a storage battery and the needle was wired to the cathode.
A weight on the other pan kept the scales balanced.
The electric current increased the surface tension, making the drop of
mercury shrink and move away from the needle. But when the circuit was thus
broken, the drop of mercury spread out until it again touched the needle.
This "mercury heart" pulsated continuously.
The young engineers tried to act on the "heart" with high frequency
current by winding a spiral round the apparatus and linking it up with a
valve oscillator. They hoped a certain definite frequency of oscillations
would greatly increase the surface tension of the mercury and squeeze it to
such an extent that it would no longer touch the needle. Then, by adding
mercury and registering the increase in the weight of the drop, they could
measure the degree to which the surface tension had increased.
They tried different shapes of spiral and different frequencies but
nothing came of it. The "mercury heart" continued to pulsate with the same
calm, steady rhythm.
"We're not getting anywhere," said Yura, turning off the current.
"We're just wasting our time."
But Nikolai patiently continued to vary the experiment.
DESCRIBING A FIND THAT COMPELS THE AUTHORS TO END PART ONE AND SWITCH
TO THE FIRST HALF OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
The rusty iron bar that Privalov brought home from the bazaar lay at
the bottom of the pantry for more than a fortnight. Privalov had not
forgotten about the bar but simply had no time to examine it.
Finally, one afternoon, he attached a vise to the kitchen table.
Humming a popular tune, he laid out his tools. His wife Olga, who was doing
up the dishes, frowned.
"I wish you wouldn't bring home so much junk," she grumbled. "What do
you want that dirty piece of iron for?"
Meanwhile, Privalov had put the bar into the vise and was removing a
thick layer of kerosene-softened rust with a sharp scraper.
"It's not iron," he said. "Don't you remember? I once told you that
iron is rarely met in its pure state. It is usually alloyed with carbon to
make steel. The element iron, or ferrum, is found in a pure state only in
laboratories. Incidentally, it hardly ever rusts. All the rust on this bar
means that it is steel."
"What about stainless steel?"
"Stainless steel is just a name. There is sometimes more chromium and
nickel in it than iron.
"I seem to be learning lots of new things in my old age," Olga said,
wiping a plate. Her eyes were amused. After a time she said, "Let's go to
the cinema, Boris. I know where 'The Sorceress' is on. It's an old picture,
but we haven't seen it."
"I have nothing against 'The Sorceress'," said Privalov as he scraped
away. "You know I've always stood up for witches, magicians and goblins. But
before we deal with the occult sciences I'd like to see what's inside this
little box."
"Box? Do you mean to say this little bar is hollow?"
"Exactly. The moment I picked it up at the bazaar I noticed that it's
too light for its size. But I didn't see any joints, and I wanted to learn
how it's put together."
"Be careful, Boris. It could be a booby trap."
"That's not likely. I don't see a single opening for a fuse or a safety
lock."
"But what if it really is one?"
Privalov grinned. "You remind me of the grandmother in Tolstoy's
Childhood. Remember? She refused to listen to an explanation of why small
shot isn't the same as gunpowder."
"A very flattering comparison."
"Don't fly into a huff. You see, the box was made very long ago, before
delayed-action mechanisms were invented." He set a frying pan on the gas
range and put the box in the pan.
"Are you going to fry it?"
"I'm applying the cleansing action of fire." Privalov turned the box
over. "We'll just warm up all these rheumatic old joints." Humming all the
time, he shook some tooth-powder into a saucer, poured water into it and
stirred the mixture, then dipped a cloth in it and smeared the sides of the
box. The chalk hissed as it quickly dried on the hot metal.
Next Privalov dipped a dry rag in kerosene and squeezed out the rag
above the box. The yellow drops were instantly soaked up by the chalk. Thin,
clear-cut lines forming a severe geometrical pattern showed up, as though
scratched on the box by a needle.
"It's put together with dowels, like a wooden box. The edges must have
been caulked, and then the whole thing was polished. Kerosene on chalk will
always show up a crack, no matter how tiny."
"You're not going to open it now, are you?"
"Oh, yes, I forgot. 'The Sorceress'." Privalov quickly tidied up the
table and went off to wash his hands.
Boris Privalov entered the laboratory towards the end of the day.
"Do you remember the rusty iron bar I picked up at the bazaar that
day?" he asked Nikolai and Yura. "Here it is, all cleaned up."
"Why, it's dowelled," said Nikolai, turning it over in his hands. "Must
have been made ages ago."
"Let's open it," Privalov suggested. He went over to the bench and put
the box into the jaws of a vise. With each tap of a hammer the dowels
loosened, one side of the box rising at an angle. Another blow of the
hammer, then still another, and one side of the box clattered to the floor.
Three heads bent over the open box. Inside lay a white roll of cloth. Yura
reached out to touch it but Privalov caught his arm. He cautiously unwrapped
the roll. Inside it were sheets of thin but strong paper.
The pages were covered with fine handwriting in letters that were
hardly connected with one another.
"It's in a foreign language!" Yura exclaimed. Privalov pushed his
glasses up onto his forehead and looked down at the manuscript.
"Black ink", he said. "It wasn't written in this century. Ink isn't
made out of nut-gall nowadays. From the way the letters are shaped they must
have been written with a goose quill. And it's in Russian, although in the
old-time spelling." "An old manuscript!" Yura exclaimed delightedly. "Boris,
we must get Val to read it for us. She's a philologist and her field is Old
Russian."
"Could it be a last will and testament, I wonder?" Privalov said
thoughtfully. He began to read, but it was slow work because of the
unfamiliar spelling. The manuscript began as follows:
"I commence this epistle on the second day of January in the year of
Our Lord 1762, desirous of passing on my thoughts and ideas to my beloved
eldest son, Alexander.
"My youth was spent in trials and tribulations and wanderings, similar
unto those of Homer's Ulysses. Upon attaining manhood I was often called
away from home by duty, so that I seldom saw you, Alexander. After you
entered the service I retired. Now I spend my days at home, and I see less
of you than ever.
"As I await my last hour I have chosen this time to set down an account
of matters to which I have given much thought, and I place my hopes in you,
for you are strong in the sciences.
"I shall put down my story point by point, from the beginning, lest I
should omit something. First, during the reign of our great ruler, Peter the
Great, son of Alexis, eternally blessed be his memory, I was despatched on a
long journey...."
NAVAL LIEUTENANT FEDOR MATVEYEV
Many the men whose towns he saw
whose ways he proved',
And many a pang he bore in his own
breast at sea,
While struggling for his life and
his men's safe return.
Homer -THE ODYSSEY
WHICH TELLS OF THE CAMPAIGN OF PRINCE BEKOVICH-CHERKASSKY
Lieutenant Fedor Matveyev of the Russian Navy had gone through the same
school as many another young nobleman who, by the will of Peter the Great,
was torn away from his placid rural life and cast into the maelstrom of
those turbulent times.
The School of Navigation in Moscow, instruction in carpentry, the wheel
wright's craft and shipbuilding in Holland, the Louis Quatorze Nautical
School in Marseilles, artillery training in Paris, and round-the-clock work
in the shipyards of the new, cold city of St. Petersburg had turned the
illiterate village bumpkin, pigeon fancier and church singer into a smart
naval officer fluent in foreign languages and inured to the deprivations of
a wanderer's life.
The indomitable will of Russia's extraordinary tsar had scattered these
young men of a new mould far and wide.
Fedor Matveyev was not the least surprised when he received orders to
join a hydrographic expedition on the Caspian Sea. He and young men like him
had no time to be surprised-they were too busy surprising others.
When Fedor reached the Caspian town of Astrakhan his ears were still
ringing with the roar of the battles on the Baltic Sea, and his right
shoulder ached from a wound made by a Swedish falcon bullet.
He was struck by the quietness here. In contrast to the steel-grey
waters and overcast skies of the Baltic, the Caspian Sea was green; it had
yellow sandy beaches, a dazzling blue sky and a merciless southern sun.
The tsar's instructions ordered the expedition, which was under the
command of Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky, "to search assiduously for harbours
and rivers where ships might be put in and scout-boats find a haven during
storms; to establish the location of sandbars and underwater reefs, and
enter all these and other things on maps; to cross the sea and note the
location of islands and shoals; to put the width of the sea on the map".
Fedor Matveyev enthusiastically set about mapping the unfamiliar sea.
There was an ancient mystery about those uninhabited, windswept shores.
Fedor knew that beyond the sun-baked yellow sands lay fabulous India.
He was unaware, as yet, that Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky's expedition
had another mission, a secret one.
Finding the shortest trade route to India had long been one of Peter
the Great's ambitions. He had heard much about that country's wonders and
unbelievable wealth.
Indian goods reached Europe through Persian and Arab merchants.
European goods flowed to India through the same hands. Yet, reflected Peter,
Nature herself had decreed that Russia should be a middleman in the commerce
between Europe and Asia.
On the route to India lay Khiva and Bukhara, troubled lands whose
rulers were constantly engaged in strife. In the year 1700 Shah Niaz, Khan
of Khiva, had expressed a desire to become a subject of the Russian tsar,
hoping with Peter's help to bolster up his shaky throne. But then new rulers
succeeded one another so rapidly in Khiva that it was impossible to keep
track of them.
Everything was a mystery in that sun-scorched land.
For instance, old maps showed the Amu Darya flowing into the Caspian
Sea. Herodotus, the Greek historian, and Arab historians also, said the Amu
Darya flowed into the Caspian. Yet it was rumoured that the fickle river had
shifted its channel. The rulers of Khiva, it was said, had built an earthen
dam which caused the river to flow into the Sea of Aral.
What sort of river was this Amu, river of the Bull, known to the
ancient Romans as the Oxus and to the Arabs as the Jihun? Peter the Great
was aware that it rose somewhere in India. If it could be turned back into
the Caspian, and if he, Peter, could be master of its banks, or at least
live in peace and friendship with those who held them, India's rich
commodities could be delivered down that river to the Caspian Sea, across
the Caspian to the city of Astrakhan, and from there up the Volga into
Russia-by-passing the Persian merchants. These Indian commodities would be
cheaper, and, besides, Russia's treasury would profit. Furthermore, Peter
had heard there was gold in that area, near the town of Irket.
All these rumours must be verified. The area must be explored by trusty
men.
Peter could not tolerate delay. Early in May 1714 he ordered Prince
Bekovich-Cherkassky, a lieutenant in the Preobrazhonsky Guards Regiment, to
set out for the Caspian Sea with the men he needed, "to search for the mouth
of the river Amu Darya". On May 19 he ordered the Prince, in addition, "to
proceed to Khiva and from there to Bukhara, to ascertain the possibilities
of trade, and under cover of that, to find out everything he could about the
town of Irket."
Before his conversion to Christianity Prince Alexander
Bekovich-Cherkassky's name had been Devlet Kizden Mirza. He came from a line
of Kabardian rulers. As a boy he had been stolen by Nogai tribesmen. He fell
into the hands of the Russians when Russian troops under Vassily Golitsin
besieged the town of Azov, and was taken into the home of Vassily's brother
Boris, one of Peter's tutors. In 1707 he was sent abroad to study. Soon
after, he married into the Golitsin family, taking Boris Golitsin's
daughter, the Princess Martha, for his wife. When Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky
joined the Preobrazhensky Regiment he attracted the tsar's attention. It was
to this strong, courageous, well-educated young man with a knowledge of the
East that Peter the Great assigned the difficult mission of finding a route
to India.
On his way to Astrakhan, which he reached in August 1714, Prince
Bekovich-Cherkassky stopped at Kazan, on the Volga. Here he took more than
1,500 soldiers and 19 cannon under his command.
The expedition set sail from Astrakhan for Guryev, a town on the
Caspian, at the mouth of the Ural River, on November 7 and nearly perished
at the very beginning of the voyage. A vicious autumn storm scattered the
twenty-seven light Volga boats and two schooners. The battered flotilla
limped back to Astrakhan one month later, at the beginning of December,
without ever having reached Guryev.
After wintering at Astrakhan and obtaining about two dozen new boats,
the expedition set sail again on April 25, 1715.
Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky stood on the weather side of the
quarter-deck as his flagship emerged from the Volga delta into the expanses
of the sea. The green waters of the Caspian now gurgled beneath the
schooner's keel. The Prince stood there, lost in thought. He was only a
little Over thirty at the time, and the realization that he was responsible
for so many men and so many ships weighed heavily on him.
He gazed in silence across the green vastness, wondering what awaited
him beyond those deserted shores and the burning, shifting sands.
The flotilla cruised along the eastern coast of the Caspian until late
autumn. It stopped at Guryev, rounded the Mangyshlak Peninsula and sailed
southwards for a long time, mapping and describing in detail the strange,
deserted coastline. The sun blazed down on them. The barrels of water taken
on at Guryev became putrid; the men were tormented by thirst. But even
stronger than thirst was the yearning for distant Russia, for shady forests
and smoke rising from the chimney of one's own log cabin.
The flotilla sailed past a gap in the coastline through which the sea
rushed noisily. This was the mysterious Gulf of Karabugaz, eternally covered
with a dark haze of evaporation.
Then it sailed over a long, dangerous underwater spit that is now
called Bekovich Bank. After rounding the bank it entered Krasnovodsk Bay, a
place that slept the sleep of the dead amidst burning sands and hillocks.
In the autumn of 1715, one year after it had first sailed out into the
Caspian Sea, the flotilla returned to Astrakhan. The expedition had failed
to reach either Khiva or Bukhara, and it had not learned anything about gold
in that area. But it had confirmed the fact that the Amu Darya did not flow
into the Caspian and that its old channel had dried up. Also, it had mapped
the coast of the Caspian.
The expedition proved to be too small and unsatisfactorily equipped for
a long, dangerous overland journey.
On February 14, 1716, Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky was given a new
assignment. He was appointed Ambassador to the court of the Khan of Khiva
with instructions to proceed to Khiva along the Amu Darya, carefully
studying the river and examining the dam to see whether the river could be
turned back into its old channel instead of flowing into the Sea of Aral. He
was also to determine how many men would be needed to do that.
Rumour had it that Khan Shirgazy, who now ruled Khiva, was extremely
hostile to the local princes and was eager to consolidate his power. Prince
Bekovich-Cherkassky was instructed to persuade him to become a Russian
subject loyal to the tsar by promising to help him to unite his domain. In
return for putting a Russian regiment at his service the Khan would
presumably act in the interests of Russia.
The Prince was also instructed by Peter to send an intelligence agent
to Khiva disguised as a merchant to search for a water route to India.
By decree of the Senate the strength of the expedition was enlarged to
6100 men in three infantry regiments, two dragoon units, two Cossack
regiments, a marine detachment and a building crew. The building crew
included men experienced in the construction of fortifications. The
expedition also had scribes, interpreters, doctors and pharmacists.
The regiments and baggage-trains gathered at Guryev. Prince
Bekovich-Cherkassky set out for Guryev from Astrakhan, accompanied for a
short distance, as far as the Caspian, by his wife Martha and their
children. A fishing vessel followed the flotilla to take her and the
children back to Astrakhan.
Soon after they set sail the weather changed. A furious wind drove
heavy waves against the current. The Prince bade his wife and children
farewell, then stood for a long time watching the triangular white sail of
their boat grow smaller in the distance. As he observed the clouds gathering
above the Volga and listened to the wind howling in the rigging, he was
filled with foreboding.
Before long the news reached Guryev that his wife and daughters had
been drowned in the storm. Only his little son had been rescued.
When in the company of others the Prince tried to hide his sorrow. But
the sight of him sitting alone in his tent, gazing fixedly into space, his
face a picture of despair, was enough to wring the hardest heart.
At the end of May 1717 the expedition set out from Guryev for Khiva.
There was a good road, and they had an abundance of water as well as plenty
of forage for the horses. The expedition was able to make up to fifteen
kilometres a day across the salt marshes, and reached the Emba River in a
week's time. There the men and the horses rested for two days, then built
rafts and crossed the river.
Here the sands began. Following a caravan route, the expedition finally
reached the blue Sea of Aral.
The men were tormented by the heat and by thirst. All around them
stretched scorching sands. Time and again the expedition failed to reach the
next well by nightfall. Slowly but surely it was moving towards its doom.
Fedor Matveyev found the march difficult. Although he had a good
physique and endured the heat better than many of the others, a presentiment
of disaster kept nagging at him. Outwardly, however, he was composed. He
encouraged the weary and seemed to know just where to dig shallow wells
during bivouacs. The water brought up was brackish but potable.
Finally the expedition reached Lake Aibugir. Now Khiva was only a few
days' march away.
It had been assumed, when plans for the expedition were first laid,
that Khan Shirgazy was a weak ruler, fearful of his subjects, and would
eagerly accept an offer of Russian military aid. That was no longer the case
in 1717. Khan Shirgazy had brutally suppressed an uprising and was now
stronger than ever before. As the Russians approached Khiva he resolved to
show his enemies just how strong he really was.
One morning a band of Khiva horsemen galloped into view from behind the
hillocks along the lake shore. Brandishing curved sabres and filling the
desert with war cries, they charged the Russian camp.
The attack failed because the sentries were vigilant and the camp was
surrounded by a wall of carts from the baggage-trains. The attacking force
had to dismount and lie prone. The exchange of fare lasted until evening.
During the night the Russians fortified their positions. They dug
ditches on three sides of the camp and built an earthen rampart. The fourth
side was the lake, which was thickly overgrown with reeds. They tied reeds
into bundles and piled them together to conceal the batteries.
The next morning an army of 20 000 men-ten times more than the
expedition had-led by Khan Shirgazy himself, surrounded the camp.
The siege lasted two days. The Russian cannon pounded away steadily;
the men did not run out of either cannon-balls or vodka, and water for
cooling the gun barrels was at hand. Heavy losses were inflicted on the
attacking Khivans. Although the Prince's men were exhausted from their
gruelling march they fought gallantly.
When Khan Shirgazy saw that he could not take the camp by storm he
decided to resort to guile. To the astonishment of the Russians the
besieging troops vanished during the night. Silence reigned over the desert.
The next day passed in tense expectation. Towards evening a lone
horseman came galloping across the desert towards the camp. Wearing a
richly-embroidered robe and turban, and with his hennaed beard, he was a
colourful sight. When he reached the camp he introduced himself as Ishim
Hodja, envoy of the Khan, and explained courteously that the attack had been
made without the Khan's knowledge. The Khan, he said, had ordered the heads
of the guilty to roll, and now invited the Prince to a council of peace and
friendship.
The latter sent a Tatar named Useinov to tell the Khan that he, Prince
Alexander Bekovich-Cherkassky, was an envoy of the white tsar, bearing
credentials and many gifts, and that it would be to the Khan's great
advantage to receive the Russian mission.
Khan Shirgazy received Useinov and asked him to tell the Prince that he
would reply after he had consulted with his advisers.
He did consult with his advisers. They said it had been a mistake to
withdraw from Lake Aibugir, for the Prince did not have many men and it was
too early to resort to guile.
Soon the curved blades of the Khiva horsemen again glinted in the sun
in front of the Russian fortifications beside the lake. Slender arrows and
clay bullets glazed with lead again flew towards the camp. Again clouds of
black smoke drifted across the desert as the Russian gunners, veterans of
the war against Sweden, took aim and fired. After beating off the attack
Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky again sent his parliamentarian to the Khan to
demand an explanation of this perfidious conduct.
Khan Shirgazy insisted once again the attack had been made without his
knowledge. Again he declared that those to blame for the attack had already
been caught and punished, some by death and others by a fate worse than
death. The next day Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky himself rode over to the
headquarters of the Khan for a talk.
The Khan received him graciously. He promised to order his men to tear
down the dam on the Amu Darya. He promised to be a younger brother to Peter
the Great. He pledged peace and love and he kissed the tsar's scroll.
The day was clear, with a fierce sun beating down mercilessly. All of a
sudden the motionless air stirred, and a light breeze arose.
Dogs howled and horses neighed. The sheep which the Khan's men had
brought along for a feast huddled together, bleating piteously.
A black smudge appeared on the disc of the sun. It grew rapidly,
spreading across the sun. Darkness fell. Stars came out.
The Khiva men beat on tambourines and drums to drive away the demons
that were trying to swallow the sun.
Khan Shirgazy was alarmed. Could this be a bad omen, just when he was
about to sign a treaty with the white tsar?
An elderly mullah in a green turban stood on tiptoe, his goatee
tickling the hairy ear of tall Khan Shirgazy. He whispered, a crooked finger
pointing to the darkened sun, "Do you see the omen, oh mighty ruler?"
"I do," the Khan growled.
"The omen is shaped like a crescent. It signifies that the glory of
Islam will eclipse the glory of the infidels."
This reassured the Khan. When the eclipse ended he accepted the gifts
of the white tsar with a light heart. Examination of the gifts lasted until
evening.
Then the Khan and the Prince mounted their steeds and set out for
Khiva, riding side by side. They were followed by the Khan's suite and the
Russian expedition. The Russians, now in good spirits, sang as they marched
along.
A short distance from Khiva the Khan and his men set up camp on the
bank of a stream. The Russians pitched their tents nearby. Prince
Bekovich-Cherkassky and his companion, Prince Samonov, were the guests of
honour in the Khan's tent.
During supper the Khan explained to the Prince that it would be
impossible to quarter the entire Russian mission in Khiva because there
would not be enough food for them and it would take some time to bring in
more supplies. Unless the Prince had plenty of his own provisions, in which
case, of course-
Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky had to confess that he was running short of
provisions. The Khan then suggested that he divide the Russian force into
five units, each to be quartered in a different town where, he promised, the
food and lodging would be of the best. Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky and his
companions would, of course, be offered hospitality in Khiva itself.
It is hard to understand why Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky ever agreed to
such a dubious arrangement. Perhaps he believed that Khan Shirgazy really
had been frightened by the Russian artillery during the skirmishes at Lake
Aibugir. Or he was so overwhelmed by his personal grief that he was unable
to think clearly.
The Russian foot soldiers, dragoons and gunners marched off from the
stream in five different directions, each group accompanied by Khiva guides.
The thick dust raised by the departing units hung for a long time in the
hot, still air. Slowly the strains of their marching songs died away in the
distance.
Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky stood in front of the Khan's tent, gazing
after his men, oblivious of the Khivans who had crowded round him.
The units vanished from sight. The dust began to settle.
"You dog! Betrayer of Islam! You have sold your soul to the infidels!"
said Khan Shirgazy softly, laying a hand on the Prince's shoulder. "You dog!
You tried to deceive me with your miserable gifts!"
Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky spun round. Although he had difficulty
understanding the Uzbek language he immediately grasped the meaning of the
Khan's words. All he had to do was read the Khan's face.
Khan Shirgazy drew out the royal credentials from the sleeve of his
robe. Slowly and solemnly he tore the paper in half, threw the pieces on the
ground, spat on them, and rubbed them into the sand with the pointed,
turned-up toe of his yellow boot.
Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky took a step backwards. He reached for his
sword, then dropped his hand.
Smiling and chattering, the Khan's bodyguards drew closer, their swords
bared.
Khan Shirgazy turned away. "Don't spoil the face," he murmured as he
passed the bodyguards.
The heads of the senior Russian officers were brought to Khiva and
displayed to the public.
Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky's head was not among them. Rumour had it
that Khan Shirgazy had sent the head as a gift to the Khan of Bukhara, but
cautious, far-sighted Abul-Faiz had refused to accept the horrifying gift
and had sent it back.
The five Russian detachments were destroyed one after another. Some of
the men were killed, others were sold into slavery. A few managed to escape,
some during the fighting and others later, while in captivity. Only a very
few managed to make their way back to Russia by various routes after
enduring indescribable deprivation and dangers.
IN WHICH FEDOR MATVEYEV FINDS HIMSELF IN INDIA
When Fedor Matveyev opened his eyes he found himself lying beside a
dusty road that ran through a tract of desert where only camel's-thorn grew.
He groaned as the memory of that frightful day came back to him. Had it been
yesterday, or the day before?
The pitiless sun, directly overhead, made his eyes ache. He felt weak
and nauseous. There was a sharp, constant pain in his right shoulder.
When Fedor awakened again the sand, soaked with his blood, was cool.
Enormous stars glittered in the black sky. His throat was dry.
Wheels creaked close by, accompanied by a monotonous, wailing song in
an unfamiliar language.
"If they capture me I'll be tortured and killed," Fedor thought. "I
must creep farther away from the road."
With an abrupt movement he turned over on his stomach, gave a sharp cry
of pain, and fainted once more.
During the night he recovered consciousness several times. Each time he
saw the same bright stars overhead and heard the creaking of wheels and the
plaintive song. Added to these sensations was the feeling of being jolted
and the acrid odour of sheep's wool and horse sweat.
Fedor had been found lying unconscious near the road by an Uzbek
peasant named Sadreddin, who put him in his bullock cart and took him home.
There he and his family nursed Fedor solicitously, using ancient remedies to
treat his deep wound. Fedor's collarbone was broken- but young bones mend
quickly. The wound was encouraged to fester and was not allowed to heal so
that the pus could carry away the small fragments of broken bone.
After the fever subsided Fedor began to recover. He was given
nourishing food and could feel himself growing stronger day by day.
What would happen next? Fedor could not but be worried. The peasant who
had taken him in was a kind man but he could not help wondering how he could
turn the presence of this infidel to advantage. The young Russian could help
him in the fields, and he probably knew some handicraft which he could
practise. But it would be impossible to hide a healthy young Russian for
long. The Khan's men would learn about him sooner or later-and that would be
the end of Sadreddin. Taxes were onerous as it was, and now he would be
stripped of everything he possessed. He could let the Russian go free, of
course. But where would he go to? Sadreddin grew angry with himself. The
faithful should never take pity on infidel dogs.
No, he had not fed and nursed the Russian to let him go just like that.
He would find a different way out.
One night at the end of summer Sadreddin prepared a basket of
provisions and put the basket and Fedor into his covered cart. Casting
fearful glances to right and left, he drove through the sleeping hamlet.
He had not concealed his plans. Fedor knew that the kindly Uzbek was
taking him to some place far away from Khiva to sell him.
"Are you a gunner?" he asked Fedor for the hundredth time as the cart
rolled along.
Fedor, who had learned a little Uzbek, nodded.
"Can you do a blacksmith's work?"
Again Fedor nodded absentmindedly. He was wondering what to do. It
would not be hard to overpower sluggish Sadreddin and take the horse and
cart and food away from him. But what next? It must be all of 800 versts to
Guryev. Travelling by cart it would take him a month to reach that city. But
it would be risky to follow the road. On the other hand, setting out across
the desert, without knowing where the wells were, would mean certain death.
Sadreddin knew that Fedor had no way of escaping, and so he travelled
along slowly without taking any precautions.
They reached Bukhara in two weeks' time. There Sadreddin sold Fedor to
a merchant from Kashgar for a good price. He spent the money on Bukhara
merchandise.
"You have brought good luck to my house," he told Fedor in parting.
"You fetched a good price.
If I can return home with these goods without being robbed, my family
will live well. For this, Allah will help you, even though you are an
unbeliever."
The swarthy Kashgar merchant, who had been told Fedor's history,
laughed into his thick black beard. Poor Sadreddin thought the price he had
been paid for Fedor made him a rich man. He had no idea of the true value of
a strong young man who had been trained in the arts of warfare and
metallurgy.
The merchant treated Fedor well, even giving him a horse to ride, for
he knew that Fedor would not attempt to escape from the caravan. He also
gave Fedor sheets of paper and a copper inkpot on a chain to hang at his
belt. When the caravan set up camp for the night Fedor would take his pen,
made of a split reed sharpened at the end, and, in a hand grown unaccustomed
to writing, would describe the landmarks and details of the journey. In
Astrakhan not so long ago he had envisioned his travels to distant India
from Khiva to gather information about that country. Now he was actually on
his way to India but as a slave instead of a scout of the tsar. Still, who
could tell? These notes might yet prove useful.
Fedor had decided to conceal his homesickness and bitterness and bide
his time.
It took the caravan three weeks to reach the mountains. For ten days
they climbed higher and higher along a narrow path. It grew colder. Fedor's
heart leaped with joy at the sight of snow, but it made him more homesick
than ever for the snowy plains of Russia.
Finally they made their way over the pass and descended into the
flowering Vale of Kashmir, following the river Gilgit to its confluence with
the Indus. They crossed the Indus and some of its tributaries. Several weeks
later they entered the city of Amritsar, a big commercial centre.
So this was India! It was a land of strange buildings, unfamiliar
trees, colourful bazaars and copper-skinned people, some half-naked, some
dressed in white robes. Fedor drank in the marvellous sights with unfeigned
curiosity.
The Kashgar merchant decked Fedor out in new clothing and gave him an
opportunity to rest up. But at the inn he locked Fedor into his room and
ordered the servants to guard him, not so much because Fedor might escape as
because someone might try to steal him.
One day the merchant brought a tall, thickset Hindu, all dressed in
white, to see Fedor. The Hindu looked him up and down intently, then smiled
and seated himself cross-legged on a carpet, making a sign to Fedor to be
seated too.
During the years he spent in the East Fedor adopted many of the customs
of the region, but nothing was harder for him to learn than to sit on the
floor in Indian fashion, with the soles of his feet lying on his thighs.
"Sprek je de Nederlandse taal? the Hindu asked.
Fedor was amazed to hear him speak Dutch.
"You have nothing to worry about," said the Hindu. "If what the
merchant says about you is true you will have a fine life."
The Hindu then proceeded to question Fedor. He asked him about dams and
water wheels. They discussed European politics and Russia's war with Sweden.
Fedor was surprised to find himself conversing with a highly-educated man.
Finally the Hindu turned to the Kashgar merchant. Although Fedor did
not understand a word of what they said it was clear they were bargaining.
This went on for a long time. At times the merchant, accustomed to bazaars,
would raise his voice to a scream. The Hindu kept his voice low but firm.
Then there came the moment when he unwound his broad sash and removed a
small purse and scales with a single tray and a weight suspended from an
ivory rod. From the purse he took two precious stones that sparkled with
greenish lights. He dropped the gems into the tray, and, holding the loop of
the ivory rod in his left hand, he moved the weight along the rod with his
right hand to balance the scales.
The Kashgar merchant looked at the mark at which the weight stopped,
then carefully picked up the stones and examined them, first one and then
the other, against the light. He bowed respectfully and without saying a
word started unwinding his sash to put the jewels away inside it.
"You can see how much you are worth," the Hindu remarked in Dutch.
Fedor did not like the idea of being sold for such a high price. He
knew little about precious stones but realized that if he were ever ransomed
the ransom would be high. His family was not rich. They would hardly be able
to raise such a sum. The tsar had seen him only once or twice and probably
would not remember him. If the Foreign Board were asked to pay a ransom,
would it consent?
"Now fortify yourself with food," the Hindu said to Fedor. "There is
not much time and we have quite a distance to travel."
A servant at the caravansarai brought in a bowl of rice and mutton
similar to the Uzbek pilau, and a pitcher filled with a cold liquid. Fedor
and the Kashgar merchant set about their meal. The Hindu rose and moved
towards the door.
"Why doesn't he have something to eat too?" Fedor asked in a low voice.
"Sh-h," the merchant whispered. "He's a Brahman. They never eat with
other castes. Besides, they don't eat meat and many other things."
"Who is he?" Fedor asked.
The merchant's reply was vague. "He must be an important person. All I
know is that his name is Lal Chandra and he comes from the Punjab, not so
very far away from here."
By evening Lal Chandra's covered wagon was some distance from Amritsar.
The driver, bare to the waist, urged on the horses. Lal Chandra dozed,
reclining against rug-covered cushions. Fedor lay on the floor of the wagon,
his thoughts far away, in distant Russia.
They drove through Lahore and then followed the bank of a river.
Afterwards they turned west and rode for a long time across a desert tract
that looked like the land in the vicinity of the Sea of Aral. They crossed
the beds of dried-up rivers. They followed the bank of one of these streams
and finally halted in front of an iron gate in a high stone wall.
The gate swung open to allow the wagon to pass through, then swung
shut. Fedor looked out but he could see no one beside the gate. Nor was
there anyone on the long road that wound through a park in which unfamiliar
trees grew. The hot air was filled with a heady fragrance, evidently from
the big, bright flowers. The wagon stopped before a tall stone mansion with
many niches in which stood strange creatures carved of stone.
Lal Chandra slowly descended from the wagon. Fedor sprang out after
him, stretching his stiff legs. Lal Chandra led him along a narrow, vaulted,
dusky passage into a large cool room where a big statue of polished stone
stood. Fedor had never seen anything like it, not even in his most horrible
nightmares. Three steps led up to a low pedestal on which sat a woman with
her feet tucked under her. Her face was unbelievably beautiful, her eyes
were blind, and her lips were curved into an enigmatic, frightening smile.
The woman had six arms. Two arms ended in hands folded peacefully in her
lap, two were bent at the elbow and raised, and two were thrust forward
menacingly. She had three pairs of breasts. Lal Chandra placed the palms of
his hands in front of his face and prostrated himself before the statue. He
remained motionless for a long time.
"He obviously isn't Moslem," Fedor thought, "if he is praying to this
idol."
Finally the Hindu rose and bowed three times before the goddess. Then
he led Fedor into a small room that resembled a monk's cell, with bare stone
walls and a vaulted ceiling. Slanting rays of sunshine coming through a
window near the ceiling provided the illumination. In the floor was a pool
filled with water, evidently running water.
"I do not know whether your gods prescribe ablutions," said Lal
Chandra, "but I must purify myself before attending to my affairs. You may,
too, if you wish."
Fedor promptly removed his clothing and sank with pleasure into the
cool water. He began to splash noisily, not noticing the Hindu's frown.
After the ablutions Lal Chandra led Fedor along another passage into a
large, bright room with windows looking out on a garden. The windows did not
have either glass or mica in them but were covered by intricately carved
shutters with interstices through which the light came. Here, too, there was
a statue of the six-armed goddess. Smaller than the first one, it was made
of copper and stood on a high marble support.
Low tables lined the walls. The shelves above them were filled with
fancifully shaped glass, clay and metal vessels, scales, sandglasses and
water clocks.
In a corner there was a stove. The curved necks of copper vessels
jutted out of its sides.
Fedor's attention was caught by a monstrous object on a platform in the
middle of the hall, opposite the statue of the goddess with six arms.
Moulded copper columns, ornamented with carvings of plants and animals,
supported a horizontal shaft whose necks rested on copper wheels half a foot
in diameter. An enormous disc of some black material was mounted in the
middle of the shaft. It was covered with radially distributed plates, narrow
and shining, that might have been made of gold. At one end of the shaft was
a pulley encircled by a round, woven strap. The ends of the strap went into
openings in the floor.
Fedor stood in front of the bulky machine trying to grasp its purpose.
He had never seen anything like it before.
"It pleases me to see that here you have forgotten about contemptible
food," Lal Chandra said, touching Fedor on the shoulder. "But man is weak.
Pass through that door"-he pointed to a narrow opening in the wall- "and you
will find the kind of food to which you are accustomed. Then you will learn
what you are to do."
In the small adjoining room Fedor found a bowl of fried meat and
steamed vegetables on a low table. A narrow-necked pitcher stood on the
floor. There was no chair. "I suppose I'll have to get used to it," Fedor
said to himself with a sigh as he awkwardly squatted down beside the table.
WHICH DESCRIBES THE LIGHTNING MACHINE
The days in Lal Chandra's house passed slowly. Fedor wandered through
empty corridors and peeped into cool rooms. He never saw anyone in them. But
he knew that he had only to strike a bronze gong for a silent servant to
appear on the threshold.
The food was plentiful, but it brought Fedor no joy. He wanted to go
out beyond the wall to see what the locality looked like, but each time he
came to the gate he found it locked. Escape was impossible. Besides, Fedor
was hunted by the feeling that someone was watching his every step.
On the other side of the filigree shutters lay an alien night. The
silence was absolute. He longed to hear a sound, any sound, even the barking
of a dog. At times he was driven to such despair that thoughts of laying
hands on himself came into his mind. Cry out though he might, Russia would
never hear him. She was too far away, beyond high mountains and scorching
plains.
Fedor shook the shutters in fury. He pressed his tear-stained face to
the cold metal.
Lal Chandra visited him almost every day. He would enter, tall and
erect, in his white robe, and conduct a vague conversation on theological
topics. These talks made Fedor uncomfortable. At home he had never prayed
with any particular fervour and he had never had the time or inclination to
go into the subtleties of religion. He had felt that it was enough if he, as
a soldier, crossed himself before climbing into bed.
One day he was unable to restrain himself, and in the midst of Lal
Chandra's monotonous utterances he burst out: "I'm sick of all this dull
talk. You bought me to work. Well, give me something to do."
Lal Chandra was silent for a while. "Soon," he said, "I shall raise
before you the veil that shrouds a holy mystery which the gods reveal only
to the chosen."
"Couldn't your gods find anyone else but me?" Fedor asked derisively.
"Do not speak thus of gods about whom you know nothing. Only I possess
knowledge of this mystery. You will be my assistant. You are a foreigner,
without friends or relatives here, and therefore you are less dangerous to
me than a fellow tribesman."
"If I am initiated into this mystery you will not allow me to return
home when the opportunity comes. I don't want to know it."
"It will be of no use to you at home. It is important and awe-inspiring
only here," Lal Chandra replied evasively. "But you must not speak about it
to anyone. If you do, yours will be a horrible death." With those words he
walked out of the room.
Fedor stood motionless for a long time, lost in gloomy thought.
The next evening Lal Chandra softly entered Fedor's room and sat down
beside him.
"Which deity did you worship in your country?" he asked.
Fedor was at a loss. "The Holy Trinity," he wanted to say, but he could
not find the words in Dutch. "I believe in the holy three," he said.
"Three gods-The Trimurti," Lal Chandra repeated thoughtfully. "Do your
gods work miracles?"
"Of course they do. The Bible tells how Jesus Christ, the son of God,
turned water into wine and raised Lazarus from the dead. Then there's the
story in the Old Testament of a bush that burned but didn't burn up."
"Have you ever seen a miracle?"
"No, never."
"Now listen carefully, young man," Lal Chandra began. "When the gods do
not work miracles, men tend to forget that they must obey the high priests
implicitly. But we are not given to know why the gods fail for a long time
to remind us of themselves."
"Are you a priest?" Fedor asked in surprise.
"I am but a humble servant of Kali, the Goddess of Terror. I have been
chosen to be her instrument, so that men of the lower castes should be
convinced, through miracles, of the might of the gods, and resign themselves
to their lot of obedience and toil. As for our rulers, when they see a
miracle they will realize that they must obey the high priests. Do you
understand me, young man?"
"You mean that if your gods don't work miracles you'll-"
"Exactly. The gods, who have unveiled a small part of their mysteries
to me, may work miracles through me. For the gods are all-powerful. Come
with me. I will show you signs of their might."
Picking up a clay lamp, Fedor followed Lal Chandra into the big room in
which the strange machine stood. Lal Chandra clapped his hands thrice and
then issued an order to the servant who silently appeared before him.
The huge black disc rumbled as it started to rotate. Creaking, the
woven belt emerged from the floor and passed over the pulley.
"Are men down below turning it?" Fedor asked.
Lal Chandra nodded. The disc spun faster and faster. Its gold plates
merged into a glowing ring. A high-pitched hum filled the room.
Next Lal Chandra turned an ebony lever, and two sparkling bronze
spheres that were part of the machine drew closer and closer together.
Suddenly there was a dry crackle as a streak of bluish-violet lightning
flashed between the sphere. The air felt fresh and cool, as after a
thunderstorm.
While Fedor watched in fascination, lightning blazed in the dusk-filled
room. He felt his skin creep.
With a turn of the lever Lal Chandra separated the spheres. The
lightning ceased.
Lal Chandra gestured towards the bronze statue of the six-armed
goddess.
"Do not be afraid of the goddess. Embrace her."
"Horrible creature," Fedor muttered in Russian.
"Are you afraid?"
Fedor boldly put his arms around the bronze hips of the goddess. In the
same instant he was deafened and stunned, and flung to the floor. Crackling
lightning had sprung from the body of the goddess. A wave of freshness
struck his nostrils.
Fedor regained his feel, cursing roundly.
"Forgive my little joke," Lal Chandra said, his lips parting in a
smile. "1 simply wanted to show you the power which the goddess has given me
over lightning."
Fedor became aware of an itching sensation in the palm of his left
hand. Looking down, he saw a cut at the base of his thumb.
"Your goddess bites, damn it!" he exclaimed. He was trembling.
Lal Chandra smeared a fragrant salve on the cut and the pain subsided.
"Now you will learn the purpose to which you will be put," he said. "I
have heard that the art of building water-wheels is well known in your
country. Is this art known to you?"
The covered wagon, driven by the same half-naked coachman, travelled
across a barren tract for a long time before it came to a rocky road that
led to the bank of a small stream.
Lal Chandra stepped out of the wagon and Fedor sprang down after him.
They pushed their way through thickets until they reached the high bluff.
There, squeezed between rocky banks, the stream was very narrow and formed a
swift waterfall. Below the waterfall the stream was placid.
"Would this be a good place for a water-wheel?" Lal Chandra asked.
"Yes, a very good one," Fedor replied. "But does the stream flow all
the year round?"
"No, it dries up in summer. Anyway, we won't need it long, only during
the rains. Take the measurements you'll need to build a large wheel here."
Fedor looked round. On the other side of the stream, not far away,
stood a temple-like building with two towers.
"Will we be able to approach that temple later?" he asked. "I'll have
to if I'm going to take measurements."
"Of course. That temple is where the will of the gods is going to
manifest itself."
"Very well," said Fedor. "I'll get my sight-vane."
He went back to the wagon for his instrument, a shallow wooden bowl
with two tiny notches on the edges, diametrically opposite one another.
Picking up a clay pitcher and the sight-vane, Fedor approached the spot
where the water cascaded over the lip of the rocks. He placed the bowl on a
flat stone, filled the pitcher with water, and poured water into the bowl
until it was almost full. Then he lay down on the ground and turned the bowl
in front of his eyes so that both notches were in line with one of the
towers of the temple. By pouring more water from the pitcher into the bowl,
and carefully propping up the sides of the bowl with stones, he forced the
water to swell above the edges of the bowl. Then, closing one eye, he
concentrated on getting the nearest and farthest edges of the bowl to
coincide in height. Holding his breath lest he get out of line, he counted:
the water level was six rows of stones below the windows of the second
storey of the temple.
Then Fedor rose, rubbed his numb elbows, scrambled up the rocks to the
top of the waterfall, and repeated his observations there, after which he
descended to where Lal Chandra was waiting.
Next the two men waded across the stream and entered the abandoned
temple. Ahead of them strode the coachman, Ram Das, carrying a torch.
Bats flitted about under the vaulted ceiling. The flapping of their
wings nearly extinguished the torch. The air was damp and had a musty smell.
"Any snakes here?" Fedor asked. "You won't find cobras in damp, dark
places," said Lal Chandra. "But we are in the hands of Shiva and Kali."
The passage led into a room whose ceiling was so high that the light
from the torch did not reach the top. The sides of the room faded into
terrifying darkness.
On a three-tiered pedestal stood Fedor's old acquaintance, the goddess
Kali, with her six arms, three faces and six breasts, wrathful, inscrutable
and ready to act. The face that was turned to Fedor gazed across the room
with a strange expression in which an inviting smile was combined with a
threatening frown. The gaze was fixed on an equally enormous statue, with
four arms, standing on one leg, the other being bent at the knee, in a
dancing posture. This was the god Shiva, Kali's spouse.
Lal Chandra prostrated himself before the menacing goddess.
"What a handsome couple you make!" Fedor whispered to himself jokingly
in an effort to regain his composure. He was in the grip of a fit of
shivering caused either by the dampness or by the eerie atmosphere of the
place.
He glanced at Ram Das. As the driver stood there holding the torch his
face expressed neither fear nor religious devotion. He simply looked bored.
There may have been a trace of scorn in the look the half-naked slave gave
his master, Lal Chandra, lying prostrate before the sovereign over life and
death.
The expression on the slave's face sobered Fedor. He resumed his
scrutiny of the goddess. Suddenly he startled in horror. From her graceful
neck hung a chain of human skulls.
"The foul murderess!" he exclaimed in Russian. Ram Das did not
understand the words, but the wrathful tone prompted him to level a long,
thoughtful glance at Fedor.
A few minutes later Lal Chandra led Fedor through a series of intricate
passageways to the stairs leading up into one of the towers. Fedor climbed
up the weathered, sand-sprinkled steps to the ninth storey. Looking down
from a window, he saw Lal Chandra at the foot of the tower. Fedor took out
his length of string, in which he had tied knots at intervals of one foot,
attached a stone to the end, and began paying out the string, counting the
knots. When the stone reached the sixth row of bricks below the
second-storey window Lal Chandra gave a shout. Fedor stopped paying out the
string, leaned far out of the window, and saw that the row of bricks he had
noticed when he made his second measurement was at the seventy-fourth foot.
"That means the waterfall is seventy-four feet high," he thought. "I
wonder how far it is to the ground."
He allowed the string to run out until the stone at the end touched the
ground. The distance was about ninety feet.
Fedor now forgot about everything but the unusual and interesting job
ahead of him. He was in such high spirits that when he descended and saw the
silent torch bearer he clapped him on the shoulder. "We'll make a wonderful
wheel!" he exclaimed happily.
Ram Das moved forward without a word. But after taking a few steps he
stopped, glanced round, lifted his torch high to illuminate everything
around them, and then gestured to Fedor.
"Do you understand what I say?" he asked in a Moslem dialect.
"I do," Fedor replied in Uzbek.
"Do not rejoice like a new-born calf. You will live just as long as you
are needed to finish this job. Do you understand that?"
A shudder ran through Fedor.
"But what can I do? How can I escape?" he asked tonelessly.
"It is too early to talk of such things. I will find a suitable time
and place to talk with you. But now, silence!"
The torch-bearer moved forward. A few minutes later they emerged into
the bright sunshine. Ram Das threw the torch, which had burned low, into the
stream. The flame hissed and went out.
Lal Chandra smiled at Fedor.
Man is a strange creature. Sometimes Fedor would wake up in the middle
of the night and, recalling Ram Das's grim words, give way to despair. But
when morning came his fears would evaporate, whether because of his carefree
Russian nature or because he was carried away by the work.
As he sat over the sketches and calculations of the huge water-wheel he
sang to himself. At times these Russian songs were sad, at times they were
gay.
Now the days passed more quickly. Fedor learned to speak the local
dialect. Lal Chandra often travelled to the old temple to supervise the
restoration work that had been begun there. Fedor was no longer alone behind
the high wall. The courtyard was now filled with artisans busy fashioning
parts for the wheel under his direction.
The courtyard had been turned into an open-air workshop, with forging
furnaces and a copper-smelting furnace. In the middle of the yard the
contours of a giant wheel seventy-two feet in diameter had been traced on
the hard-packed ground, as at a shipyard.
Sometimes Fedor actually felt as though he were in the shipyards or in
the courtyard of the Smolny palace at St. Petersburg, except that here there
was none of the joking, bickering or singing characteristic of Russians at
work.
Carpenters were making parts of the rim and the buckets of the wheel.
The swiftly falling water would turn the wheel, which would convert this
simple, comprehensible form of energy into another form, into mysterious,
darting lightning.
The gigantic rim was made of the finest hardwood. Copper and iron
bindings fastened the joints.
Once grey-bearded Jogindar Singh, the foreman of the carpenters, came
up to Fedor. The two men communicated in an incredible mixture of Uzbek,
Indian and Dutch.
"I want to ask you how thick the wheel axis will be," said the
carpenter. As Fedor started to explain, a graceful girl in a sky-blue sari
that left one shoulder bare approached them. The girl said something to
Jogindar Singh that Fedor did not understand, gave Fedor a fleeting glance
of curiosity, and ran off.
"It is now noon," said Jogindar Singh. "My daughter has summoned me to
dinner. May we have the honour of your company?"
Fedor agreed eagerly. He wanted a chance to talk to that quiet,
understanding man. Also, he wanted another glimpse of the girl.
Lal Chandra's workmen lived near the workshop, in tents set up among
the trees in the big garden. They lived here with their families since they
had no right to leave the premises until the job was finished. Each family
prepared its food over a fire in front of its tent.
On the way, Jogindar Singh and Fedor washed their hands in a large pool
of running water.
As they entered the tent the girl uttered a low cry and ran out. After
a moment she returned carrying a black lacquered tray covered with bright
flowers, and placed it on a mat spread on the floor. On the tray lay a mound
of boiled rice over which a fragrant spicy sauce had been poured.
Then the girl brought in hot flat cakes and a brass pitcher of cold
water mixed with the slightly astringent juice of a fruit unfamiliar to
Fedor. The girl moved lightly and quickly. She sat down beside her father,
and Fedor looked at her dark, slanting eyes and thin brown arms. She dropped
her eyes.
Jogindar Singh settled down to his dinner. Fedor also dipped his
fingers into the rice.
"I thought you Hindus weren't supposed to eat in front of other
people," he said.
"That rule is followed by those who divide people into jaties," or
castes," said the elderly carpenter.
"To which caste do you belong?"
"I'm a Sikh and so are all the others working here," said the
carpenter, gazing intently at Fedor. "We do not divide people into castes."
"Does that mean you do not recognize Brahmans?"
"We do not believe in future reincarnation," Jogindar Singh replied
evasively. Just who are you? Moslems?"
"No."
It was obvious that the carpenter did not want to answer his questions,
so Fedor ate in silence. He washed down the rice with water from the
pitcher. From time to time he stole glances at the girl, wondering how old
she was. He decided she could not be more than eighteen, and he was just
about to ask what her name was when her father began to speak.
"Look here, foreigner. I do not know how you came to the Punjab but I
can see "'it was not because you wanted to."
"Wanted to?" Fedor laughed bitterly. " I was sold, like an ox."
"Do not put your trust in Lal Chandra," the carpenter went on. "He is
your enemy. He is our enemy too."
"Then why do you work for him?" "We work for him because- Listen, we
Sikhs were forced off our land. Everything was taken away from us." Jogindar
Singh's eyes glittered angrily. "But that is not for long! We Sikhs will
gather our forces-"
The light pouring through the entrance to the tent was suddenly cut
off. Fedor turned round to see Ram Das standing there.
"You've found a suitable place for such talk, old man," the coachman
remarked derisively.
"There are no strangers here," the carpenter replied quietly. "Only our
brethren live in the garden."
"In the garden! That damned house is full of Lal Chandra's spies," Ram
Das said as he squatted beside the tray of food.
Fedor looked at the coachman's frowning, sharp-featured face and again,
as in the temple, a chill ran down his spine.
"Foreigner, you are as trusting as a child," Ram Das said. "Lal Chandra
has given you a nice toy to play with and you forget that your end is near."
Fedor paled. "What can I do?" he asked. "As long as I am building the
wheel no one will touch me. Afterwards, if I have to, I'll stand up for
myself."
"No one is going to challenge you to a duel. You don't know the customs
of the Brahmans. Instead of dying a useless death why do you not remain
alive and help us? Jogindar Singh, send your daughter out of the tent. She
must not listen to the talk of men."
The Punjab was an arid semi-desert in the north-western corner of
fabulous, fertile India. It was inhabited by stern, warlike men who passed
their lives in a grim struggle against drought in order to earn an austere
living for themselves and a life of luxury for their rulers.
The Punjab, along the border, had the most extensive trade contacts
with other countries and was the part of India that was most often invaded.
Alexander the Great's weary warriors came to the Punjab in the year 327 B.
C. Later the region was invaded by the Persians and the Afghans.
The Punjab, accustomed to foreigners, to foreign merchants and to
foreign conquerors, became the centre of the Sikh community.
Sikhism was a monotheistic religion that rejected castes, mortification
of the flesh, priests, temples and public worship. The Sikhs wanted a better
life in this world, and did not believe in reincarnation.
Shortly before Fedor Matveyev landed in the Punjab, the Sikhs had risen
up against the subahdars, Moslem viceroys of the Mogul dynasty, and the
local feudal rajahs. The uprising had been drowned in blood, with mass
executions.
Although the Sikhs had suffered defeat and bitter losses, and had (been
deprived of their lands, they had not lost heart. Feigning submissiveness,
they gradually gathered forces for another uprising.
Those were troubled times in the Punjab. The dynasty of Great Moguls
was clearly on the wane. The Punjab rajahs, whom Lal Chandra served, were
preparing to seize power from the weakened hands of the Mohammedan rulers.
But the blood-stained spectre of another Sikh uprising haunted the rajahs
and Brahmans. As a counter-measure they prepared to work miracles that would
distract the people from the sobriety of the Sikh religion, convince them of
the might of the old Hindu gods, and persuade them to resign themselves to
obeying Hindu rulers.
The Brahmans had long possessed a variety of miracles demonstrating the
power of their gods. The miracles were performed by wandering fakirs,
ascetic wonder-workers and hypnotisers of wide experience. They tortured
themselves in public by driving needles into their bodies, walking barefoot
over burning coals, and allowing themselves to be buried alive.
The idea behind it all was that man can endure whatever trials life may
bring him.
But it had become difficult to astound the grim people of the Punjab
with the old, familiar miracles in which fakirs pierced their bodies,
charmed snakes or turned themselves into towering palm-trees.
That was why Lal Chandra was preparing new miracles of a kind never
seen or heard of before.
Fedor Matveyev had .plenty to think about.
At home, in Russia, he had known that their family owned some two dozen
peasant households, that those peasants belonged to his father. The house in
which the Matveyevs lived was much like a peasant's hut, while the family's
food differed from that of their peasants only in that there was more of it.
However, the lighting in the Matveyev home came not from splinters but from
tallow candles, which, true, his frugal mother insisted on using sparingly.
The Matveyevs occupied the best pews in the tiny church, and Father
Pafnuty never missed an opportunity to sing the praises of the Matveyev
family in his prayers.
Tallow candles and prayers did not, of course, matter so much as having
a familiar, stable way of life. Father owned the peasants. The peasants
ploughed, planted, reaped and threshed the grain, and then brought it to the
barn of their owner. Thus it had been for centuries, and thus it would
always 'be. There had always been masters and there had always been slaves.
But now, in a foreign land, Fedor was himself a slave. Not a slave like
the servants of Lal Chandra, true, but still a slave. When Ram Das openly
urged him to take the side of the Sikhs, Fedor was thrown into the greatest
confusion.
He recalled his father's stories about the peasant uprising under
Stepan Razin, which had so terrified the big landowners. Now Indian peasants
were planning the same thing against their masters and, besides, against
their gods. How could a man who belonged to the nobility think of making
friends with rebels?
For that matter, Ram Das was a fine one, pretending to be a humble
slave! He was, Fedor guessed, practically the leader of these Sikhs.
The Sikhs had placed their trust in him. They had told him that an
uprising was planned for the day the Brahmans arranged a festival to
celebrate restoration of the temple of the goddess Kali. The \Sikhs had told
him that he must help them.
But how could he bring himself to help rebels?
Besides, what if they were lying when they said that as soon as he
finished his work on the water-wheel he would be killed? What if they were
simply trying to frighten him?
Should he go to Lal Chandra and tell him the whole story? No, he
couldn't do that either.
There was no one to advise him.
Fedor's soul was in turmoil.
IN WHICH FEDOR MATVEYEV IS PRESENTED WITH A KNIFE
Jogindar Singh asked Fedor to come to the smithy with him.
"Kartar Sarabha wants to make you a gift," he said.
Thickly-bearded Kartar Sarabha, the blacksmith, smiled broadly. "You
have taught me many useful things that I did not know. In gratitude I want
to make you a present of a knife. A man should not go about unarmed. I'll
work while you look on."
This, Fedor realized, was a sign of great trust in him, a foreigner.
Craft secrets were being shown to him.
The blacksmith picked up a bunch of short wires and sorted them,
bending and unbending each one. Fedor noticed that some were made of soft
iron and others of firm steel. The steel wires were hard to bend.
After making his selection and tightly tying the ends together, Sarabha
heated the middle of the bunch in the forge and tied it neatly into a knot.
Then he heated it again and began to hammer it with rapid but careful blows.
The wires were welded together into a bar.
After a few more heatings the blacksmith began to pound with all his
might.
"Come tomorrow before dinner. We'll finish it," he said, tossing his
tongs into a trough of water.
The next day Fedor was presented with a blade that had been polished
and fitted into a handsome ivory handle. Examining the knife, he gave an
exclamation of surprise. Smoky ornamentation with wavy lines ran the length
of the bluish-grey steel blade. This was Indian damask steel, famous for its
hardness and elasticity.
Fedor found himself drawn more and more often to the tents of the
Sikhs. He liked these plain, stern men with whom he could talk frankly. Most
of all, he was drawn to Bharati, the daughter of the grey-bearded carpenter.
Bharati giggled when Fedor tried to converse with her in a hodgepodge of
languages. She was merry and bubbled with life, unlike the people around
her.
On stifling evenings Fedor and Bharati sat by the side of the pool,
dangling their bare feet in the cool water. Fedor would absentmindedly
launch into a long story in Russian. The girl listened intently, her dark
head bent and her big eyes glowing.
He told her about his distant homeland with its forests and snow, and
rivers whose waters turned white and hard as stone in winter. He talked of
great ships with tall masts and white sails taut in the wind, and the
thunder of the cannon at Hango-Udd. Of the green meadows in spring, and the
song of larks high in the blue sky.
Did Bharati understand him? Probably she did, for it was not the words
that mattered.
From time to time she gave Fedor a sidelong glance. In the starlight
his face with its turned-up nose, his fair hair tossed back, and his brown
beard, soft and curly, made him look, in her eyes, like a god of the North.
She knew that in daylight his eyes were as blue as the water in the ocean.
When Fedor caught himself speaking Russian he fell silent in confusion,
then shifted to his usual gibberish. Bharati laughed, splashing her brown
legs in the pool, but then she would suddenly stop splashing and sit in
silence for a long time. Or else she would start telling Fedor, in her West
Punjab dialect, about her life, about the travels with her father, about the
winter monsoons that blow from the land and the summer monsoons that blow
from the ocean and bring rain, about the hot deserts and the swampy jungles.
As Fedor listened to the half-understood words pronounced in a
high-pitched, flute-like voice, he gazed at the girl's dark, elongated eyes,
the black braids hanging over her shoulder, and her strong, slender arms.
Now Fedor got down to designing the big lightning machine that would be
placed in the temple of Kali. He still knew nothing about the terrible force
that had thrown him to the ground that day. He remembered that jolt as a
combination of the cold bronze hips of the goddess Kali, the crackle of blue
lightning, the smell of a thunderstorm, and the sensation that his body was
being pierced by thousands of needles. The instant of pain was followed by a
strange shivering and a metallic taste in his mouth.
Fedor understood that neither the six-armed Kali nor any other deity
had anything to do with shafts and gears. It was just that the Brahman knew
something which others did not know.
The mysterious force, as Fedor now realized, was produced by the
revolving of the disc, and it could travel anywhere along metal. Lal Chandra
knew how to accumulate that force in metal vessels filled with a liquid; the
bronze statue of Kali was hollow and filled with the same liquid.
Fedor was dying to learn the Brahman's secret and carry it home to
Russia with him. He did not yet know how to discover the secret, or how to
escape afterwards, but he was already wondering how he could get to see the
tsar and tell him about the supernatural force.
Sometimes Lal Chandra burned spices and gums in a bowl standing on a
tripod, from which came odorous smoke, while Fedor helped him to move the
bronze spheres of the machine together and apart. Different spices produced
different kinds of lightning, from very weak flashes to streaks that leaped
across a wide gap between the two spheres.
The smell of the burning spices and gums reminded Fedor of incense and
church, there was something godly about it. But sometimes there was such a
stench that even intrepid Lal Chandra covered his nose, extinguished the
fire in the bowl, and aired the premises. Such a stench could not,
naturally, be associated with divine guidance.
Fedor realized more and more clearly that Ram Das was right and that
Lal Chandra was contemplating some evil deed. He was not calling forth
lightning for the sake of science, or burning his infernal spices merely to
glorify his many-armed idols.
One day the corpse of a middle-aged man, thin hut well-built, was
brought into the laboratory on a stretcher. A table with a heavy black
marble top was placed beside the lightning machine. Two thick, flexible
cables woven of bronze wires were attached to the bronze spheres. Bands of
thin silk soaked in a resin of some kind were wound round the cables.
Needle-sharp silver tips were soldered into the free ends of the silk bands.
At a sign from Lal Chandra the servants placed the naked corpse on the
marble top of the table and silently vanished.
Lal Chandra threw a pinch of spice into the smoking bowl on the tripod.
Greenish clouds of smoke filled the room with a pungent odour.
Next the Brahman picked up one of the cables.
"Take the other but be careful not to touch the tip," he told Fedor.
The disc of the lightning machine revolved faster and faster. The gold
plates merged into a glowing arc. The room was filled with a monotonous
humming.
Fedor held the cable with both hands, the sharp-pointed end sticking
out like a spearhead. Lal Chandra slowly moved his sharp end of the cable
towards Fedor.
There was a crackle as a blinding streak of blue lightning leaped
between the two ends. A spectral light illuminated the clouds of green
smoke. Fedor stood perfectly still. He was accustomed to flashes of
lightning. Lal Chandra swept the end he was holding to one side, and the
lightning, with a final crackle, ceased. Still holding the cable, he went
over to the marbletopped table and pulled off the cloth covering the face of
the dead man.
Fedor gave a start of horror. The face was a terrifying bluish-white.
The tip of the tongue protruded between convulsively twisted lips. The
wide-open glassy eyes held an expression of terror. Round the neck ran a
blue furrow- the clear mark of a woven noose.
Fedor at once remembered the Sikh stories of the abominable sect of
thugs. Their "sacred" nooses hidden beneath their robes, members of the sect
roamed the highways and the city streets in the evening, lying in wait for
victims. Holding the noose by the ends in both hands, the thug crept up from
behind, threw the noose round the neck of a lone passer-by, twisted it into
a knot in a quick movement and, thrusting a knee into the victim's back,
pulled the noose tight.
This was done to propitiate the wrathful goddess Kali.
Fedor had also learned from the Sikhs that such thugs had never
appeared in the Punjab, where the cult of the terrible Kali was not held in
esteem.
Lal Chandra's domain lay far from any community, and the servants did
not leave the grounds of the mansion. This meant that the man, one of Lal
Chandra's slaves-Fedor recognized him in spite of his distorted features-was
not the accidental victim of a fanatic. He had been strangled on the
grounds, inside the high wall, for some transgression, or simply because Lal
Chandra needed a corpse.
A terrifying thought struck Fedor. Lal Chandra was not concealing
anything from him, did not hesitate to show him a man whom he had seen alive
the day before and who had been strangled in such a fashion.
This could only mean that Lal Chandra considered Fedor as good as dead.
When the job was finished Fedor would be strangled just as efficiently as
this poor creature had been. For an instant Fedor thought he could feel the
noose round his neck. He swallowed convulsively. Without thinking, he took a
step towards Lal Chandra.
The Brahman glanced at him in alarm. The silent duel lasted for no more
than a second. Then Fedor pulled himself together, turned and asked in a
toneless voice what he was to do next.
Lal Chandra calmly approached the corpse and plunged the sharp tip into
the brown shoulder.
"Stick your tip into his foot," he ordered.
"I ought to stick it into you," went through
Fedor's mind. "But where would that get me? There are probably thugs in
the next room. Never mind, your turn will come."
Fedor silently pushed the tip of the cable into the dead man's foot-and
leaped aside with a cry. The man's leg had jerked, bent at the knee and then
jerked forward as though it was about to kick Fedor.
Lal Chandra's laughter rang out beneath the vaulted ceiling of the
laboratory.
"Scared, Russian warrior?" he asked mockingly. "Don't be afraid. He
cannot harm you."
Fedor took a deep breath. He gave the Brahman a challenging look and
said: "I am a man of war accustomed to dealing with living adversaries." He
added in Russian: "May the dogs sniff at you, you murderer!"
Later, Fedor found an opportunity to tell Jogindar Singh about the
horrifying experiment.
"That means he is gathering thugs," said the elderly carpenter. "Well,
thugs are mortal. When the time comes we'll see whether the goddess Kali is
pleased by the death of her priests."
WHICH ACQUAINTS THE READER WITH
NEWCOMERS IN LAL CHANDRA'S HOUSE
A long caravan passed through the iron gate leading out of Lal
Chandra's garden. In front went eight elephants loaded with the wooden and
metal parts of the water-wheel and the big lightning machine. After the
elephants came several two-horse carts carrying the workmen. Fedor, Jogindar
Singh and Bharati rode in the first cart. Far behind rolled carts drawn by
longhorn oxen, carrying materials that would not be needed at once. The slow
oxen would reach the temple only on the third day. The elephants and the
horse-drawn carts would arrive there in about twenty hours.
The caravan crossed rivers and small streams that were beginning to dry
up. Each time the elephants entered a stream they behaved the way elephants
always do, sucking up water with their trunks and then spraying it over
their heads and backs.
"What wonderful animals!" Fedor exclaimed. "So clever and so
industrious."
"Aren't there elephants in your country?" Bharati asked.
"No," said Fedor, suppressing a sigh. "They're fine animals but I'd
willingly never see another elephant again if only I could return home."
Jogindar Singh glanced at Fedor, noting the sad expression on his face.
"Is there anyone waiting for you at home?"
"Yes, of course. My mother, my father and my sister."
"No wife or children?"
Fedor gave a wry smile. "When you're in the navy you don't have much
time to build a nest of your own."
"Father," said Bharati, "the foreigner is weary from the long journey,
yet you plague him with questions."
Fedor stretched out a hand and gently touched the girl's shoulder. With
a graceful movement she freed her shoulder from his hand.
The cart shook as it rumbled across the stony, practically dry, bed of
one of the numerous tributaries of the Ravi. On the other side they halted,
unharnessed the horses, and settled down to rest in the shade of a large
tree.
The carpenter built a fire and Bharati began to prepare their evening
meal. It was still so light that the flames looked pale.
Fedor picked up a dry stick and started to whittle it.
"If you have courage you can escape from here," the old man said all of
a sudden in a low voice.
"Escape?"
Jogindar Singh squeezed Fedor's arm above the elbow.
"Speak softly. There are many alien ears here. Listen carefully. The
river on which the Kali temple stands flows into the Indus. If you sail down
the Indus for ten days you will reach the sea."
"The sea?" Fedor whispered.
"Just before it enters the sea the Indus divides into many arms," the
carpenter went on. "If you follow the northernmost arm you will reach the
sea near the village of Karachi. But if you take the southernmost arm and
then sail along the coast to the southeast you will come to the Island of
Diu. The Portuguese seized it long ago and have built a fortress there. Do
you know the Portuguese?"
Fedor rubbed his brow with his hand, straining his memory to recall the
Portuguese maps he had seen in France when he was studying navigation there.
"But Diu is somewhere far to the south. About 500 sea miles from
Karachi."
"I do not know how to measure that distance," said Singh, "but it is no
longer than the voyage down the Indus. Look." He took the stick Fedor had
been whittling and sketched, in the sand, a plan of the route along the
coastline.
Fedor sprang to his feet and walked around the campfire. The sea! He
could hear the hurricane wind roaring in his ears and see the blue expanses
shining in the sun. The sea! Only the sea route could bring him home.
Suddenly he remembered where he was. He sat down and picked up the
stick again. As he whittled he said, his voice discouraged, "Thank you for
your kind advice. But I cannot go to sea in a nutshell."
"Listen further." Singh moved closer to him. "Draw me the plans and
I'll build you just the kind of boat you want," he whispered. "There will be
a great deal of work going on at the Kali temple, and I'll be able to
deceive Lal Chandra's men. They won't notice anything." The old carpenter
fell silent. Then he said, "But before you make your escape you must tell us
everything you know about the miracles Lal Chandra is preparing."
Soon after, the caravan set out again. Jogindar Singh fell asleep
inside the cart. Fedor sat on the box in front, gazing thoughtfully at the
road, white in the moonlight, which stretched ahead. He could see only one
thing before his eyes- a sturdily built boat with low sails. It must have a
sliding keel, like those on Turkmen feluccas. Then no squall could overturn
the boat. Oh Lord, could freedom really be so near?
Suddenly he heard soft weeping. He turned round to look into the dark
depths of the cart, which was covered with linen cloth. It was Bharati!
Fedor felt ashamed of himself. There he was, rejoicing like a child and
forgetting all about her!
He stroked her hair and patted her shoulder in the darkness.
"Darling," he whispered. "Did you think I would go anywhere without
you? Don't be afraid. Your seas are warm, and I'm a good sailor. I'll take
care of you. We'll make our way to Russia. Then everything will be fine."
The girl gave a sob and raised her tear-stained face.
"How can I leave Father?" she whispered.
"Why, we'll take him along too! When the time comes we'll tell him
everything. He'll understand."
Bharati shook her head sorrowfully. "No, he won't go anywhere. He won't
leave his people. And I can't leave him."
Fedor fell silent, overwhelmed by despair.
The caravan reached the temple at dawn. Fedor sprang down to the ground
at once. He felt light-headed from lack of sleep and his thoughts were
confused and disconnected.
From dawn to dusk sweat poured from the slaves of Lal Chandra and from
the Sikh artisans as they laboured beneath the merciless sun. They drove
piles for a dam into the bed of the dried-up stream just above the
waterfall, and hacked through the rocky bank so that the water behind the
dam could reach the chute. In the hollow leading to the temple they set up
thick logs to support the chute. They made a frame for the water-wheel.
Fedor was so busy from morning to night that he hardly ever saw
Bharati. He had no chance to talk with her father except about the dam or
the chute, for Lal Chandra's overseers were always close by.
"Will Jogindar Singh be able to handle the job without you if we return
to the house for a few days?" Lal Chandra asked Fedor one evening. "Yes, of
course."
"I want you to talk to him tomorrow morning and tell him what to do.
Give him and his men an assignment for each day. I want you to be prepared
to leave tomorrow evening, as soon as the heat abates."
The next morning Fedor handed Jogindar Singh several drawings and took
him aside to explain what they were about. They seated themselves on planks
laid across the posts which would support the chute. There was no one
nearby. As they examined the drawings Fedor discarded one of them. The
carpenter took the crumpled sheet from him and smoothed it out on his knee.
It was a drawing Fedor had made during a sleepless, lonely night, a sketch
of a sailboat with a sliding keel.
"This sketch is all to no purpose," Fedor muttered gloomily. "I don't
need a boat at all because I love your daughter and she cannot leave you at
such a time." Jogindar Singh closed his eyes. "We'll do everything we can to
save you before the festival," he said finally, after a long silence. "But
anything could happen-"
Many changes had taken place in Lal Chandra's mansion. Here, there and
everywhere Fedor saw strangers who spoke dialects he could not understand.
These were itinerant fakirs. They showed one another the miracles they were
preparing to perform at the festival in honour of the renovated temple. They
completely ignored Fedor and he was able to see what was behind their
miracles.
One morning three men with heavy sacks appeared at the gate and asked
to see Lal Chandra. They were ragged and emaciated, with long hair and
matted beards, their dark-skinned bodies were covered with scratches and
bruises.
Ram Das learned afterwards that they were just back from the Himalayas.
Lal Chandra sent them there at a time when the stars were propitious to lay
large cakes of rare, precious resins on top of the highest snowy peaks in
order to bring the resins closer to the stars. They had spent some time
there in the mountains- suffering from the intense cold, living on scanty
rations, and trembling in fear of the mountain spirits. Of the seven whom
Lal Chandra had sent, four perished in the fissures of glaciers or fell over
precipices. This was all that Ram Das was able to learn. He predicted that
no one would ever again see the three men who had returned with the resins.
Soon after, a tall, portly Brahman in white robes appeared in the
mansion. Lal Chandra treated him with great deference. On the morning of the
Brahman's arrival Lal Chandra sent Fedor away for the whole day.
Fedor had a great many things to keep him busy. On Lal Chandra's orders
he stretched the plaited copper cables covered with resin-impregnated silk
from the lightning machine into the garden, to the pool at whose edge he and
Bharati used to sit in the evenings.
Posts which had been soaked in oil were set up on both sides of the
pool. Copper bars attached to the posts were lowered into the water. At the
ends of the bars there were highly polished concave copper mirrors that
faced one another in the water.
An enormous, tower-like barrel, fourteen feet in diameter and a good
thirty-five feet high, made of sheets of copper, stood beside the pool.
Fedor had drawn the plans of the barrel only a short while before, at the
Kali temple, and he was amazed to see it completed when he returned to Lal
Chandra's house. For two days in a row men had scooped water out of the
pool, had climbed up to a platform on top of the copper barrel, and had
poured more than 10 000 pails of water into it. Then Lal Chandra himself had
climbed to the top of the barrel and sprinkled several bags of spices and
gums into the water.
A thick copper chain hung from the platform into the water. Similar
copper cables covered with silk connected the barrel and the chain with
clips at the pool.
Fedor knew that the force produced by the lightning machine could pass
anywhere along metal, but not through silk and wood soaked in oil.
He also knew that this force was strongly drawn to the ground, from
which all metal parts had to be kept away.
Lal Chandra and Fedor carefully examined all the connections.
"Strike the gong to set the machine in motion," Lal Chandra said in his
gentle voice.
The imposing Brahman strolled towards the pool. Lal Chandra
deferentially explained something to him in a language Fedor did not
understand. They both kept their eyes on the surface of the pool.
Near one of the bars the water bubbled and boiled as though it were
being heated by invisible fires. At the other bar the water was far less
turbulent but a faint, strange-smelling mist was rising from it.
Lal Chandra picked up the free end of a wire and, holding it at arm's
length, brought it up to the bar where the water was bubbling.
There was a crackle, a flash of lightning, and a great pillar of fire
shot out of the water.
Fedor leaped aside; he stared flabbergasted at the bright pillar of
flame. The flame shrank in size but it remained as bright as ever. If anyone
had told Fedor that water could burn he would not have believed it. Yet now-
"Break the path of the mysterious force," Lal Chandra commanded.
One of the cables ran through a wooden frame to which a copper bar was
attached at one end by a hinge, while the other rested on a copper plate.
Fedor tugged at a silk cord, and the bar rose. Lightning streaked
between the bar and the plate for an instant.
The water near the bar immediately stopped bubbling and the flame died
down.
"Now open the path to the force," Lal Chandra said.
Fedor released the cord. The copper bar dropped to the plate. Again the
water bubbled and seethed, but there was no flame.
Lal Chandra picked up a clay pitcher of fragrant oil and, tipping it
cautiously, poured some oil into the water above the mirror attached to the
bar.
The oil instantly flowed through the water to the other side of the
pool. They could see the oil forming a ball as it stopped above the opposite
mirror.
With Fedor's help Lal Chandra lifted a huge pitcher containing at least
three pails of the same fragrant reddish oil and poured it into the pool.
Instead of spreading across the surface the oil sank into the water and
flowed in a long stream to the opposite mirror. A fairly large-sized ball of
oil had now formed there.
Lal Chandra picked up a ladle with a long handle and dipped out the
oil. The mysterious force did not strike him.
Fedor was so impressed by everything he had seen that he could not get
it out of his mind. That night he lay awake a long time. "I must get to the
bottom of it, no matter what," he resolved.
IN WHICH FEDOR MATVEYEV TRIES TO KILL THE BRAHMAN
Fedor lay in bed with open eyes, unable to fall asleep. Scenes from the
past went through his mind. How fed up he was with this foreign land! How he
wished he were home!
More than five years had passed since Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky's
detachment met its doom. He had been in the service of Lal Chandra for
nearly five long years.
"I'll probably be granted a good long furlough if I ask for it as a
reward for what I've gone through," he reflected. "Then I can have a holiday
at home. Mother and Father probably think I am dead. Father Pafnuty must
have conducted a funeral service."
Sleep was out of the question. Fedor rose from his bed. In a loin-cloth
and a thin shirt he stepped across the windowsill to a covered gallery that
ran round the inner courtyard. There it was somewhat cooler than in his
room. Fedor leaned against the railing and again gave himself up to thought.
Suddenly he heard voices. He pricked up his ears and listened. They
were speaking a language he did not know, the language in which Lal Chandra
talked to the fakirs. He recognized Lal Chandra's gentle voice. Sometimes it
was interrupted by an imperious, sharp, threatening voice. Fedor realized it
was the voice of the Brahman who had been present during the experiment with
water, fire and oil. He must be an important person.
The third voice was unfamiliar. It spoke more rarely than the other two
and repeated the same phrase, in the same tone, in reply to everything the
Brahman said.
The voices were coming from a window on the upper storey of an
intricate tower that rose above the central hall in which the altar to Kali
stood.
The tower was a square, ledged pyramid covered with sculptured figures
of elephants, horses and many-armed gods. Fedor had always thought the tower
was purely ornamental since there was no way of entering it from the house.
But now, in the middle of the night, a faint light glowed in the window and
it was from there that the voices came.
Something urged Fedor to act. He slipped back over the windowsill into
his room, took his knife from its hiding place in the bedding, and tucked it
inside his loin-cloth. Then he returned to the gallery, scrambled up a post
to its flat roof, and from there made his way to the roof of the house.
As he approached the tower Fedor realized that the window with the
light in it was all of forty feet from the roof. Well, in for a penny, in
for a pound! Clinging to the high-reliefs of gods and sacred animals, Fedor
clambered upwards from ledge to ledge. It was a moonless night, and he
thought it unlikely anyone would notice his white-shirted figure against the
white masonry of the tower.
Clasping the stone body of a deity, Fedor cautiously peered through the
window.
An oil lamp illuminated a round room. The floor was covered with rugs
on which bright cushions were scattered.
An imposing-looking old man was seated on cushions in front of a low
table covered with papers and rolls of parchment. His thin, deeply wrinkled
face, framed in long grey hair, was impassive.
In front of the old man, their backs to Fedor, stood Lal Chandra and
the distinguished Brahman. Lal Chandra was now shouting in a high-pitched,
venomous voice. The elderly Brahman's voice was also savage. But the old man
kept calmly repeating the same words.
Fedor glanced about the room with curiosity. The shelves along the
walls and the tables were covered with glassware and instruments, and a
small lightning machine stood in the corner.
So this was where Lal Chandra got his ideas, thought Fedor. He did not
invent his "miracles" himself but took the ideas for them from this old man
whom he kept locked up and whom he forced to create all those mysteries for
his own purposes.
Now the two Brahmans were evidently trying to force the old man to tell
them something.
Suddenly the old man rose to his feet. Tall and thin, he looked at the
two Brahmans scornfully from beneath thick grey eyebrows. He began to speak,
slowly and calmly. Judging by their expressions, Lal Chandra and his
distinguished companion found his words unpleasant.
As the old man moved, Fedor saw something glitter behind his back.
Looking more closely, he saw a thin chain leading from the man's belt to a
ring attached to the wall.
A feeling of pity mingled with anger swept over Fedor. How he wanted to
spring into the room and throw himself on those two torturers. His hand
involuntarily sought his knife.
"I'll strike that aristocratic viper first," he thought. "Then I'll
settle with Lal Chandra, may the dogs sniff at his corpse. But what next?
With all those menials everywhere I won't be able to get out of the house.
There are probably guards inside the tower too."
The aristocratic Brahman said something to Lal Chandra in a low voice.
Lal Chandra bowed and went out through a small door under the vaulted
ceiling. A second later a tall fakir with a caste mark on his forehead
entered. Placing the palms of his hands together, he bowed to the Brahman.
Then he went up behind the old man and, taking a thin cord out of his robe,
wound it round the neck of his victim, carefully passing it under the old
man's grey beard. He twisted the ends of the cord round his hands, raised
his right leg, and thrust his knee into the old man's back.
Fedor saw red. Without thinking, he sprang onto the windowsill. Another
leap, and he was in the room. He landed a powerful uppercut to the bearded
chin of the executioner.
The blow flung the fakir against the wall, where he crumpled into a
motionless heap.
Fedor turned to the Brahman and, snatching out his knife, stabbed him
in the chest.
Both the knife and Fedor's hand passed through the Brahman's chest as
if it were thin air. Fedor fell forward, and his body also passed freely
through the body of the Brahman. All he felt was a faint warm wave of air.
The Brahman was incorporeal!
"Ah-h-h!" Fedor screamed in horror. "Begone, demon!"
The Brahman dashed to the thick, iron-bound wooden door. Without
opening the door he passed straight through it and vanished.
"Rise, young man. Time is precious," said the old man in Hindi. "Do you
understand me?"
Fedor, who was still sitting on the floor, looked about wildly. He was
shaking. He brought his trembling hand to his forehead and quickly crossed
himself.
"Rise," the old man repeated imperiously. "Rise and bar the door."
Fedor obeyed, muttering "Begone, demon! Begone, demon!" under his
breath.
"Now hand me that vessel."
Like a sleepwalker, Fedor moved over to a shelf, took down a vessel of
red glass, and handed it to the old man.
The old man folded the middle section of the chain in two and dipped it
into the vessel, from which acrid smoke arose.
"By killing the high priest you will confer a great blessing on the
people. But you cannot do it with an ordinary knife. If we are not
interrupted you will understand. I shall make your knife suitable for that
purpose."
The old man lifted the chain out of the vessel and examined the links ,
which had grown quite thin. He tore the chain apart. Then, dragging the end
of the chain behind him, he hurried over to the lightning machine. He picked
up the ends of wires leading from the machine and connected them to several
copper vessels. Next he quickly re-arranged some silver rings round which
wires had been wound.
"Quick, your knife!"
Fedor stood staring at the machine with unseeing eyes. The old man
seized him by the collar of his shirt and shook him energetically.
"Wake up! Wake up! Do you understand me?"
Fedor nodded weakly.
"Give me the knife! Now turn the handle!"
Fedor turned the handle, producing a shower of blue sparks. The old man
thrust the blade of the knife into one of the rings. A faint aureole shone
round the knife.
"Turn faster!"
The aureole grew brighter, then suddenly died out.
"That's enough! Now grasp the knife by the blade."
Fedor saw his fingers pass through the blade as though it were made of
air. With a cry, he drew back his hand and stumbled towards the window.
"I was told you were a warrior but I see you are a cowardly old woman!"
the old man cried furiously. This brought Fedor to his senses.
Hesitatingly, he picked up the knife by the handle. It was an ordinary
handle, solid all the way through. He touched the tip of the blade with the
palm of his hand. His palm passed through it and reached the handle.
"The blade can now injure no one except the high priest," said the old
man. "But for him it means death."
Voices came from below. Looking out, Fedor saw that the yard was filled
with men carrying torches.
"Now listen to me," said the old man. "As long as I preserve my secret
my life is safe. No matter how hostile they are they will not harm me, for
my death would be more terrible to the high priest than his own death. This
is not the first time they have tried to frighten me by pretending to
strangle me. You have nothing to fear either until they carry out their
plans. They need you to build things for them."
Footsteps and voices were heard outside the door.
"Remember that only this knife can strike down the high priest," the
old man whispered rapidly. "Now it is still too early. But you will slay him
when the time is ripe. Hide the knife outside the window. I'll find a way of
getting it to you. Do you understand me?"
"Yes."
Fedor thrust his head and shoulders out of the window and slipped the
knife into a hollow in the stone carving. The old man also thrust out his
head, felt for the knife with his hand, and gave a satisfied nod. Then he
returned to his place and seated himself on his cushion, concealing the
broken chain.
All of a sudden the high priest entered the room through the barred
door. He gave Fedor an icy glance.
"When you raised your hand against me, foreigner, you did not know what
you were doing", he said. "Therefore, I forgive you. Only by complete
obedience can you atone. Now, unbolt the door!"
Fedor stared at him in terror. Fighting down his fear, he went to the
door and pushed aside the bolt.
Lal Chandra entered, followed by servants carrying torches. At a sign
from their master two of them lifted the motionless body of the fakir and
carried him out.
"You do not know our customs, young man," Lal Chandra said in an even
voice. "It was your Karma that brought you here. I advise you not to meddle
in our concerns, which are beyond your comprehension."
Thus ended a night that had been a nightmare. But it had an
unexpectedly happy ending for Fedor.
The next day Lal Chandra took Fedor back to the temple of Kali.
IN WHICH LAL CHANDRA SAYS TO FEDOR THAT HE IS NOT NEEDED ANY MORE
The summer heat began to abate. Monsoonal winds from the ocean piled up
dark rain clouds. The first rains fell in the mountains.
Lal Chandra went about with a worried expression on his face. He drove
the builders to exert themselves to the maximum. Time was running out. The
stream would start to rise any day now.
The dam, flood-gate and chute were ready.
So was the water-wheel. Long wooden shafts now ran from it through an
opening in the temple wall into a room just off the main hall. Attached to
each shaft were ten wooden discs, each fourteen feet in diameter, covered
with a smooth, shiny coat of a rare resin.
On either side of the discs were gold-leaf plates across which swept
brushes of fine gold thread.
Not far from the machine stood twelve enormous copper vats. All this
was connected by an intricate system of copper cables wrapped in
oil-saturated cloth. Copper bars with ebony handles had been inserted into
the cables at intervals. They were used to help switch the mysterious force
to wherever it was wanted.
In the main hall of the temple there was a sunken pool in front of the
statue of Kali. The copper cables connected with the concave mirrors were
hidden in the water of the pool.
Day by day the stream rose. Barred by the dam, it filled the rocky
gorge and raced over the open spillway with a roar.
After that memorable night two sturdy fakirs openly followed Fedor
wherever he went. At night they slept outside the door of his room in the
temple. It was utterly hopeless to try to tell Jogindar Singh about the
incorporeal Brahman, for the fakirs brazenly squatted beside them and
listened to everything they said.
Could the incorporeal man have been just a nightmare? Again and again
Fedor recalled how the knife in his hand had gone through that wraith. Fedor
was not a coward. He had gone into battle time and again without flinching.
But he felt helpless when it came to mysterious forces.
Fedor also recalled the old man in the tower and the knife he had
turned into air before Fedor's eyes. Fedor tried to remember how it had
happened. While he was turning the lightning machine the old man had thrust
the knife into some twisted wires. The lightning machine was somewhat
different from Lal Chandra's. Fedor vaguely recalled that the old man had
said the high priest could not get along without him. Did that mean the old
man was the one who had made the high priest incorporeal?
He also recalled the terrified face of the incorporeal high priest when
he, Fedor, had rushed at him with the knife. Why should he have been
terrified? Perhaps he had not been incorporeal long and was not yet used to
it.
Fedor's head was in a whirl. He simply had to tell the Sikhs about the
miracle. Ram Das was the one to tell it to. But Lal Chandra had sent Ram Das
off on an errand.
He never should have listened to the old man. Instead of hiding the
magic knife he should have plunged it into that incorporeal high priest and
been done with it.
Fedor was sitting alone in his room late one evening when he suddenly
heard a deep roar outside. He dashed out of the room. His guards, sleeping
beside the door, sprang to their feet and ran after him.
The roar was coming from the chute. Fedor realized that the water gate
had been raised and water was now rushing towards the wheel. He ran into the
main room of the temple. In the darkness he easily found the narrow door
behind the six-armed goddess and stepped into the secret room where the
lightning machine stood. He saw what he had expected to see. The discs were
whirling at a tremendous rate, making a soft, swishing sound. The gold
plates had merged into circles; they reflected the reddish light of the oil
lamps. The air in the room was filled with the freshness that accompanies a
thunderstorm.
Six men, none of whom Fedor had ever seen before, were tinkering with
the machine. Lal Chandra stood to one side watching. He had not heard Fedor
enter.
A sense of deep injury engulfed Fedor. He had put so much hard work
into building the machine! He had invented so many things connected with it!
Yet they had not even called him to watch the trial run.
Forgetting everything except his resentment, Fedor tugged at Lal
Chandra's wide sleeve.
Lal Chandra started in fright.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, turning round to face Fedor.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Fedor shouted.
"You are not needed any more." Lal Chandra's voice was no longer
gentle.
Fedor seized the Brahman by the collar and shook him.
"I'm not your slave! I'm a lieutenant in the Russian Navy!" he shouted
angrily. He spoke in Russian, as he always did when excited. "I'll shake the
wits out of you."
Lal Chandra screamed hoarsely. The men turned round, dropped what they
were doing, and flung themselves on Fedor. Fedor fought back furiously. The
Indians were unfamiliar with fist fighting, and he knocked them down one
after another. But they immediately rose to their feet and attacked him
again.
Lal Chandra bent down and scuttled through the low door. Fedor tore
himself away from the clinging hands of his attackers and dashed after him.
Lal Chandra ran back and forth, hampered by his long robe. For a moment the
two men raced round the grim goddess like children, changing their direction
all the time.
Men carrying torches appeared, and half a dozen of them fell on Fedor.
But he tore loose once more and, making a leap, caught Lal Chandra by the
sleeve. With the deepest satisfaction he drew back his arm and smashed his
fist into Lal Chandra's cheekbone. The Brahman fell backwards into the pool.
The last thing Fedor remembered was the sensation of being strangled.
When he recovered consciousness he was lying in his room. His head rang and
his arms ached. He went to the door and gave a pull. It was locked from the
outside.
Fedor saw no hope of ever being set free.
Twice a day he was brought a bowl of meagre fare. Lal Chandra's men
kept a close watch over him.
One evening he was sitting on the floor of his vaulted room, beside a
low table, going over his notes by the light of an oil lamp. He had started
a diary long ago, while on the way to India. But what was the use of these
notes now? His eyes wandered sadly around the dusk-filled room. He would
never be able to escape from here.
He closed his eyes and let his head drop into his hands.
A pebble suddenly fell on the floor. Fedor gave a start and jumped to
his feet. A faint rustling came from somewhere above his head. Lifting his
eyes, he saw a swarthy bare arm thrust through the ventilation opening.
"It's starting," he thought in alarm. "They'll let snakes down through
holes or sprinkle poison on me."
"Fedor," a voice softly called. Fedor's heart lightened as he
recognized the voice of Ram Das. How had he made his way through such a
narrow passage? He must have removed some bricks.
"Let me hear your voice," said Ram Das from behind the wall.
"It's me, all right. Who else could it be? Listen to what I have to
say, Ram Das." Fedor quickly told him what had taken place in the tower.
"Did you say the Brahman is incorporeal?" Ram Das interrupted him. "Did
you say he can pass through solid walls?"
"Yes."
"You saw it with your own eyes?"
"Yes."
"Are their gods really so powerful?" There was a note of fear in Ram
Das's voice.
"All is lost," thought Fedor in despair. "The Sikhs were my only hope.
When they see this miracle at the festival they'll give up all resistance."
"Listen, Ram Das, but that's not all." Fedor hurriedly related how the
old man had given the blade of his knife the property of penetrability.
"Can the incorporeal Brahman really be slain with that knife?" came Ram
Das's hollow-sounding voice.
"Yes, yes, he can! The knife is hidden in a crack in the wall outside
the old man's window. Be sure to get it, Ram Das."
"The old man is kept under such heavy guard that it's hard to break
through to him. But I'll do whatever I can to help you. You must be
prepared. Goodbye. I must go now."
WHICH TELLS OF THE END OF THE INCORPOREAL BRAHMAN
The roads were thronged. From Gujarat and Rajputana in the south, from
the foothills of the mountain ranges in the north, and from Lahore and Delhi
in the east crowds of people converged on the river Sutlej, a tributary of
the Indus, where the miracle had taken place.
In the land where lived the apostate Sikhs, who had rejected the gods
of the Brahmans, these gods had decided to remind men of their existence.
The goddess of love and death, the awe-inspiring Kali, was displaying
mysterious powers in a long-abandoned temple.
That was what friendly men told the pilgrims at crossroads and villages
on the way. These men distributed food and pointed out the route. Closing
their eyes as though in prayer, they related that a certain pundit had
attained the highest knowledge. Although he had repudiated his body he was
still visible, and hence he was called the Mahatma Ananga, the "great soul
without flesh".
Tales were told at roadside campfires of how Mahatma Ananga, gathering
his faithful pupils about him, had begged the gods, through Kali, who had
close ties with humans, to bring accord to an earth torn by dissent.
In response, the gods had given a sign. When the body of a pupil of the
Mahatma Ananga, who had died in the cause of the highest knowledge, was
brought to the temple of Kali, the goddess had refused to accept his death.
The body of the righteous man had been lying in trepidation at the feet
of the ruler over life and death for many days. Kali refused to accept his
death.
Since the goddess kept a strict account of those who were born, coming
from their past incarnation, and those who died, passing into the next
incarnation, the return to life of the righteous man would have to be paid
for by the sacrifice of another life.
The day of the sacrifice had been appointed. On that day awe-inspiring
Kali would show one and all the power of the ancient gods.
The pilgrims arrived in large groups, keeping close together. To lag
behind was dangerous. The elusive brotherhood of Thug assassins had already
strangled several people to death in honour of their goddess.
There were crowds of people all around the temple. The hollow between
the temple and the bank of the stream was closely packed with tents and
primitive shelters.
Bright sunlight illuminated a colourful scene: white-robed men, women
in flowered veils, bronze faces and bodies, countless carts. Temple
attendants distributed an infusion of thorn apple leaves among the pilgrims,
to "free them from their sins." This was a narcotic that temporarily
deprived people of their reason and memory. They also distributed a beverage
made of poppy-seed called "the tears of oblivion". They were particularly
generous with bhang, a beverage made from the juice of the tender tops of
Indian hemp mixed with an infusion of nutmeg and cloves.
Clouds of flies hovered above the camp of the pilgrims. The odour of
fragrant spikenard mingled with the smells of food, human and animal sweat,
aromatic incense, the smoke of camp-fires, and the wormwood-like odour of
narcotics.
The pilgrims grew more and more excited. They demanded miracles.
The Sikhs, bearded and in turbans, did not take part in the religious
frenzy. They camped to one side and seemed to be waiting for something.
People scowled at them because the Sikhs were apostates. Knowing, however,
that the Sikhs did not recognize the philosophy of Ahimsa, or non-injury of
animal life, they took care to give them a wide berth.
In the evening innumerable campfires burned bright as people made their
evening ablutions and cooked food. Temple attendants distributed rice and a
powerful mixture of opium and bhang. The excitement that now swept through
the crowd was even stronger than in the daytime. To the beat of drums inside
the temple a Brahman emerged to announce that the temple was now open. A
howling crowd surged in through the doors, filling the vast hall and all the
passages. The Sikhs were the last to enter. They took up places along the
walls, none of them mingling with the crowd.
Semi-darkness reigned inside the temple. The oil lamps cast quivering
shadows on the sinister faces of the goddess, on the garland of human skulls
round her bronze neck, and on her belt, an interlacing of chopped-off hands.
The rubies in her eye-sockets glowed.
A human body lay motionless at the feet of the goddess, its outlines
vague beneath the white shroud.
Suddenly the drums fell silent. An imposing Brahman (appeared on the
small open space between the pool and the goddess. He waited until the crowd
was quiet, then said in a resounding voice:
"Brothers, do not be surprised at what your eyes will see. Keep calm,
for each has his own Karma and the gods are all-powerful. Let us praise the
great Kali. May the gods show us miracles to strengthen our faith!"
There was a faint crackle in the dead silence.
Suddenly, flames leaped up out of the bowls on the tripods around the
pedestal of the goddess. A murmur of astonishment ran through the crowd.
The Brahman pressed his hands together in prayer and turned to the
statue.
"Oh mighty one, oh black-faced one! She who tramples on the
decapitated!" he intoned. "Manifest your will, for through you the Creator,
the Preserver and the Destroyer rule us! Give us life or give us a merciful
reincarnation!"
His last words were drowned by peals of thunder. Dazzling streaks of
lightning flashed through the clouds of smoke, in the direction of the
crowd, from the pointed fingers of the terrible goddess, from the tips of
her pointed nipples, and from the ends of her long eyelashes.
The crowd was gripped by terror. Shouting and pushing, people hurried
towards the exit. But their way was barred by crackling blue flashes of
lightning that came from the bronze lances decorating the archway.
"Oh you of little faith!" intoned the Brahman. "Why are you frightened?
Did I not announce that the will of the gods would be manifested to you?"
The lightning stopped, and the crowd ceased to mill about. Silence fell
as the people timidly pressed closer to one another. Suddenly cries came
from the hall:
"Look, a dead man!"
"This man is dead too!"
"Death has entered the temple!"
Here and there in the crowded hall lay the bodies of those who had been
struck by lightning.
"Frightened, you of little faith?" the Brahman shouted. "How can flight
save you from the will of the gods? Does not death at the hands of Kali give
the chosen a better incarnation? Pray! Beg the goddess to open your eyes!"
Where space permitted in the tightly-packed crowd, people prostrated
themselves, their hands pressed together devoutly.
"Now gaze on this!" the Brahman commanded. "The Mahatma Ananga himself,
the man without flesh, will appear before you!"
The Brahman stepped to one side, his hands pressed together in front of
his face.
A sigh of wonderment swept through the temple as a man in a long white
robe came into sight straight out of the pedestal. He silently spread his
arms, blessing the pilgrims, and strode into the crowd. People separated to
let him pass, but he did not need an opening. He walked straight through the
crowd, straight through people. They realized that he was incorporeal. Some
tried to grasp the hem of his robe to kiss it but their fingers passed
through the fabric as though it were woven of air.
There were cries of awe-stricken horror beneath the vaulted ceiling of
the temple. Men fell to their knees to kiss the floor where the Incorporeal
Brahman had walked.
After passing through the amazed crowd Mahatma Ananga returned to the
Kali pedestal. With an imperious gesture he commanded silence. Then he began
to speak.
"The gods have liberated me from the flesh that oppresses man. I am
incorporeal. No human weapon can harm me. I need neither food nor drink. Yet
I am alive. My soul has not been reincarnated. This is the gift of the gods
to those who obey them implicitly. But what do you live for, you who are
wrapped up in concern for your pitiful bodies? A handful of rice is more
precious to you than Nirvana."
He talked for a long time, wrathfully condemning those who preferred
the miserable blessings of the present life to future reincarnation.
Untouchables must stop the practice of adopting Mohammedanism or
Christianity. The gods would not forgive those who failed to keep the faith.
The apostate Sikhs had not resigned themselves to their fate. They wanted to
gain possession of lands that belonged, by the will of the gods, to the
Brahmans. They must repent and return to the ancient faith before it was too
late. Otherwise the gods would punish them so sternly that no trace of them
would remain. The patience of the gods was exhausted. They were incensed.
Through him, Mahatma Ananga, they had resolved to manifest their will and
punish the recalcitrants and apostates.
While all this was going on Fedor Matveyev languished in the machine
room next door, his arms chained to rings in the wall.
The enormous discs revolved and hummed rhythmically. Lal Chandra stood
with his eye at a tiny hole in the wall, watching what was going on in the
hall. From time to time, without turning round, he said something, and his
assistants did his bidding, moving the copper bars back and forth to open
and shut the path of the mysterious force.
From the way they moved the bars Fedor could imagine what was taking
place in the temple. He could hear the roar of the crowd and the awe-struck
cries as the miracles were performed.
He himself had built these machines whose lightning would soon reduce
him to ashes. His friends, the Sikhs, were somewhere near, but what could
they do? They were lost in the frenzied crowd. Besides, they too might
succumb to the Brahmans at sight of the miracles.
Two fakirs approached Fedor, untied his bonds and, gripping him by the
arms, thrust him through the low door into the hall. He found himself facing
the Incorporeal Brahman. On the other side of the pool was a sea of heads,
malicious grimaces and hateful eyes.
"This wretched foreigner wished to deprive me of life," the Incorporeal
Brahman said disdainfully. "He did not know that only the gods can do that.
Give him a knife. Let him try once again to pierce my body."
An expectant murmur ran through the crowd. A grinning fakir stretched
out a knife to Fedor, who struck it from the man's hand. The knife clattered
as it fell on the stone paving.
"If only I had the knife the old man hid." Fedor thought. "But
evidently that is not to be. Say your last prayers, naval lieutenant."
"Remove the shroud," said the Brahman.
When the shroud was lifted, a naked corpse was revealed lying at the
bronze feet of the goddess.
Lightning streaked from the fingers of Kali.
A scream of horror rang through the hall and was then echoed and
re-echoed time and again. The corpse had come to life. It quivered and
stirred at the feet of the terrible goddess.
"Look here, one and all!" the Incorporeal Brahman shouted. "The goddess
refuses to accept the death of my finest pupil. He hovers between life and
death. The time has not yet come for his reincarnation! But if Kali is to
return him to life she must receive a sacrifice in exchange!"
Twelve attendants marched up to the pool in single file. Each carried a
pitcher on his shoulder, the thick, dark, odorous contents of which he
poured into the pool.
"We have brought you precious oil as a sacrifice," the Incorporeal
Brahman intoned, turning to the goddess. "Will you accept this bloodless
sacrifice?"
There was a sound of gurgling. The water in the pool began to boil. The
oil gathered into a dark ball, then streaked through the water to the
opposite side of the pool, throwing up a fountain. For an instant the pillar
of oil stood motionless, then it collapsed, sprinkling the crowd with
fragrant drops.
"The goddess rejects a bloodless sacrifice!" cried the Mahatma Ananga.
"She gives it to you with her blessing. She demands a human sacrifice. Those
pilgrims who were chosen by the sacred lightning have been given a happy
reincarnation. Their death was a joy to them. But this foreigner will meet a
terrible death, for he is alien to our gods and will be given the lowest
reincarnation. His soul will pass into the body of a blind worm that gnaws
away at seaside cliffs!"
The water in the pool began to seethe. A bright flame appeared on top
of it.
"See, the goddess agrees!" shouted the Incorporeal Brahman. "The water
has turned to fire! May the foreigner die without bloodshed.
Kali herself will give him death. Place him at the feet of the goddess,
beside my pupil. Let everyone see the goddess take the life of one man and
transfer it to another man!"
Fedor desperately ran his eyes across the crowd. The faces were
hostile. "This is the end, Fedor Matveyev," he said to himself. "Here come
the fakirs. Now they'll seize you-"
"Watch out, Fedor!"
Suddenly he was gripped by a feeling of grim merriment. He stared
eagerly at the back of the hall, where the light was dim.
Something flew over the heads of the crowd and fell at Fedor's feet. In
a flash he bent down, snatched up his knife by the handle, and plunged it
into the breast of the Incorporeal Brahman. He felt the cloth of the robe
resist as it tore.
A spreading patch of blood stained the white robe of the Mahatma
Ananga. He wheezed, choked and would have fallen if Fedor had drawn his
knife from the wound. But Fedor did not release the handle. He realized in a
flash that if the Incorporeal Brahman fell he would sink through the ground,
creating a miracle that would spoil everything.
His ears failed to register the shouts of the crowd, and he did not
know what was going on behind his back. All he felt was that the Mahatma
Ananga was growing heavier and was slipping sideways.
Death had returned the usual properties to the body of the Incorporeal
Brahman. Although Fedor firmly clasped the handle the knife pulled itself
out of the body. No longer supported by the knife, the body dropped to the
stone floor with a dull thud.
An instant of eerie silence was followed by cries of rage and fear.
Ram Das ran up to Fedor and seized him by the arm.
"This way!" he cried. "Hurry!"
IN WHICH A STAR ABOVE THE WATER TURNS OUT TO BE A SHIP'S LIGHT
Fedor let the helm slip out of his hands. It did not matter since he
could see nothing whatsoever in the utter darkness. Besides, it was raining
violently.
The powerful current swept the small boat downstream. The heavens split
open with a sound like the ripping of a sail. Streaks of lightning lit up a
wide, swollen river, uprooted trees and a thick wall of rain.
"We're being carried by the current," he thought. "Let's hope we hold
out until dawn." He sat in the stern, trying to shield Bharati from the rain
with his body. The girl's head was in his lap. She was trembling. Fedor
stroked her wet hair. He could find no words with which to comfort her.
Jogindar Singh's body lay on the deck, his white robe a blur in the
black night. His strong arms lay by his side. Never again would those arms
wield an axe.
The Sikhs had failed to find Lal Chandra. The sly Brahman had escaped
through secret passages. Almost immediately after, armed men began to
encircle the temple. The Brahmans and rajahs had evidently stationed them
nearby in case something went wrong. Shots rang out in the courtyard of the
temple and in the dark passageways. The Sikhs brandished their curved
daggers.
Ram Das had led Fedor unnoticed out of the temple and down to the
stream, where Bharati and her father were waiting. They set out in the
direction of the Sutlej in the rain, stumbling over the rocks in their path.
Shots sounded behind them. Suddenly Jogindar Singh pitched forward to the
ground with an anguished cry. Fedor picked him up and carried him on his
back. He and Bharati pushed through thickets for a long time before they
finally reached the Sutlej. There Bharati found the sailboat, tied to a
boulder.
Dawn came at last, the grey light revealing a rain-spattered river the
colour of yellowish mud. Bharati, petrified by sorrow, sat beside the body
of her father.
It took every ounce of Fedor's strength to guide the boat towards a
small island. Near the shore he leaped into the water and then dragged the
boat up onto the wet sand.
In the tiny cabin under the deck he found an axe. The carpenter had
seen to it that the boat was fully equipped. Fedor hacked out a shallow
grave in the rain-soaked earth and tenderly laid the body of Jogindar Singh
in it. After covering the grave with earth he built a mound of stones on top
of it.
Bharati's rigid face frightened him. It would be easier for her, he
thought, if she would give way to tears. He touched her shoulder. Silently,
she turned away from the grave, and silently she climbed back into the boat.
Waist-deep in the water, Fedor tugged at the boat to free it from the
sand. His feet sank in the silt. Finally he gave a push that took his last
strength. Dislodged, the boat slid forward into the river.
Suddenly he heard Bharati scream in terror. Turning his head, Fedor saw
that her face was drained of colour. She was pointing at something with a
hand that trembled, keeping up a piercing cry. Fedor swung round to see a
long brown log heading rapidly towards him. Suddenly the log opened a
monstrous mouth lined with sharp teeth.
Fedor pushed off from the bottom as hard as he could and scrambled up
onto the deck of the boat. That very instant he heard teeth snap behind his
back. Before he could catch his breath Bharati flung her arms round his
neck, buried her head on his chest, and burst into tears. She sobbed
convulsively, her thin shoulders quivering under his hands.
"You must be careful," she whispered through her tears. "I have no one
else but you now. Promise you will take care."
Fedor guided the boat back into the mainstream. He had never seen a
crocodile before, although he had heard much about them. He recalled a
sentence from one of the first books he had read in childhood. "The
crocodile is an aquatic reptile which weeps as it kills and eats its
victim." Fedor gave a wry smile as he remembered the crocodile's terrifying
jaws. He did not think it likely that such a monster would mourn its
victims.
After two days of rain the sun reappeared. Meanwhile, they had reached
the Indus, and the mighty river was steadily carrying them towards the sea.
Fedor now tied up the boat on the bank for the night. He built a
campfire over which Bharati prepared their simple meal.
At the end of a week Fedor noticed that the river was growing wider;
the water was turning clearer by the hour. Finally there came a morning when
the boat ceased to move at all. The incoming tide was preventing the river
from reaching the sea.
That meant the ocean was near. The light northerly breeze carried with
it a tang of salt air.
Fedor raised the foresail, woven of strong palm leaves. Then he lowered
the heavy copper-bound sliding keel into the water and hauled in the sheets.
The sound of water gurgling underneath the boat filled his heart with joy.
The water grew lighter and bluer until it was the colour of the sky.
The banks receded farther and farther, fading into a haze. Finally, a long
blue sea wave picked the boat up, rocked it gently, and then smoothly passed
it on to the next wave. They had reached the sea!
Fedor gave a deep sigh of relief and smiled at Bharati. The girl smiled
back at her blue-eyed, good-natured, merry god.
"Where are we going now?" she asked.
Fedor had given the matter a good deal of thought. He remembered
Bharati's father saying that if he turned to the right he would reach
Karachi, which Persian merchants visited frequently. To turn to the left
meant sailing southeast towards the Portuguese possessions.
The idea of travelling across Persia worried Fedor. Although it was the
shorter route he had heard, in Lal Chandra's house, vague rumours that
things were not quiet in the land of the Persians.
No, it would be better to sail to Diu. Portugal was far away from
Russia and had no reason to quarrel with her.
And so Fedor turned to the left and sailed southeast, following the low
coast.
Bharati grew more cheerful. The sea breezes put colour in her cheeks.
She boiled rice and baked freshly-caught fish on the hot clay of a small
hearth that Fedor had fashioned at one of their stopping places on the
Indus. She quickly learned to handle the sails and was soon able to sail the
boat single-handed, giving Fedor an opportunity to snatch a few hours of
sleep.
The wind rose. Whitecaps rippled and foamed on the high waves. The mast
swayed, the boards creaked. The boat lay on its side, the deck half in the
water.
Bharati pressed close to Fedor.
"Why don't you go down below?" he said. "You'll get wet."
The girl shook her head. "I'm not afraid of anything when I'm with
you."
"Then hold on tight. Otherwise you may be washed overboard. We're going
to be shaken up properly."
Fedor knew that it would be far from easy to ride out a storm at sea in
their small craft.
But Bharati trusted him, and he would do everything he could to protect
her. This was not his first storm at sea. He still remembered how the
Caspian Sea had boiled and raged beneath his ship.
With great effort Fedor managed to take down the sail. He folded it and
covered Bharati with it.
The wind continued to rise as night fell. The sea was a black, howling
wall. It tossed the boat like a nutshell from wave to wave, up and down, up
and down.
Fedor's sole aim now was to hold the bow into the waves. If he turned
broadside to them, the waves would capsize the boat at once. It was a good
thing that Jogindar Singh had followed Fedor's instructions to the letter
when making the boat. A boat without a deck or keel would have sunk long
since.
With Bharati's help he fashioned a floating anchor. He took down the
mast, laid it beside the spanker-boom, wrapped both of them in the sail, and
tied the bundle together. He attached one end to a long rope tied to the
prow. Then he threw the heavy bundle overboard. The prow immediately swung
into the wind. Held by the floating anchor, the boat barely moved and
offered the storm no resistance. The raging wind simply streamed around it.
Fedor opened the hatch.
"Down below, quick!" he shouted. He pushed Bharati in front of him and
jumped down inside after her, banging down the cover of the hatch and
fastening it.
It was dark in the little cabin but at least it was dry and they were
out of the wind.
The boat pitched and tossed, up and down, up and down. They lost all
sense of time. Had the night come to an end? Or had two nights passed? All
they heard was the thunder of the waves and the creaking of the deck boards.
"Are you asleep, Bharati?"
"No."
"Feel all right?"
"Y-yes."
Fedor rose and groped about in the dark, swearing as he knocked his
head and banged his knees. Then he struck flint against steel, there was a
shower of sparks, and a tiny red glow appeared. Fedor blew on the tinder,
lit the oil lamp, and looked at Bharati's pale face.
"Feel all right, dear? Not seasick?" "No," she whispered obstinately.
The setting sun warmed his back. A northerly wind drove lazy waves
ahead of it. The storm was over.
But it did not make any difference now.
Fedor sat in the stern, stubbornly holding the boat to an eastward
course. The coastline was still invisible. He had no idea of how many days
and nights they had been sailing in the Arabian Sea.
Bharati lay at his knees. That morning he had poured the last drops of
water in the pitcher through her parched, compressed lips.
Alas, Fedor Matveyev! You are evidently not destined to reach your
native land. Can it really be that you escaped death from lightning in the
temple only to die an agonizing death at sea?
Bharati lay with closed eyes. Fedor anxiously bent over her to reassure
himself that she was breathing. One thought was uppermost in his mind: I
must save her.
Night fell instantly, without twilight. The black sky was soon spangled
with bright but remote stars.
The gentle rocking of the boat made Fedor feel drowsy, but he knew that
if he fell asleep it would be the end. With a tremendous effort he shook
himself awake and swept his eyes across the sea. What was that large reddish
star that hung so low in the sky on the port side? Why was it so low? And
why did it sway? Fedor sprang to his feet to take a better look at the star.
Why, it was a ship's light! "Bharati! Wake up! A ship!" As if to confirm his
words the wind brought them the sound of a guitar and snatches of a song.
Fedor jumped down into the cabin. He rummaged about searching for an Indian
gunpowder rocket. There it was! He tied it to a stick which he attached to
the bow. Striking flint against steel until his hands bled, he produced fire
and brought the tinder up to the rocket. A hissing red arc soared across the
dark sky.
IN WHICH FEDOR'S MYSTERY REMAINS UNSOLVED
The January frost had thickly iced the small windowpanes and was making
the pine logs of the walls creak.
It was warm inside the house. The long table standing against the wall
was covered with samples of ore, metal and coal, draughtsman's
paraphernalia, manuscripts, and vessels containing powders and liquids. In
the corner stood a machine which was unique in that part of Russia. It
consisted of a lacquered disc covered with shiny strips of metal and set
between two supports topped by copper spheres, a belt drive and a handle.
The room was shrouded in semi-darkness. Candles cast a yellow light on
a grey head. A goose quill scratched across rough paper. Although the winter
evenings were long they were not long enough for Fedor Matveyev. He had not
yet succeeded in unravelling the old mystery.
Fedor went over to the machine and turned the handle. With a dry
crackle a thin streak of violet-coloured light flashed between the spheres.
He sank into an armchair, folding his lean hands, hands that had
swollen veins but were still strong. His thoughts turned to the past. It had
been a long and hard journey from India to Russia. After sailing a seemingly
endless time along the coast of Africa the Portuguese frigate had landed
them in Lisbon. From there they had travelled by sea and by land, through
many countries, without a penny to their name, until they finally reached
St. Petersburg. But they had not been able to leave their ship on arrival,
for the Neva River had risen and flooded the city. It was said that the tsar
himself travelled up and down the flooded streets in a boat, helping to
rescue the drowning.
How frightened Bharati had been of the cold and foggy northern city
covered with seething water!
Soon after, there came the staggering news of the tsar's death.
Fedor dutifully reported his escape from captivity, but no one had any
attention to spare an unknown lieutenant. Those were the days when the
succession to the throne was being decided. Finally someone advised Fedor to
go to the new town of Ekaterinburg and see Wilhelm de Hennin, the managing
director of a chain of factories in Siberia and the Urals, who was said to
be interested in anyone with a knowledge of mining and building.
On the way to Ekaterinburg Fedor and Bharati stopped oft at Zakharino
to see Fedor's parents. His father and mother were not particularly pleased
to have a daughter-in-law brought from overseas. They did not like her long
face or her narrow hips, or the fact that she was as 'dark as a Gypsy and
carried herself with dignity. But since their son was going away soon they
said nothing. They insisted that Bharati be christened in the local church
and that her name be changed to Anna. They gave Fedor some money for his
journey not much, true, but still it was something.
At Ekaterinburg Fedor was made to feel welcome and appointed to the
post of chief mechanic. His job was to supervise mining machinery,
water-wheels, and dams, and the construction of new factories; also, he was
put in charge of the fire brigade. He was given living quarters, and a new
life began for him. He performed his numerous duties faithfully.
Russian food and long Russian winters fattened Bharati, made the colour
of her skin lighter and put roses in her cheeks. She reared their children
and did her household chores conscientiously, making liqueurs and preserves
and laying in supplies of honey for the winter. She learned to speak a
fairly good Russian. When she and Fedor visited his parents a few years
later the old people received her more graciously.
As the years passed the operation of the mines engrossed Fedor more and
more. His fair hair became streaked with silver. His children were growing
up. Fourteen-year-old Alexander, the eldest son, was preparing to leave for
St. Petersburg to enter a military school there.
But he had not yet unravelled the mystery. True, he had discovered what
the mysterious force that made the lightning was. Reading all the books he
could find on this subject, he had learned that about one hundred years
before, in 1650, a certain Otto von Gericke, burgomaster of the town of
Magdeburg in Germany, had placed a smooth ball of sulphur on a whirling
axis, and by rubbing it between the palms of his hands had made the ball
glow and crackle.
In 1709, the Englishman Francis Hawksbee had substituted a glass sphere
for the sulphur ball and also produced sparks with a crackle. Mikhail
Lomonosov had mentioned this machine in a poem about the many uses of glass.
A revolving glass sphere crackles and makes flashes of light, Similar
unto those of thunder in the night.
Fedor also discovered that the ancient Greeks had obtained sparks by
rubbing a piece of amber with a flannel cloth, and the name of the
mysterious force came from the word electron, the Greek for "amber".
It was clear that the force in Lal Chandra's lightning machine was
electricity, but what a far 'cry from Hawksbee's harmless sparks! Fedor's
disc machine produced far stronger sparks than Hawksbee's ball but it could
not be compared with Lal Chandra's machine. How had the Brahman made the
electricity so terribly strong that it killed people and caused corpses to
quiver?
It was evidently all a matter of being able to accumulate electricity
in vessels containing a liquid. With a mental picture of everything he had
seen in India always before him, Fedor conducted experiment after experiment
with metal vessels into which he poured various liquids and then connected
to his machine, but nothing came of it.
During a trip to St. Petersburg Fedor went to the Academy of Sciences
to talk with Mikhail Lomonosov, the brilliant young scientist who had
recently been appointed professor of chemistry there. Fedor had heard much
praise of Lomonosov.
"There is as yet no science of electricity, sir," Lomonosov told him.
"But I hope there will be. I advise you to see Richman. He is in charge of
our electricity experiments. He is a foreigner, but he does not put on airs.
Both Richman and I believe that the electricity obtained through friction is
the same force as lightning. We are on the eve of extremely interesting
discoveries' 174
Through Lomonosov's good offices Fedor wag able to visit the "chambers
for electric experiments", one of the first electricity laboratories in the
world.
Richman listened to Fedor's story with interest and made many notes.
Like Lomonosov, he was engaged in a systematic study of electricity,
particularly atmospheric electricity. Lomonosov was searching for the "true
cause of electricity and how to measure it", realizing that a theory of
electricity could not be built up without precise data.
In 1753 Richman was killed by lightning while he was measuring the
electric force of lightning discharges.
Lomonosov was showered with reproaches and threats.
"They wanted to shield man against God's wrath-lightning-but God
punished them for their audacity!" cried his opponents.
Although it took a long time for news to reach the Urals, Fedor closely
followed events in St. Petersburg.
"I'd laugh if I didn't feel like crying instead," Fedor remarked to his
wife. "Remember how the Brahmans in India made lightning to deceive the
people? Russia's equivalent of the Brahmans are angry because others wish to
find out what lightning is. If our Brahmans got their hands on electricity
they'd very soon reveal their true nature. No, I feel it's a blessing that I
did not tell anyone about my experiences in India or about my experiments."
"Please give up your experiments, Fedor dear," said Bharati, alarm in
her dark, almond-shaped eyes. "Ever since Herr Richman was killed I have had
no peace of mind."
"No, I won't give up," Fedor said. "If my life is not long enough my
children will continue the experiments. They, or their descendants, will
live to see a better day."
The candles began to sputter and Fedor trimmed the wicks. The log walls
crackled in the severe frost. In the next room Bharati softly sang the same
mournful song she had sung so long ago beside the temple of the formidable
goddess Kali.
Fedor closed his eyes. People and events of those distant days came to
life again in his mind's eye.
The old man chained to the wall in the tower-he had probably carried to
the grave his great secret of how to make the human body incorporeal.
The oil that flowed in a long stream through the water of the pool. The
Incorporeal Brahman. Perhaps he had dreamed it all.
The candles shed a flickering yellow glow on the silvery head. The
goose quill scratched on the rough paper.
"I conclude this epistle on the twelfth day of January in the year of
Our Lord 1762. I think that if the need should arise it would be best of all
if you were to seek assistance in the Academy of Sciences, from Professor
Mikhail Lomonosov, inasmuch as he is well versed in science.
"My last wish, my son, is that the forces of electricity should not
come under the power of those insatiable mongrels who are concerned solely
with their own personal benefit instead of with the welfare of their
country."
Forgive me, Newton!
The concepts you created still
guide our physical thinking,
but we now know that for
a deeper understanding of world relations
we must replace your concepts with others.
Albert Einstein
IN WHICH CONTRADICTORY OPINIONS OF FEDOR MATVEYEV'S MANUSCRIPT ARE
EXPRESSED; REX, NOT HAVING AN OPINION OF HIS OWN, HOWLS IN ACCOMPANIMENT AS
YURA AND NIKOLAI SING
"I've deciphered the manuscript, and translated in into modern
Russian," said Val. "I found it very interesting because the eighteenth
century is just my field. Shall I begin?" She looked at Boris Privalov. He
nodded.
They were gathered on the porch of a country cottage with a flat roof
and whitewashed walls. The intense heat of late afternoon penetrated through
the patterned leaves of the fig tree that grew beside the porch.
Every summer Privalov and his wife Olga rented the same seaside
cottage, not far from town. She spent all her time there, while he came out
for the weekends.
On this occasion he had brought four guests along without giving his
wife warning. They were Pavel Koltukhov, Yura, Nikolai and a girl named Val,
whom Olga had never met before; also, there was an enormous,
ferocious-looking dog.
They had travelled down in a crowded suburban train and arrived hot and
dusty. After a refreshing shower they settled themselves on the porch. Olga
brought out platters of grapes and figs. "Don't trouble yourself now, Olga,"
said Privalov. "We'll all pitch in later on to prepare supper.
Just sit down and relax. You'll hear a fascinating story."
"Hear ye, brethren, hear ye," chanted Yura, swinging a foot as he sat
on the railing of the porch.
Privalov put up a hand to silence him. "All right, Val," he said.
Val opened a red folder, carefully lifted out Fedor Matveyev's
manuscript, and laid it to one side. Then she picked up a sheaf of
typewritten pages and began to read.
Val read the last word and turned the page over. For a few moments
Privalov and his guests sat silent, engrossed in those extraordinary events
of two centuries ago, about which they had just heard from the lips, as it
were, of Lieutenant Fedor Matveyev of the Russian Navy.
"Thank you, Val," Privalov said softly. He rose and went over to the
wall to switch on the ceiling light.
"A remarkably interesting story!" exclaimed Olga. "I can clearly
picture him. Do you think it's all really true?"
Pavel Koltukhov snorted. "It's all nonsense," he said. He lit a
cigarette and let out a thick cloud of smoke.
Privalov asked Val to read, in the original eighteenth-century Russian,
the section in which Fedor Matveyev described how he had first flung
himself, knife in hand, on the Incorporeal Brahman. She found that page of
the manuscript and read, slowly: "I stabbed him in the heart, but the whole
knife, and also my hand along with it, went through his flesh as though it
were thin air. A second later he vanished from the room, passing straight
through the closed door. The door was made of wood, at least two inches
thick, and was bound in iron."
Koltukhov gave another snort. "Nothing but a fairy-tale." He took the
manuscript from Val and neatly copied a dozen lines or so from it into his
notebook.
Privalov woke up just as the sun was rising. He tiptoed across the
squeaky floor of the porch and down the steps into the garden. The sand was
cold under his bare feet. The trees cast long shadows across him as he
walked. In a corner of the garden he saw Nikolai, illuminated by the faint
rays of the sun, sitting on the low stone barrier of the well. The red
folder containing Fedor Matveyev's manuscript lay open on his knee.
"Well, what do you think of it all?" Privalov asked as he came up and
sat down beside Nikolai. He yawned loudly. "You didn't say a word all last
evening."
"I'm wondering about Matveyev's knife." Nikolai glanced at Privalov.
"Why couldn't it be true? Why couldn't they have accidentally stumbled on
the specifications of a machine that made matter penetrable?"
"There you go again, Nikolai. Just forget all about penetrability. They
didn't know enough two hundred years ago to-"
"But, Boris, by accident, I mean. Fedor Matveyev clearly describes a
machine of just this kind in the tower room in which the old man was chained
to the wall. He only saw it for a few minutes and his description is very
vague. Here's the place in the manuscript. Listen," Nikolai read slowly: "
'A wire spiral, something like an Archimedes' spiral, cut out of a thin
half-twist of silver.' What do you think that half-twist contraption into
which the old man thrust Matveyev's knife could have been, Boris? I believe
it must have been some sort of a high-frequency output inductor."
Boris Privalov smiled. "It's all very vague, Nikolai, much too vague,"
he said, laying a hand on the young man's shoulder. "I'm far more interested
in the stream of oil that flowed through the pool. Remember? In this case
the description of the apparatus is fairly clear. There were big
electrostatic generators switched on parallel with electrolytic capacitors
of an enormous capacity or, as Fedor Matveyev put it, 'copper vessels to
collect the mysterious force'. If they really did make oil flow through
water in a compact stream- well, that means they'd solved the problem of a
power ray and the building up of surface tension. But those reflectors in
the pool, I mean, their shape-"
"Yes, shape," Nikolai said, following his own train of thought. "The
shape of the inductor, devil take it!"
"But look, Nikolai. The Hindus just hit on it blindly. But we won't be
groping in the dark the way they did. This isn't the eighteenth century,
thank goodness. We need a theoretical foundation. I told you what Professor
Bagbanly said, didn't I? Let's have no more of this primitive tinkering with
spirals. An installation has to be set up, and we'll need your help."
Nikolai nodded. "But what about the manuscript?"
"We'll send it to the Academy of Sciences."
Nikolai closed the folder with an angry gesture and climbed to his
fe3t. "So we just forget about the whole thing, is that it?" he asked
bitterly, turning and walking towards the porch, tall, lean and tanned.
Privalov followed him with his eyes, then lifted his shoulders in a
shrug.
(The beach was crowded, for it was Sunday. The suburban trains spewed
city dwellers out of their stuffy carriages by the hundreds and the
thousands. All the places under the awnings and umbrellas were occupied; the
white sand was thickly covered with tanned bodies.
Boris Privalov and his friends settled themselves at the water's edge,
where the sand was a bit cooler. Lazy waves lapped at their feet.
Val put on her bathing cap and waded slowly into the water. Yura and
Nikolai plunged into the waves and were soon racing each other to the buoy.
Rex, who did not like to bathe, barked at them for a while, urging them to
come back, then lay down and stuck out his tongue as far as it would go.
Olga Privalov set up her beach umbrella and lay down in its shade with
a book.
Pavel Koltukhov folded a page from a newspaper into a hat which he
perched on his head as he stretched out on the sand beside Privalov.
"I'd like to borrow one of your engineers for a couple of days, Boris,"
he said. "What for? To dabble in resins?"
"Let me have Jura. He seems a clever lad." "Certainly. But see to it
that he has time to do his own work too." "Naturally."
"What was it you copied out of the manuscript last night?" Privalov
asked a few minutes later. "Seek and ye shall find," Koltukhov answered
vaguely. Then he started telling Privalov how necessary it was to draw up,
without delay, a cost estimate of the research involved in the transcaspian
oil pipeline project. The murmur of his voice put Privalov to sleep.
Nikolai and Yura came running out of the water, their bodies dripping.
"If Nikolai keeps it up we'll have to put him in a straightjacket,
Boris," Yura said as he flung himself onto the sand. "He insists that Fedor
Matveyev was telling the truth when he talked about an incorporeal man."
"Oh, shut up!" muttered Nikolai. But Yura continued: "Anyway, I'm sure I had
the last word. I asked him this: if that old wizard really possessed the
property of penetrability then why didn't he sink through the ground?"
Privalov lay on his back on the sand, his eyes closed blissfully against the
sun.
"Do me a favour, boys" he said in a drowsy voice. "Stop pestering me."
The bountiful sun was spreading hot gold over the beach. Two or three
clouds hung in a sky pale from the heat. A suburban train blew its whistle
close by, and soon another eager crowd of city dwellers streamed from the
station to the beach. They moved in a file along the water's edge, a gay,
perspiring throng. Koltukhov grumbled as some of them stepped across his
lean shanks.
One of the passers-by halted as he caught sight of Koltukhov. Rex
raised his head and growled.
"Is that you, Pavel?" the newcomer asked.
Koltukhov looked up. Above him stood Nikolai Opratin.
"Why, hullo there," said Koltukhov lazily, lifting his hand in
greeting. "Lured by the sea and the sun too, eh?"
Opratin courteously raised his straw hat to each member of the group in
turn, then went off to change into his swimming trunks. When he returned he
stretched out on the sand beside Koltukhov.
"What's new, Pavel?"
"Nothing much. We heard an Indian fairytale yesterday." Koltukhov then
proceeded to give a humorous version of Fedor Matveyev's adventures in
India.
"The damned fool!" Privalov thought. "Still, why make a secret of it?"
He removed his eyeglasses and went into the water.
Opratin listened to Koltukhov with a smile. But the moment Koltukhov
jokingly mentioned Fedor Matveyev's knife the smile vanished and Opratin's
face grew strained and attentive.
"Let me interrupt you for a moment, Pavel, but that knife-You say the
manuscript describes how it was given the property of penetrability?"
"Oh, that's all nonsense," said Koltukhov. "It's just a fairy-tale. The
only thing I can put stock in is the electrostatic generator. That sort of
thing was well within the scope of the eighteenth century. By the way-" Here
Koltukhov felt he was making a very neat transition to the one topic he
wanted to talk to Opratin about. "By the way, I hear you have a powerful
electrostatic generator at your Institute. Mind if I drop in from time to
time and use it? I'll try not to impose on you."
"By all means," said Opratin. "What will you be using it for?"
He never got an answer, for Koltukhov launched into reminiscences of
his adventurous youth.
Val came running up. She pulled off her bathing cap, shook out her dark
hair, and sat down beside Olga.
"Is she the one, did you say, who translated the manuscript?" Opratin
asked Koltukhov in a low voice.
"That's right. Would you like to meet her?"
"That was a most interesting find you made," Opratin said to Val after
Koltukhov had introduced him to her. "It isn't every day that an original
manuscript from Peter the Great's time turns up."
Opratin then entered into a lively conversation with Val. Yura gave
them a sidelong glance, called to Rex, and headed for a large rock nearby.
Nikolai joined him there. Dangling their feet in the water they began to
sing, in mock earnestness, a plaintive old Russian ballad.
"What are you waiting for, Rex?" Yura said sternly.
The dog threw back his head, gave a convulsive yawn, and then began to
howl softly in accompaniment.
Val glanced towards the two young men and shrugged.
The dreary song went on and on for a long time.
IN WHICH NIKOLAI AND YURA DISCOVER THE SKETCHES OF THREE BOXES
As the hardware in Cooper Lane became more and more sophisticated Yura
said, with a click of his tongue, gazing proudly around the room:
"Wonderful! Even Faraday never had a home laboratory like ours."
Despite the obvious advantages of the laboratory over Faraday's they
were not making any progress worth mentioning. The two young men created
electrical fields of various kinds around the "mercury heart", which beat
conscientiously but showed no signs whatsoever of increasing its surface
tension.
A breakthrough of some kind was definitely needed.
One day Nikolai invited a young engineer from the Institute's
automation department named Hussein Amirov to drop in and take a look at the
"mercury heart". Hussein spent a whole evening testing the oscillator on
different frequencies. "Nice little toy you've got here," he said to
Nikolai. "But there's something wrong with the operating conditions. I'll
think about it."
The next morning he phoned Nikolai. "Look here, old man, your mistake
is that you're not letting the high frequency through in pulses. You'll have
to put in a tuning-fork breaker." Soon after, Nikolai installed a
tuning-fork. An electromagnet kept its prongs in constant vibration, and the
contacts on the prongs closed and disconnected the circuit. Movable weights
attached to the prongs regulated the frequency of the oscillations.
Pulses had been a good idea. But Nikolai and Yura could not manage to
hit on a combination of high frequency and breaker frequency that would
cause the mercury heart, contracted by increased tension, to stop beating.
On the other hand, perhaps no such frequency existed at all.
One evening the two were busy as usual with their installation,
experimenting with a new series of frequencies. And as usual, the results
were disappointing.
"We can sit here from now to doomsday and still neither of us will ever
be another Faraday," Yura said to Nikolai, pushing back his chair noisily.
"You're right," Nikolai agreed with a sigh. He shook his fist at the
"mercury heart". Then he took out Fedor Matveyev's manuscript from his
briefcase. He had borrowed it from Privalov for the evening. It was to be
sent to Moscow the next day with an accompanying letter by Professor
Bagbanly.
"Is the half-twist spiral in that manuscript still preying on your
mind?" Yura said. "What do you think it might lead you to?"
"You know what as well as I do. If we could increase the surface
tension of liquids it means-"
Yura waved his hand impatiently. "I didn't have that in mind. According
to Fedor Matveyev the knife acquired penetrability after the old man who was
chained to the wall thrust it into that spiral. Do you really think-"
"I don't think anything. All I want is to find a new form of inductor."
Nikolai carefully turned the pages of the manuscript.
"Let's have a look at the last page, where he writes about Mikhail
Lomonosov," said Yura.
They read in silence for some time.
"That damned half-twist spiral!" Nikolai exclaimed, rummaging in his
pockets for his cigarettes. "What are you doing that for?" he asked Yura,
who was holding a sheet of the manuscript up to the light.
"Look! Some sort of drawings."
Pencil lines were visible on the back of the last page. The lead had
rubbed off almost completely, only the faint traces of lines pressed into
the thick paper by the point of a hard pencil could be seen.
"Why, that's our box! But there's more than one."
A firm hand had drawn three boxes, one below the other, and indicated
their sizes. Two of them looked like the box in which Fedor Matveyev's
manuscript had been preserved, while the third was square and flat. There
was an inscription under each drawing. All three boxes bore the letters A M
D G, evidently meant to be engraved. Below the letters was a drawing of a
crown, and below that, in smaller script, the letters J d M.
"Our box should have the same letters on it, don't you think?" Yura
picked up the box and examined it. "Yes, here they are. We didn't notice
them before because the lines were filled with rust."
Nikolai frowned. Where had he seen those letters before? He went over
to the bookcase and ran his eyes over the titles on the backs of the books.
Finally he pulled out Vicomte de Bragelonne and started leafing through it.
"My memory didn't let me down," he remarked with satisfaction. "Listen:
'Bewildered, Baizerneaux de Dmoutlezun leaned over his shoulder and read, A
M D G...'."
Taking the book from Nikolai, Yura read aloud the footnote, a grin on
his face: " 'Ad majorem Dei gloriam. To the greater glory of God. The motto
of the Jesuits.' But what's J d M? It isn't in the book. What a lot of
puzzles Lieutenant Fedor Matveyev has given us to solve!"
"We need a system," said Nikolai. He took a sheet of paper and quickly
wrote:
Boxes Inscriptions Size of boxes in drawing
Length Width Height
1 La preuve 9 1 3/4 1 3/4
2 La source 9 1/2 2 2
3 La clef de mystere 4 4 1/2
Yura rubbed his hands vigorously. "That's a good idea. Now we'll
translate the inscriptions. Call up Val. She knows French."
"Well," Nikolai said after talking with Val, "la preuve means 'the
evidence', la source means 'the source' and la clef de mystere means 'the
key to the mystery'."
"The key to the mystery, you say?" Yura took a caliper and measured the
height, length and width of the iron box. "It's 257.5 by 54.2 by 54.2
millimetres. Get out your slide-rule and calculate the ratio. Divide 257.5
by 54.2."
"It's 9 1/2 by 2 by 2," said Nikolai. He glanced at his chart. "Our box
with the manuscript is the one called 'the source'."
Х'Well, that's clear," said Yura. "Now, what's the unit of measurement
used in the drawings? If we divide 54.2 by two we get 27.1 millimetres. The
English inch is equal to 25.4 millimetres. So-"
"So it isn't in inches. We'll come back to that later. Now let's
systematize what we know."
They draw up another table:
"Someone put the manuscript in the box that finally came into our hands
and ordered two more boxes, one for 'the evidence' and the other for 'the
key to the mystery'. It probably wasn't Fedor Matveyev. It's hardly likely
he would go in for Jesuit mottos. Who was it, then? What's hidden in the
other boxes? And where are they?"
Inscriptions Size of Boxes Remarks
In the scale on In millimetres
the drawings
Length Width Height Length Width Height Missing
Evidence 9 1 3/4 1 3/4 243.9 4 7.4 47.4
Source 9 1/2 2 2 257.5 54.2 54.2 Our box
Key to the
Mystery 4 4 1/2 108.4 108.4 13.55 Missing
Yura and Nikolai spent a number of evenings in a fascinating search for
the key to the enigmatic inscriptions. A M D G told them that Jesuits had
been directly involved in the affair. What the letters J d M meant, though,
was a complete mystery.
In the public library they found a book on heraldry from which they
discovered that the crown on the boxes was a count's crown. They realized
that J d M were the initials of some count, the "d" standing for "de".
Next they settled down to read everything they could find about the
Jesuits.
Yura and Nikolai had a big notebook in which they entered all kinds of
information on things like radio circuits, photography hints, sailboat
designs, poetry, designs of scuba gear and underwater guns, data on surface
tension and so on.
Now they put into it copies of the drawings of the three boxes with the
following commentary:
(a) The old French inch is equal to 27.1 millimetres.
(b) This inch was abolished in France on the 19th Frimaire in the
eighth year of the Republic, that is, on December 10, 1799, when the metric
system was adopted.
(c) The inscriptions were made in a pencil with a lead of ground
graphite mixed with clay and baked, much like modern pencils. Pencils of
this type appeared after 1790.
Deductions
1. The type of pencil shows that the inscriptions were made after 1790.
The measurements were made before 1799, when the metric system was
introduced, or possibly after, since it took a long time for the metric
system to come into general use.
2. The letters A M D G indicate that the person who put Fedor
Matveyev's manuscript in the box belonged to the Society of Jesus. He was a
count and his initials were J d M.
3. The box was found on the territory of the Russian Empire, from which
the Jesuits were expelled by Tsar Alexander I in 1820. Between 1803 and 1817
the Ambassador of the King of Sardinia to Russia was Count Joseph de
Maistre, an important Jesuit, and the J d M could have been his initials. He
was a mystic and an obscurantist who was unlikely to have recognized the
metric system introduced by the godless Convention but was quite likely to
have used a new-fangled pencil with a lead of ground graphite.
4. Fedor Matveyev could not have lived until the year 1803. Only a
grandson or a great-grandson could have been alive and grown-up between 1803
and 1817.
General Conclusions
The information in Fedor Matveyev's manuscript about electricity and
the uses to which it was put by an Indian religious sect came to the notice
of Count de Maistre, the Jesuit, between 1803 and 1817, and aroused his
interest, probably because he thought it might benefit the Society of Jesus.
For some reason, the Count hid the manuscript in a little iron box and
engraved the initials of the Jesuit motto and his own initials on the box.
He named the box 'The Source', evidently meaning 'the source of
information'.
In addition, the Count ordered (or intended to order) two more boxes.
We know their dimensions. One box, almost the same size as the box which
Boris Privalov found, was to contain 'The Evidence'-but we do not know of
what-and the other, a flat box, was to be for 'The Key to the Mystery'. The
third box may have contained the results of experiments to unravel the
secrets of the Indian Brahmans that Fedor Matveyev described."
"Not bad at all," said Boris Privalov when Nikolai and Yura showed him
the notebook. "It's all quite logical. But where do you go from here?"
"We'll start a search for the other two boxes," Nikolai replied.
"Should we make inquiries of the Society of Jesus?"
"That would be going too far. We'll confine ourselves to the bazaar
meanwhile."
"The bazaar?" Boris glanced questioningly at Nikolai. "But of course!
That's the only link you have, isn't it? You'd better not delay. I heard
it's going to be closed down for good very soon."
The bazaar's "hardware department" was practically deserted and Nikolai
and Yura quickly found the man they had dealt with before. It took them some
time to convince him they were not guardians of the law. Only then did he
confess that the iron bar which Privalov had bought was part of a batch of
junk obtained illegally from a state-operated scap metal depot.
A delicate and tactful interview with the man in charge of the depot
led to an introduction to the crew of waste disposal truck No. 92-39. The
crew immediately took Nikolai and Yura for detectives. The two young men did
not bother to disillusion them.
The driver and his assistants studied the iron box, talked it over for
a long time and finally recalled the address of the house where a family had
thrown out a great deal of junk just before moving into a new flat.
Yura and Nikolai found the house. A loquacious concierge told the
amateur detectives that one of the tenants had indeed moved out early in
summer. His name was Benedictov. He had discarded a lot of old things when
he moved. The neighbours had always complained of his experiments at home
for they had inevitably short-circuited the electricity. She could give them
his new address.
When the door opened, Yura later said, Nikolai tensed all his muscles
for flight. Rita was no less amazed to see the two young men.
Yura was the first to recover. "Please excuse us," he said in an
unnaturally loud voice. "May we see the master of the house?"
"He's not in. What do you want to see him about?"
Nikolai opened his mouth to say something but all that came out was a
hoarse sound. Yura hastened to his rescue.
"We'll explain what it's all about, but talking here in the doorway is
somewhat inconvenient."
Rita led her uninvited guests into the flat.
"My name is Yura Kostyukov," Yura said, "and this is my friend Nikolai
Potapkin."
"I'm Rita Benedictov."
Yura was beginning to feel quite at home. "You go in for diving, don't
you?" he said in a casual, friendly tone.
Rita frowned. "What did you want to see my husband about?"
"We'd like to know if you had a small iron bar in your old flat. Not
really a bar, though, but a metal box with Latin letters engraved on it."
"Latin letters?" Rita repeated slowly.
"Yes. The letters aren't very large and they're filled in with rust.
The box isn't much bigger than this." Yura marked off a rectangle on the
green tablecloth with his finger. "The thing is that the box contained an
eighteenth-century manuscript. We found the box quite by chance in a pile of
junk at the bazaar. The man who sold it to us said it came from a house in
Krasnoarmeiskaya Street. There we were told you had thrown out a lot of old
junk when you moved. You did live in Krasnoarmeiskaya Street, didn't you?"
Rita did not reply. As she stood there beside the table the lamplight
gave her hair a golden sheen.
"We've discovered that there should be two more boxes," Yura went on.
"We don't know what's in them, but we may assume whatever is there will have
either scientific or historical value." All of a sudden his patience came to
an end. "In brief," he said, "if you're the one who threw out that box maybe
you can tell us where the other two boxes are."
"Two more boxes, you say?" Rita asked thoughtfully.
"That's right, two more."
She looked Yura straight in the eye and said firmly: "You're quite
mistaken. We did live in Krasnoarmeiskaya Street before we moved into this
flat but we did not discard any small metal boxes."
"What a pity," said Yura after a moment. "Please excuse us for having
taken up so much of your time."
They hurried downstairs. When they were outside, in the street, Yura
gripped Nikolai by the arm.
"We're on the right track!" he exclaimed. "She knew the box we were
talking about but she hadn't known there was a manuscript inside it. She
thought it was just a solid bar of rusty iron and she threw it out. Now
she's sorry."
Nikolai said nothing. He was wondering why Rita's face seemed so
familiar.
Yura shook him by the shoulder. "Wake up, you miserable creature.
There's a mystery here, and as sure as my name is Yura I'll get to the
bottom of it. Together with you, right?"
It is hard to say which caused a greater stir at the Institute-the
transcaspian pipeline project or Fedor Matveyev's manuscript. Following
Privalov's detailed report to the staff about the manuscript, debates raged
in the departments and laboratories over the Incorporeal Brahman and the
stream of oil flowing through water. Many linked up the stream of oil with
the Caspian pipeline problem. The more fervid imaginations gave birth to
fantastic plans. The wildest and most hare-brained schemes were put before
Privalov. Some he discussed, while others he angrily dismissed as
ridiculous.
"What have I done to deserve this?" he grumbled. "The pipeline across
the Caspian will be built of the most ordinary pipes-I repeat, ordinary
pipes."
That was the honest truth. But it was also true that Professor Bagbanly
had visited the Institute several times in the evening and had had long
talks with Privalov. It was true, too, that a surprising machine was being
built in one of the rooms in Privalov's laboratory. Engineers Yura and
Nikolai, and also Valery Gorbachevsky, the lab technician, could have told
something about it, but they had strict orders not to divulge any
information.
Pavel Koltukhov was displeased by all the feverish and far-fetched
schemes being hatched at the Institute. The most stubborn debaters were
invited to his office, where he first heard them out and then cooled their
ardour with a stream of caustic remarks.
Meanwhile, Koltukhov continued to work on his resins. Sometimes, after
synthesizing a new compound, he would step across the street to the
Institute of Marine Physics and drop into Opratin's laboratory. He would
melt the resin in a mould and place it between the plates of a capacitor
linked up with a powerful electrostatic machine. While the resin was being
charged Koltukhov chatted calmly with Opratin about this and that and
related episodes from his life. "Does your resin hold its static charge
long?'" Opratin asked him one day.
"That depends on how I charge it. Your chief told me you are setting up
an installation with a Van de Graaft generator on an island somewhere. Now
if we were to charge the resin from that generator-"
"I'm afraid you'll have Lo wait some time for that," Opratin smiled.
"We've just begun installing it."
Pavel Koltukhov had his heart set on a strongly charged resin that
could be used to insulate underwater pipelines. He believed that a thin
insulation layer having a static charge could prevent corrosion more cheaply
and reliably than the many layers now used to cover the pipes.
"I knew about the properties of electrically charged resins before, but
it never occurred to me before," Koltukhov said. "Fedor Matveyev was the man
who gave me the idea." "Fedor Matveyev?"
"Remember the eighteenth century manuscript I told you about on the
beach?"
Opratin's expression grew guarded and his eyes flickered. "Why, yes, of
course. But what's the connection?"
"Matveyev wrote that the Hindus carried some kind of resin up into the
mountains," Koltukhov said slowly. "They left it for a time on high peaks,
where it received what they called 'heavenly strength'. This gave me the
idea that the Hindus might have been using the energy of cosmic rays without
actually being aware of it. There would be plenty of cosmic radiation at
high altitudes. They must have had some excellent resins, which they turned
into highly charged electrets."
"Highly charged electrets," Opratin repeated softly, tapping his
fingers on the table. "Yes, that certainly has possibilities."
In the twenties of the present century two Japanese researchers
discovered that some resins become charged and turn into permanent and quite
new sources of electricity after having been melted and left to cool in a
strong electrostatic field, between the plates of a capacitor. Like a
magnet, they pass on their properties without losing them. These were
electrets. If an electret is cut in two, new poles will arise at the new
ends.
Yura found himself spending more and more of his time in Koltukhov's
resin laboratory. He liked making new compounds according to Koltukhov's
formulas and measuring the electricity in the charged resins.
One day Koltukhov sent Yura over to Opratin's laboratory to charge the
latest batch of resin.
Opratin greeted Yura pleasantly, showed him the electrostatic machine,
and helped him to switch it on.
Yura looked about with curiosity. There were several people in white
overalls at work in the laboratory. One of them, a thickset man with a
shaggy head of hair, sat with his back to Yura, at a table on which an
aquarium with a wire coil round it and a valve oscillator stood. "Are you
doing high frequency experiments?" he asked casually.
"Oh, that's just a minor project," Opratin replied with a keen glance
at Yura. "Are you interested in high frequencies?" "No, not particularly."
A tall, husky man in blue overalls entered the laboratory. To Yura's
surprise, this was Uncle Vova Bugrov.
"Comrade Benedictov, here's the food for your fish," Bugrov said to
Anatole Benedictov in a deep, hoarse voice.
The shaggy-haired man sitting beside the valve oscillator turned round,
nodded, and took the two paper bags Bugrov was holding out to him. Yura was
unable to shift his gaze from the man's broad face and puffy eyelids.
"Why, hullo," said Bugrov shaking Yura's hand. "What brings you to our
Institute?"
"Do you work here?" Yura asked in surprise, his eyes still fixed on
Benedictov.
"I'm a laboratory technician. I've switched to science now. They think
very highly of me here. You know, I'm training a group of scientific workers
in wrestling."
"What does Benedictov do here?" Yura asked in a low voice.
"Benedictov? He's a scientist. He knows all there is to know about
fish. Shall I tell you what else I'm doing?" Bugrov asked boastfully. "I'm
an inventor, if you want to know. I'm making an electric dynamometer. What
d'you think of that?"
After charging the resin Yura rushed back to his own Institute and ran
up the stairs two at a time.
"There's news, Nikolai," he shouted. Panting, he told Nikolai about
seeing Benedictov, about the valve oscillator and about Vova Bugrov.
Nikolai ran the palm of his hand across his high forehead. "High
frequency- and fish? I wonder- But Opratin is studying the level of the
Caspian, isn't he?"
"Benedictov's the man to ask about the iron boxes."
"You think he'd tell you?"
During the lunch break Nikolai remained in the deserted laboratory.
Sitting at his desk, he cut a thin strip from the sheet of drawing paper on
his board. He pinned one end to the desk, twisted the other in a half-curl,
and glued the ends together.
He sat for a long time staring, in deep thought, at the twisted piece
of paper. Then, with a pencil, he drew a line along the edge of the paper
until it came full circle. The line ran round both sides of the strip of
paper, without Nikolai either lifting his pencil from the paper or crossing
the pencil line at any point. This strip of paper was the model of a
mathematical paradox known as the Mobius band. From the mathematical point
of view the band had no thickness and its surface was not divided into outer
and inner surfaces. It was only a surface, and nothing more. A window that
mathematics had opened up into the sphere of the Unknown.
Nikolai made a second strip twisted in the same direction and tried to
put it inside the first one, but this proved to be impossible. By trying to
put one strip into another he would have to bring the inner surface of one
towards the outer surface of the other. But if neither had an outer surface
or an inner surface how could he do this?
Nikolai flung the strips on the table and propped up his head on his
hand. "What if I made a similar spiral out of copper and linked it up to the
output circuit of an oscillator?"
He went out to the lounge, pulled Yura away from a game of table
tennis, and said: "Do you remember a thing called the Mobius band?"
IN WHICH THE SAME BRIGHT IDEA,
NECESSITATING FEDOR MATVEYEV'S KNIFE,
OCCURS TO BENEDICTOV AND OPRATIN
"At last!" Opratin exclaimed, running his eyes across the letter, which
was typed on an official letterhead.
Ever since summer, Opratin's imagination had been fired by the letters
A M D G on Benedictov's box that had contained the missing knife. When
Benedictov showed him the box Opratin had immediately recalled the old
underground passage in Derbent, the crucifix on the chest of the skeleton,
and, lying beside it, the small flat box on a golden chain, with the letters
A M D G engraved on it.
From what Pavel Koltukhov had said Opratin now knew that there were
three boxes, and that the third box, the one in Derbent, contained some sort
of "key to the mystery".
Opratin had written a number of cautious letters, first to Derbent and
then to Moscow, after learning that the agent's equipment had been sent
there. Now the long-awaited reply was in his hands. The agent had been a
submarine officer in the Italian Tenth Torpedo-Boat Flotilla, notorious for
its sudden raids on British naval bases with mines guided by frogmen.
Part of the Tenth Flotilla had been transferred to the Crimea in 1942.
When the Nazis broke through to the North Caucasus part of the Flotilla had
concentrated submarines and frogmen-guided torpedoes at Mariupol on the Sea
of Azov for transfer to the Caspian Sea.
Vittorio da Castiglione, an officer of the Tenth Flotilla, parachuted
down onto the Caspian coast near Derbent on a dark autumn night. His mission
had probably been to reconnoitre the underwater approaches to the port of
Derbent and note installations that could be attacked with guided torpedoes.
But he had wandered into an old quarry and had perished there. Nobody would
ever have learned about Vittorio da Castiglione if Opratin had not stumbled
over him.
"To recapitulate," Opratin said to himself, "one box contained Fedor
Matveyev's manuscript and another the knife. But what was in the third box?
Probably something very important that would throw light on the entire
mystery."
Well, he'd soon know what it was all about.
Nikolai Opratin rubbed his hands in satisfaction.
The Institute of Marine Physics was making preparations to raise the
level of the Caspian Sea. This undertaking was based on the extremely simple
proposition that a heavy rain can produce one and a half millimetres of
precipitation in one minute. If rain poured down constantly on an area of
thirty square kilometres of the Caspian day in and day out, the level of the
sea would rise three metres in the course of a year. Water for the downpours
would have to be "borrowed" from the Black Sea, where there were plans to
build a powerful nuclear water boiler. A new Soviet method of obtaining
nuclear energy made such an installation possible.
As a gigantic fountain of steam gushed forth from the depths of the
Black Sea a system of directional antennae would force the endless grey
cloud to snake its way over the Caucasus Mountains. On reaching the downpour
area in the Caspian Sea the cloud would enter the zone of a powerful
electrostatic field. Here the concentrated steam would lose its heat, be
converted into water, and pour down on the sea.
Laboratory No. 8 was setting up cloud condensation experiments, and
this kept Opratin, as head of the laboratory, very busy indeed. The
installation had given him a good many sleepless nights. Erection of the
installation on a remote, uninhabited island in the Caspian was nearing
completion. Opratin was personally supervising the operations. He had in
mind certain other plans that were linked up with this installation.
The two new members of the staff introduced a somewhat disharmonious
note into the carefully planned arrangements in Opratin's laboratory.
Shaggy-haired, absent-minded Anatole Benedictov spilled reagents from
bottles on the tables, broke a great many vessels and often caused short
circuits. He argued with Opratin in a loud voice. Yet Opratin was patient
with him, and this was what aroused the greatest astonishment.
With Benedictov's arrival the "fish problem" suddenly loomed large in
the Institute programme. At any rate, it occupied all the best places in the
corridors, for that was where Anatole Benedictov had set up his aquariums.
He plagued the assistant manager in charge of supplies with demands for
various types of food for his fish.
Feeding the fish was one of the duties of the new lab technician, a
husky, rosy-cheeked man with slits for eyes and a tuft of reddish hair on
top of his head. This was Vova Bugrov. Bugrov very soon felt quite at home
in the world of scientific research. As one watched him puttering about
beside the spectrograph, softly humming a popular tune, one felt that the
delicate cassettes were doomed.
"I wonder why Opratin ever took this chap on as a technician," staff
members asked one another. "He looks more like a gangster than anything
else."
To everyone's surprise, though, the new technician turned out to have a
light touch; his huge paws handled the precise instruments gently and
deftly. Bugrov could do a marvellous soldering job. He put great effort into
developing the spectrograms, and he kept a detailed journal (with spelling
mistakes in it, true) of the functioning of the various lab instruments and
machines. This was more than even Opratin had expected from Bugrov.
The motorboat skimmed across the bay towards the open sea. Prow lifted
high, it left behind a pair of long, spreading, foamy moustaches. It was a
calm, sunny morning in October, with a slight chill in the air.
Bugrov, his cap pulled down over his forehead, sat beside the outboard
motor. Suddenly he pricked up his ears. Above the steady roar of the motor
he caught snatches of an interesting conversation.
"No, I don't think they know about the knife," said Nikolai Opratin.
"Then why did they come asking to see me?" Anatole Benedictov retorted.
"They asked questions, Rita says, about three small iron boxes. But why
three? One contained the knife; in the other, you say, they found a
manuscript. But where does a third box come from?"
"That's my business."
Opratin wrapped his raincoat more closely round him. Benedictov tried
to light a cigarette but every time he struck a match the wind blew it out.
He swore as he kept tossing matches into the water.
On reaching the island they guided the boat into a cove with a gently
sloping shore. Bugrov cut the motor and nimbly jumped out onto the damp
sand. He tied the painter to a length of pipe he had driven into the sand on
an earlier visit to the island.
Here, on this desolate little island, Laboratory No. 8 of the Institute
of Marine Physics had set up an experiment facility.
Two months ago a blunt-nose self-propelled barge had pulled its flat
belly up onto the sandy shore, and a tractor, followed by a crane on crawler
treads, had rolled out of its dark interior with much clanging.
An old concrete pillbox built on the island during the war had been
converted into a pilot plan for cloud condensation.
Benedictov and Opratin climbed to the top of the low but steep rise and
disappeared inside the former pillbox. Bugrov remained on the shore. He
walked up and down the sand for a while to stretch his legs, then sat down
on a rock to think.
There was plenty to think about. For two months now he had been
punching the clock, something he had never done before in his life- and what
was he getting out of it? Where was the knife for which he had agreed to
take on the job of lab technician?
It was becoming embarrassing. Friends were laughing at him. A steady,
full-time job, of all things! In science, too! It was time he gave up
working like a horse, they said.
Bugrov couldn't have agreed with them more. He would give it up-just as
soon as he finished his dynamometer. It would be a beauty! All you'd have to
do was step on the footboard and flex your muscles, and the machine would
show you how strong you were. There would be no lights or bells, like in the
ordinary dynamometers. This one was strictly scientific.
All of a sudden Bugrov grew angry with himself. What was he thinking
about? The knife was what he needed! Then he would be able to tour
provincial towns with an astonishing knife act.
He scrambled up the rise and approached the pillbox. After opening the
inclining steel door he entered an underground passageway lined with shelves
holding storage cells. The passageway led into a round room with a domed
ceiling. An internal combustion engine stood there. From this room Bugrov
passed through a narrow doorway into what had once been the casemate.
The room was crowded with laboratory equipment. Red-hot filaments
glowed in an electric fireplace. Nikolai Opratin and Anatole Benedictov sat
at a table under a bright light.
Bugrov marched to the middle of the room and stood there, hands in
pockets, his padded jacket flung open. His face wore an insolent expression.
"You promised me the knife," he said. "When will it be ready?"
Opratin drummed his fingers on the table. "Look here," he said in an
even voice, "if you get on my nerves you'll never lay eyes on the knife at
all. Can't you see we haven't set up all the equipment yet? Be patient."
"I'm patient, all right," Bugrov replied defiantly. "Too patient, in
fact. I'm just warning you. You'd better speed things up."
"That will do. Instead of complaining you could put your energies to
better use by tinkering with the power generator. You're the one who will be
servicing it."
Bugrov pushed his cap to the back of his head and left the room.
The mutiny on the island had been put down.
"I can't see why you have anything to do with that gorilla," Benedictov
remarked.
Opratin shook his head. "Rank ingratitude, I call it. That gorilla is
the person who gets you those ampoules you're so fond of."
Benedictov said nothing.
"He's right. We'll have to speed things up," Opratin went on. "We won't
be here alone forever. We'll have to start work on cloud condensation as
well, and that means researchers will be coming here to work. I shan't allow
them to see the equipment in the room below, of course, but still- Anyway, I
have an idea." He told Benedictov of his talk with Pavel Koltukhov, about
the episode mentioned in Fedor Matveyev's manuscript and about the
electrets.
"Don't you see? The Hindus may very well have used electrets as a
source of energy. Electrets have a peculiar property to which I have given a
great deal of thought."
"Namely?"
"A shift in polarity. Sometimes an electret begins to lose its charge
within a few hours. The charge drops to zero and then increases again, but
now the positive and negative poles have changed places. An electret with
altered poles will exist for an indefinite time. Sometimes this happens and
sometimes it doesn't. W7hat changes take place in the substance of the
electret? What is this zero threshold across which its charge passes? That's
the question."
"A magnet magnetizes other substances without losing its properties. An
electret charges other substances without losing its charge," said
Benedictov. He was speaking with his eyes closed, concentrating on his
words. "Splendid! That confirms my idea. What we must do is set up an
installation in which the knife will transmit the charge. The knife will
charge other bodies with its properties, will remake their structure to
resemble its own. To put it more exactly, the knife will transmit
penetrability."
Opratin stared at Benedictov in silence for a few seconds.
"Transmit penetrability," he repeated in a low voice. "Use the knife as
a transducer. That's a brainwave!"
Benedictov coughed to clear his throat and then amplified his idea.
"It's a brainwave!" Opratin repeated, striding up and down the room.
"Do you mean to say we can do it with living material too?"
"Exactly. My experiments with fish make me confident of success."
Opratin stopped pacing the floor. "To sum up, we'll make an electret
with switched polarity that will create a permanent field. We'll intensify
the field with a powerful charge of static electricity, using our Van de
Graaff generator. We'll set up the installation in such a way as to make the
fields intersect. We'll place Fedor Matveyev's knife, the transmitter of the
'charge,' at one intersection and an ultrashort wave radiator at the other.
It will be a kind of cage in which we'll put some of your fish, or maybe
dogs. Or anything else, for that matter. We'll keep changing the field
intensity and keep on experimenting until we hit on just the right angle!"
Opratin's eyes sparkled. He was so excited that he could hardly stand still.
"Yes, we'll force that knife to transmit its properties to another object!'"
Arguing and interrupting each other, the two scientists proceeded to
sketch designs of the future installation. Suddenly Benedictov flung aside
his pencil and rose, his joints creaking.
"The knife," he said. "We must have the knife. We won't get anywhere
without it. I don't think you're searching for it the way you should."
"I've combed the sea floor at that place three times." Opratin stopped,
then added in a lower voice, "Is there any reason why your wife should want
to hinder our work?"
"Hinder our work? No, although lately she's been urging me to drop my
experiments. But that's all. Why do you ask?"
^Because the knife doesn't seem to be at the bottom of the sea. I have
a feeling your wife is concealing it."
Benedictov's face grew long. "Impossible. Why should she do that?"
"Why should she try to persuade you to give up this line of
experiments?"
Benedictov did not reply. The electric fireplace threw red shadows
across his gloomy face.
"Never mind, you leave the knife to me," Opratin said. "I'll get it."
IN WHICH VALERY GORBACHEVSKY'S LITTLE FINGER PLAYS THE LEADING PART
Nikolai and Yura were now completely engrossed in the enigmatic Mobius
band. Their catch-all notebook was filled to overflowing with formulas and
sketches of intertwined bands.
"Your idea of using one side is marvellous, Nikolai!" Yura exclaimed.
"I'm sure the Mobius band will give us the field we need. Imagine! No pipes!
A stream of oil flowing straight through the sea!"
Yura's enthusiasm was infectious. "I've estimated," Nikolai said, "that
doing away with pipes to transport oil across the Caspian would save about
25,000 tons of steel."
"But that's not the main thing," Yura said impatiently. "We'll learn to
control surfaces. It'll be an epoch-making discovery!"
"Now don't let our imagination run away with you," Nikolai remarked.
"We aren't in that class at all. With our limited resources we can only set
ourselves a limited goal like increasing the surface tension of a drop of
mercury. If we succeed we'll try to do the same with oil."
Yura grew downcast. "Is that all?"
"No, not quite. Don't spread this all over the Institute and don't say
anything, meanwhile, to our chief. Is that clear?"
"Yes, strictly confidential," Yura said with a sigh. "The Inquisition
put the same kind of pressure on Galileo."
The evenings in Cooper Lane were now a busier time than ever. Yura and
Nikolai had enlisted the services of three young engineers from the
automation department, who helped them to assemble intricate electronic
circuits. They often blew the fuses and then had to go out with a candle to
repair the damage. Luckily, Nikolai's mother was a patient, kind-hearted
woman.
One day lab technician Valery Gorbachevsky took Yura aside. "Need any
help evenings?" he asked.
Yura stared at him. "How do you know what we're doing after working
hours?"
"I'm not deaf, am I?"
"All right, drop in tomorrow at eight. Just keep whatever you see under
your hat. Don't mention it to Privalov. What we're doing at home is our own
private concern."
Valery nodded.
"After all, Faraday was once a lab technician too."
"Faraday? A lab technician?"
"That's right. Not here, of course, but at the Royal Institution of
Great Britain. As you can see, a big future lies ahead of you."
That evening Yura, a guitar slung over his shoulder, strode briskly
down Cooper Lane and turned into the courtyard of Nikolai's house. A series
of what sounded like gunshots came from the other side of the archway, where
a tall, plump woman was beating a carpet. At sight of Yura she gave a broad
smile. "Haven't seen you for a long time," she said.
"Good evening, Claudia," said Yura.
"Is Nikolai throwing a birthday party?" she asked. "Guests keep coming
and coming. Young people, all of them." She smiled again. "My Vova is doing
scientific research too nowadays."
"Well, give him my best regards." Yura smiled politely and ran up the
steps two at a time. He flung open a door from behind which came voices and
laughter. Everyone was there. Nikolai and the three other young engineers
were tinkering with the instruments. They had the efficient assistance of
Valery, who never suspected he was destined to be the hero of the day.
"What held you up?" asked Nikolai.
"Uncle Vova's wife stopped me for a chat and asked me to pass on her
very best regards," Yura replied.
"Why the guitar?"
"I'll sing you some songs."
"Stop twaddling. Come on, let's check the connections."
"I'll tell you why I brought the guitar." Yura's tone was now serious.
"Our tuning-fork generator is made to oscillate by an electromagnet, isn't
it? But the electromagnet means an extra magnetic field, in other words,
frequencies that we don't need at all. So I thought-"
"That's right," swarthy Hussein Amirov put in. "A guitar can do the
work more simply than an electromagnet."
The installation stood on a big table behind blue draperies. It
consisted of the original mercury heart and valve oscillator with a
tuning-fork breaker, to which a twist of copper tubing, an enormous Mobius
band, had been added. The output circuit of the valve oscillator was
connected to coils surrounding the band. The scales containing the mercury
heart stood inside the band.
The one-sided Mobius band was expected to produce a field which would
sharply increase the surface tension of the mercury and squeeze it so hard
that it would stop pulsating. Then, by adding mercury until the heart
started beating again they would be able to calculate, from the additional
weight, the extent to which surface tension had been stepped up. Once they
hit on the right combination of frequencies they could start experimenting
with oil.
Nikolai switched on the battery of capacitors. To do this he had to
crawl under the table and disturb Rex, who was sound asleep there.
As Yura checked the connections the neon bulb in the handle of his
screwdriver glowed with a twinkling pink light from time to time.
"All systems functioning," Yura finally declared. "Breaker frequency is
440 hertz."
"Ting, ting, ting" went the tuning-fork gently in the silence of the
room.
Yura hurriedly tuned his guitar. Next they adjusted the tuning-fork
breaker by moving the weights on its prongs.
Now all they had to do was touch a guitar 'string, and the contacts of
the tuning-fork breaker |would begin to break the high-frequency circuit at
the rate of 440 times per second.
The mercury heart beat quietly inside the mysterious field of the
Mobius band. Our experimenters knew, of course, that a long, boring search
lay ahead of them. They knew that an experiment rarely yields the desired
result the first time. Still, deep down inside there was the hope that
perhaps today a miracle would take place.
It didn't.
"We'll have to vary the operating factors," said Nikolai. "Will you
strike B on the tuning-fork, Valery?"
Ting-ting-ting.
Yura plucked a guitar string.'
There was silence, broken suddenly by a sharp knock on the door.
"Who could that be?" Nikolai wondered.' "Mother said she wouldn't
return home until late."
The young men moved away from the installation and drew the draperies
to hide it from view. Only Valery, with his tuning-fork, :and Rex remained
behind the draperies.
"Let's liven up the party!" shouted Yura. He plucked the strings of the
guitar, took a few dancing steps, and began to sing:
Why do you wander in the moonlight,
Oh black-eyed beauty of mine?
Powder in your pocket to poison me with,
A locomotive in your pocket to crush me with.
Nikolai opened the door and Vova Bugrov, in a striped blue pyjama top,
came in.
"Hullo, everybody," he said politely, letting his eyes roam about the
room. His glance rested on the blue draperies and on the scraps of wire
scattered on the floor. Then he shook hands with each of the young men in
turn. "Having a party?" he asked. "That's fine. I'll take only a minute of
your time, Nikolai." He pulled a rusty spring out of his pocket. "Will you
calculate its strength, please?"
"You said you'd switched to electric dynamometers," said Yura.
"So I have," Bugrov replied with dignity. "This is just something-well,
to make a long story short, a couple of pals dropped in and asked me to help
them."
Nikolai quickly measured the diameter of the spring and the wire to
which it was attached, and then took out his slide-rule.
"Twenty-eight kilograms."
"Thanks." Bugrov picked up the spring and moved towards the door.
At that moment there was a crash behind the draperies. The young men
exchanged glances. Vova swung round and stared at the draperies. Rex emerged
from beneath them, his paws tapping the floor. He stretched and then sniffed
at Bugrov's shoes.
"Go away, dog," said Bugrov, backing towards the door. "I don't like
being sniffed at."
Nikolai saw Bugrov out and locked the door behind him. Yura struck
another few chords to be on the safe side. Strumming the bass strings, he
sang:
Powder in your pocket to poison me with,
A locomotive in your pocket to crush mo with.
Nikolai pulled back the draperies. The scales with the mercury heart
had crashed to the floor. The tuning-fork generator lay in a pool of
solution with sparkling drops of mercury in it. Valery sat on the table, his
face as white as a sheet. He was holding up his right hand and was staring
in horror at his extended little finger.
That evening Boris Privalov and Pavel Koltukhov remained at the
Institute long after everyone else had left.
"If you don't mind my saying so, Boris, you're going round the bend
about that idea of a pipeline without any pipes," said Koltukhov.
"Has Professor Bagbanly gone round the bend too?"
Koltukhov said nothing.
Privalov looked at his watch and stood up. "By the way, he should be
here soon. Would you like to see what we're doing?"
They went down to the first floor and walked along a seemingly endless
corridor. Privalov unlocked the doors of a room in which a stator from a big
dynamo stood. Inside the stator, almost touching the pole shoes and
windings, was a coil of glass tubing filled with a pink liquid. The ends of
the coil were connected with a tank and a centrifugal pump.
"It looks like a high-frequency still for making home-brew liquor,"
Koltukhov said with a laugh, touching the cold glass with the tips of his
fingers.
"We're doing two experiments with this apparatus," Privalov explained.
"The liquid in the tube is water to which we have added acid to make it a
conductor and a colouring substance to make it easier to observe. Now watch.
This is the first experiment."
At the push of a button a faint hum arose as the centrifugal pump began
to drive the pink liquid through the glass coil.
"The winding of the stator is not connected with the mains," said
Privalov. "It's only connected with the voltmeter. Watch this!"
The voltmeter needle trembled and crept towards the right-hand side of
the dial.
"See that?"
"Of course. The liquid is a conductor. It cuts the magnetic lines of
force of the stator and induces electromotive force in the windings. There's
nothing new about that. A meter in which a liquid passes through a tube of
non-magnetic material is based on this principle."
"That's true, there's nothing new about it. But whereas the voltage in
those meters is insignificant, here-"
"Oho!" exclaimed Koltukhov, his eyes on the voltmeter. "How did you
manage that?"
"Professor Bagbanly," Privalov said shortly. "Now we'll do the
experiment the other way round."
He switched off the pump. The liquid stopped moving and the voltmeter
needle returned to "zero".
"Now I'll simply send some current into the stator winding."
He pushed another button. Although not driven by the pump, the pink
liquid again ran up into the spiral.
"Let's make it harder." Privalov turned the knob of a valve. "Keep your
eye on the pressure-gauge. I could increase the resistance still more and
get a higher pressure. But the fragility of the glass tubes prevents me from
doing so. Do you see what I'm getting at?"
Koltukhov looked puzzled. His eyes stared fixedly from beneath his grey
eyebrows.
"Wait a minute," he said. "In other words, a liquid in an
electromagnetic field starts moving all by itself. Is this a model of the
movement of a liquid through a pipeless pipeline?"
"Right. The only difference is that the surface tension of the liquid
will take the place of pipes, while a directed field will replace the
windings and magnets."
" 'The only difference' is a mild way of putting it," Koltukhov
muttered.
They heard quick footsteps in the corridor. The door opened and
Professor Bakhtiar Bagbanly entered.
"Ah, our main opponent!" he said as he shook hands with Pavel
Koltukhov. "Have you come to see for yourself?"
"He's sceptical," said Privalov.
"Well, that's part of the scientific approach." Professor Bagbanly ran
his eyes over the apparatus, then asked Privalov some technical questions
about the experiment. He began to pace the room, a short, stocky,
large-headed man with thick grey hair.
"What examples do we have of mutual penetrability?" he asked suddenly.
"Diffusion," said Privalov. "The diffusion of solids."
"Yes, but diffusion calls for specific conditions. Even if you press
perfectly polished surfaces of lead and tin together very hard, it will take
years before even the slightest penetration takes place. However, if you
heat a compressed bundle of lead and tin to 100 degrees a layer of
intermingled molecules will appear in their border area within twelve hours.
What is it that puts up resistance to transition through the contact zone?"
The Professor stopped his pacing and gave the two engineers a thoughtful
look. "The surface! That mysterious world of two-dimensional phenomena."
He resumed his pacing, meanwhile smoothing; with his fingertips, the
grey moustaches beneath his hooked nose.
"There's another diffusional phenomenon," he went on, "and that is
pressure contact welding. It produces mutual penetration, but you need high
temperatures and pressures to do it."
"What about welding inside a vacuum?" Privalov asked. "It can be done
at a very low pressure and without much heating. What is more, you can join
the most diverse materials-steel and glass, for instance. Actually, it isn't
so much welding as intensified diffusion."
Professor Bagbanly nodded in agreement. "Yes, but why? Possibly,
because in a vacuum a surface is free and opens up, as it were, since it
borders on empty space. The forces protecting the surface weaken and open up
the substance. However, our goal is to intensify diffusion until we attain a
state of unhindered mutual penetration. Forcing matter to open its gates,
isn't that so?" He traced a question mark in the air with his forefinger.
"Is there a lot of matter in solids? The answer is no, there's very little.
Actually, an atom has a very insignificant volume. But what is the atom
filled with? After all, matter is concentrated in the nucleus of the atom.
From the standpoint of density, everything under the sun is as sparse as-"
he searched for a comparison-" as sparse as the hair on the head of our
friend Pavel Koltukhov."
Koltukhov gave a smirk and involuntarily ran a hand over his bald head.
"Considered from the position of a mechanical model, matter can easily
be penetrated," Professor Bagbanly went on. "Actually, though, we cannot
regard matter as a mechanical conglomeration of small spheres situated at a
great distance from one another. Powerful internal forces connect all the
components and prevent penetration. If those forces did not exist my hand
would easily pass through metal." He laid the palm of his hand on the
stator. "The probability of physical particles meeting is insignificant.
Less probable than peas colliding if two handfuls are thrown towards each
other."
The Professor wiped his hands on his handkerchief and looked at the two
men, his former pupils, as though expecting them to make some objections.
"Now I'll formulate the problem," he said, in the same tone of voice he
had once used when lecturing to his students. "Hang your ears on the hook of
attention. Without changing the mechanical structure of matter we must
rearrange its bonds-the bonds between atoms and between molecules-in such a
manner that they will be completely neutral when they come into contact with
ordinary matter during the period of reciprocal penetration. The internal
bonds must be re-arranged! Then we'll achieve penetrability."
Koltukhov opened his mouth to make a caustic remark, but just then the
telephone rang.
Privalov picked up the receiver. "Hullo. Yes, this is me. Is that you,
Nikolai? Now take it easy-" He listened for a moment. "What?!" His face
changed. "I'll be there in a jiffy." He put down the receiver and glanced at
Professor Bagbanly. "We must all rush off at once!"
When the blue draperies were pulled across that section of the room
Valery realized that an uninvited guest had dropped in. He put down the
tuning-fork and, to keep himself busy, examined the connections. It was a
good thing he did, for he discovered that one of the weights which regulated
the frequency of the tuning-fork breaker was loosely attached, and that the
scales on which the mercury heart stood had shifted slightly.
"From the vibration, no doubt," Valery said to himself. Carefully, with
his little finger, he moved the scales inside the Mobius band while he
adjusted the weight with his other hand. At the same moment guitar chords
sounded on the other side of the blue draperies and Yura's voice burst into
song.
"An old-fashioned tune," Valery reflected as he continued to move the
scales with his finger. All of a sudden he felt a faint quiver in the little
finger.
"An electric shock?" he wondered. "No, I haven't touched any metal."
To be on the safe side, he thrust his little finger into his mouth. How
curious! The finger did not feel his mouth, and his mouth did not feel the
finger. He stared fearfully at his finger. It looked perfectly normal. He
put it into his mouth again. But again there was no sensation whatsoever. He
tried biting the tip of the finger. His teeth came together as though there
was nothing between them.
Remembering that there was a visitor in the house, Valery stifled a
scream. "It took an iron will to keep from shouting," he later said. But his
body gave a jerk that dislodged the mercury heart from the scales and
overturned the tuning-fork breaker.
Professor Bagbanly, Boris Privalov and Pavel Koltukhov hurried up the
stairs and burst breathlessly into Nikolai's flat.
"Where's Valery?" Privalov demanded.
Valery, his face pale and covered with sweat, came into the room.
Nikolai excitedly told what had happened.
Professor Bagbanly touched Valery's little finger. The tip and the
joint next to it were penetrable. The Professor's forefinger passed through
them easily and touched his thumb.
"Feel anything?" he asked.
"No," Valery whispered.
It was easy to establish where the penetrability ended.
"Light a match," said Professor Bagbanly. "Calm down, young man," he
added when he saw Nikolai nervously break a couple of matches as he tried to
light them. He turned to Valery. "I want you to put the tip of your finger
into the flame of Nikolai's match."
Everyone held his breath. Valery looked as though he were walking in
his sleep. He slowly put his little finger into the flame. It wavered but
its shape did not change. "Do you feel anything?"
"Yes," said Valery hoarsely, holding the tip of his finger in the
flame. "My fingertip feels warm."
The engineers were dumbstruck. They stared in a daze at Valery's little
finger.
"Thrust your finger into the table," the professor said.
Valery obeyed. Half of his finger went into the wood.
"Less goes in now," he said. "At first almost the whole finger went
in."
Professor Bagbanly exchanged glances with Privalov. Then he set about
examining the apparatus.
"A Mobius band?" he said. "Quite an idea. What did the instruments
register when it happened?"
"We weren't thinking about penetrability," Yura explained. "We wanted
to increase surface tension, using this mercury heart. Valery must have put
his hands inside the Mobius band a dozen times without anything happening.
But when he moved the weight-and I plucked the strings of my guitar at the
same time-something clicked. Valery was so scared he overturned everything,
and so we don't know the exact readings." "Automation experts, humph!"
Koltukhov remarked, looking the silent, frightened young men up and down.
"What's the idea of this clandestine laboratory? I shudder to think of the
damage you might have done!"
"Have you tuned your guitar since then?" Privalov asked.
"No," said Yura.
"Then play exactly what you played then. We'll record it," said
Professor Bagbanly. "You have a tape recorder here, don't you?"
Meanwhile, Valery's little finger was gradually returning to its normal
state. He kept testing it against the table. Finally only the very tip of
the finger went into the wood. Then, suddenly, he felt his fingertip being
pinched, and with a cry he pulled his hand away, leaving a bit of skin in
the wood. He immediately thrust his bleeding finger into his mouth. His face
broke into a broad smile. "It's ended!" he shouted.
The courtyard in Cooper Lane throbbed with music. Strains of music,
much of it in a plaintive Oriental key, poured forth through all the open
windows from radios, record players and tape recorders.
Nikolai had never contributed much to the musical life of the
courtyard, but now he aroused the hostility of all his neighbours. Evening
after evening there came from his windows the same tiresome strumming of a
guitar, accompanied by the thumping of a foot keeping time, and his friend
Yura's voice singing:
Powder in your pocket to poison me with,
A locomotive in your pocket to crush me with.
A detailed description of the installation had been sent to the Academy
of Sciences in Moscow, together with a long memorandum and the tapes. The
young engineers had been ordered to keep their mouths shut and to stop
experimenting at home.
"You've done enough mischief," said Koltukhov. "Probing the structure
of matter is not as simple as strumming a guitar."
IN WHICH BBNEDICTOV WALKS OUT OF THE HOUSE
Rita returned home from school earlier than usual that day. She let
herself in with her key, stepped into the entryway and took off her coat,
then paused to listen. Rustling and creaking sounds came from the bedroom.
The creaking was clearly the wardrobe door.
She knew that Anatole was never at home at this hour. Could a burglar
have broken in?
Rita tiptoed to the bedroom door. She held her breath and listened.
Yes, it was a burglar! What she had to do was lock the bedroom door and dash
to the phone.
Just then she heard a familiar cough.
"How you frightened me!" she exclaimed, flinging open the bedroom door.
Anatole Benedictov, in his brown house jacket, was standing in front of
the open wardrobe. He did not turn when Rita entered. Instead, he closed the
wardrobe and limped to the window.
"What's the matter?" she asked in alarm. "Why are you home so early?"
"I feel a bit under the weather."
"Why are you limping?"
"Oh, it's nothing," Benedictov said reluctantly. "I was looking for a
handkerchief. Could you get me one, please?"
Rita opened the wardrobe and took out a handkerchief.
"You don't look well, Anatole," she said. "Could you be running a
fever?"
He waved aside the suggestion and went into his study. Rita changed
into her house dress and went to the kitchen to prepare dinner.
Two days ago she had noticed that the articles in the drawers of her
dressing table were disarranged. She had not attached any importance to it
at the time, but now she realized that Anatole was probably searching for
the knife. He did not believe her when she said the knife was at the bottom
of the sea.
She sliced the potatoes in thick rings and put them into the sizzling
frying pan. Anatole loved fried potatoes. He hardly talked to her at all any
more, she thought sadly and anxiously. He had grown terribly excited when
she told him about the two young men who had dropped in. "No one in his
right mind would have thrown out that box containing Fedor Matveyev's
manuscript!" he had shouted. But how could she have known that the rusty
little bar propping up the old wardrobe would contain an eighteenth-century
manuscript? Nor did she know anything about a third box the young men wanted
to lay hands on.
After that unpleasant conversation Anatole had grown more sullen than
ever. He no longer talked to her at all about his work.
Now Anatole was working on some project together with Opratin. Rita had
long since lost hope that Anatole would achieve some measure of success.
However, perhaps his collaboration with Opratin would prove fruitful. But
what if they really couldn't get along without the knife?
Another source of doubt and anxiety was the young engineer who had
rescued her at sea. Rita's thoughts kept returning to the two young men who
had called on her. What did they want those small iron boxes for?
The name Nikolai Potapkin did not mean anything to Rita, yet there was
something vaguely familiar about the young engineer's face and his way of
carrying himself. She had been conscious of this when he and his friend came
to inquire about the boxes. Now she was almost certain. Without knowing why,
she refused to acknowledge it.
When Rita called out to her husband to say that dinner was ready he
refused to come to the table. He lay on the couch in the study, his eyes
feverish and his face flushed and drenched in sweat.
"You're ill!" Rita exclaimed. "I'll call the doctor."
"No doctors. Just get me some penicillin from the medicine chest."
Only late at night, when he was running a high fever, did he allow Rita
to apply a cold compress to his leg. Then she accidentally discovered a big
abscess on his right hip.
Nikolai Opratin dropped in the next evening. He sat beside Anatole for
a while, discussing various matters. He was most polite to Rita.
He told her that the work was going along well, and praised Anatole's
erudition.
The next morning the burly, plump-cheeked man brought round a packet of
drugs for Anatole. "I was told to hand this over to him personally," he told
Rita in a hoarse bass voice. But Anatole was asleep and she refused to wake
him.
After she closed the door on her unpleasant visitor Rita opened the
packet. It contained ampoules of a drug which Rita recognized to be a
narcotic.
Suddenly the whole thing became clear to her. She sat beside her
husband's sickbed for a long time in a daze. She did not cry. She felt as
though she had shrivelled up inside.
When Anatole awoke she silently showed him the packet. He frowned and
began to snuffle.
An unpleasant conversation followed.
"Yes, yes, I understand," said Rita, clasping her hands, which were now
two lumps of ice. "You wanted to increase your working capacity and then
gradually started taking bigger and bigger doses."
"Oh, leave me alone," he said wearily.
"Give it up, Anatole," Rita pleaded. "Stop taking the drug. That boil
of yours comes from a dirty hypodermic syringe. You won't give yourself any
more injections, will you? You'll drop the habit, and then everything will
be fine again."
"That's enough!" Anatole shouted.
"I insist that you stop," Rita said resolutely. "I'll take you in hand
if you lack the will-power to do it yourself. As for that fat-faced fellow,
I'm going to have him arrested."
Benedictov raised himself on his elbow and swung his feet out over the
side of the bed. Rita rushed to prevent him from getting up. He pushed her
aside. Without uttering a single word he put on his clothes and walked to
the door, dishevelled, desperate-looking, and aloof. He slammed the door so
hard that a shower of plaster came down from the ceiling.
Rita stood beside the door for a long time, the palms of her hands
pressed to her cheeks. She did not cry. But something within her was broken.
Anatole did not return. Twenty-four hours later Vova Bugrov came to the
door bearing a note in which Anatole asked for his things. Rita picked up
the telephone.
"Not thinking of calling the law, were you?" Vova asked with a grin. "I
wouldn't if I were you. I didn't get those ampoules for myself but for him,
because he begged me to. If you report it you'll make things very hard for
him."
Vova was right, Rita realized. She silently packed a suitcase of her
husband's clothes. Vova went into the study and picked up several laboratory
instruments. As he prepared to leave he mumbled that Benedictov was now
staying with Nikolai Opratin.
When Anatole told Opratin that he had walked out of the house the
latter frowned. Fate had sent him a restless man for a partner.
"Well, what's there to be said now?" he remarked. "You may stay at my
place for the time being. There's plenty of room. For the sake of science
I'm willing to put up with a lodger as bad-tempered as you are."
Anatole moved into the spare room in Opratin's bachelor establishment.
There were Oriental rugs on the floor of the room and in two of the corners
stood cabinets with porcelain figurines.
"Are you a collector?" Anatole asked with a condescending smile.
"Porcelain'is a weakness of mine," Opratin said shortly. "How is your
boil?"
"It's healing."
"Look here, Anatole," said Opratin. "We've got to speed up our
experiments on the island. I've been told that Privalov and his assistants
are working along the same lines as we are. They've set up some sort of
installation and are getting promising results."
"How do you know all this?"
"It doesn't matter how I found out. From Vova Bugrov, if you want to
know. They've got in touch with the Academy of Sciences through Professor
Bagbanly. In other words, they are consulting with scientists in Moscow. How
do you like that?"
Anatole did not like it at all. "I'm going out to the island tomorrow
morning," he said, slapping the table with the palm of his hand. "I'll get
things humming. Don't forget, though, that if we don't lay hands on that
knife by the time we get the installation assembled we'll be on the rocks."
"You'll have the knife," Opratin said calmly. "And something else,
besides-something that may be even more important. I'll make a trip to
Moscow in January. With Bugrov."
"Who'll take me out to the island in the motor-boat?"
"I'll get someone at the Institute to do that. Only don't let him
anywhere near the laboratory. But you know that. We'll discuss the details
when the time comes."
There she was, alone in the flat, a deserted wife. She looked up
Opratin's number in the telephone directory. All she had to do was dial that
number and she would hear Anatole's voice. All she had to do was say, "Come
home, Anatole. Forgive me. I can't go on alone."
No, she couldn't say that. She hadn't done anything that called for
forgiveness. He should be the one to beg forgiveness.
But she was plagued by the thought that she had failed him, not kept
proper watch over him, not stopped him in time, and that therefore she was
to blame.
A friend in Moscow wrote inviting her to come for a visit during the
New Year school vacation. "A change will do you good. You can take in some
of the new plays," the friend said. Rita wondered whether perhaps that might
not be a good idea.
The ringing of the bell made her jump. She ran to open the door. Her
heart was beating furiously.
Nikolai Opratin stood at the door. He greeted her courteously and
smiled at her. Rita was unable to say a word. Her lips trembled.
Finally she pulled herself together and invited him to step in. She was
determined not to give Opratin the slightest indication that she wanted to
burst into tears.
What was he saying? "Anatole and I may soon have an important discovery
to announce to the world. We would be able to do so even sooner if we had
that knife of yours." He scrutinized her with cold, appraising eyes.
Rita said nothing.
"It is in your own interests too," he said. "Give us the knife".
"How can I!" she said in a steady voice. "You know as well as I do that
the knife fell overboard."
"It didn't fall overboard," Opratin said quietly. "But if you find the
subject distasteful let's drop it. However, its a pity, a great pity." He
rose. "What shall I tell Anatole?"
"Give him my very best regards. Tell him I'm going to Moscow."
"To Moscow?"
"Yes, to visit a friend of mine during the winter school vacation."
"When will that be?"
"At the very beginning of January."
"What a remarkable coincidence," said Opratin, smiling with his lips
only. "I'll be going to Moscow on business early in January. I hope to have
the pleasure of seeing you there."
IN WHICH BORIS PRIVALOV AND NIKOLAI POTAPKIN VISIT THE INSTITUTE OF
SURFACES AND NIKOLAI GETS A BRAINWAVE
The blue bus with the transparent roof rolled along the snow-covered
highway, past birch groves and white-mantled farm fields. It went through a
small town, rumbled over a bridge across a frozen stream and dived into the
dark tunnel of a fir forest.
Nikolai kept his eyes glued to the bus window, gazing with interest at
the unfamiliar landscape. He had come to Moscow with Boris Privalov two days
before on matters connected with the trans-caspian oil pipeline project.
They had spent all of the previous day at the Ministry, talking with
engineers and officials. Now they were on their way to the Institute of
Surfaces, one of the newest research facilities of the Academy of Sciences.
When they turned off into a driveway the pale winter sun splashed its
rays through the windows, and it immediately grew cosier inside the bus.
Privalov folded his newspaper. "We've arrived," he said.
They stepped out of the bus into a frosty blue midday silence and the
fragrance of a fir grove. The frost pinched their nostrils. The snow
crunched underfoot.
They crossed a large cleared area on which the Institute housing estate
had been built, then walked through another grove and came to a broad avenue
of Institute laboratories and other buildings.
A path in the deep snow brought them to a two-storey building. Inside,
they walked down a green-carpeted corridor, passing a series of doors with
numbers on them. They stopped in front of a thickly padded door with a
lighted sign above it that said "Quiet, please". From the other side of the
door came the sound of a man's voice singing to the accompaniment of a
guitar. This seemed as incongruous in the businesslike Institute atmosphere
as the mooing of a cow in a symphony orchestra.
To the strumming of the guitar, with a foot energetically beating out
the time, a youthful voice sang:
Powder in your pocket to poison me with,
A locomotive in your pocket to crush me with.
Nikolai and Privalov exchanged glances. They had recognized Yura's
voice. This was their tape recording of the experiment.
Members of the Institute staff were expecting Privalov and Nikolai. The
visitors were led into a large, windowless room whose walls were covered
with consoles and control panels. Daylight streamed in through a broad oval
skylight.
A lean man in a dark suit, with high cheekbones, a hooked nose and
neatly parted hair rose from his desk to greet the visiting research
engineers. Nikolai cautiously pressed the hand that was held out to him and
stuttered as he gave his name. He was awed at meeting Academician Georgi
Markov a world-famous scientist.
"Please be seated," Academician Markov said, indicating armchairs with
a brief wave of his hand. "I'm glad to see you. In a few moments two of my
assistants will drop in and tell you what we are doing with your music."
Nikolai felt like sinking through the floor. How tired he was of Yura's
pranks! There were hundreds of pleasant songs, yet Yura had chosen to sing
one of the silliest ditties in the world. But what did it matter to Yura? He
did not have to sit here and watch the polite smile on the face of the
country's most distinguished physicist.
"I can tell you that if it were not for Professor Bagbanly's
confirmation that he had seen it with his own eyes we never would have
believed it." Academician Markov looked at Nikolai. "You're the one who
designed the installation, aren't you?"
"Actually, all I did was think of how to make use of the Mobius band."
"How did you get the idea?"
"Fedor Matveyev's manuscript prompted it. If you remember, he described
some sort of a coil."
"That's right. A half-twist spiral. It interested us too. Allow me to
congratulate you. It was an excellent idea."
Nikolai felt flattered. Before he was aware of it he was grinning from
ear to ear. Wiping off the grin, he said hurriedly: "Automation experts
helped us to design the installation on the basis of ideas suggested by my
colleague Yura Kostyukov. He's the man whose voice you hear singing that
unpardonably silly song which, of course-" "Think nothing of it," said
Academician Markov with a friendly smile. "At your age I liked that song
too."
A stocky young man, not much older than Nikolai, wearing a sports
jacket, and a rosy-cheeked girl in a grey suit entered the room.
The Academician asked Nikolai to describe the experiment he and Yura
had carried out in Cooper Lane. All listened to Nikolai's account in
attentive silence.
"We weren't interested in penetrability at all," Nikolai remarked in
conclusion. "All we wanted to do was build up the surface tension of
mercury."
"You've made the picture clearer," said Academician Markov. "Now we'll
hear what Vassily Fedorovich has to say."
The stocky young man in the sports jacket began by laying several
diagrams and photographs on the table. Then he launched into a description
of the installation he and his fellow-workers had built. Basically, it was a
duplicate of the one in Cooper Lane, but with precise recording apparatus
and a more efficient mechanism in place of the tuning-fork breaker.
Privalov and Nikolai were then invited to examine the installation.
Yes, this isn't Cooper Lane, Nikolai mused as he looked at the apparatus and
instruments. Actually, though, there wasn't any real difference. Here, as at
home, the Mobius band was the dominant element.
Two rods pressed together by powerful electromagnets had been set up
inside the band, and under the right conditions they were to penetrate each
other. But the right conditions had not yet been attained. The dials of the
instruments registered zero.
A tape recorder inside a soundproof room was playing back Yura's
rendition of that ill-fated song. The sound was converted into
electromagnetic oscillations that were recorded on tape for feeding into a
computer.
The Institute computer knew all the parameters of the set-up. All, that
is, except the crucial one. If Valery had not shifted the tuning-fork
breaker the weights would have remained in the same accidental position in
which penetrability had taken place. Now the installation had to be operated
to the accompaniment of all the frequencies that occurred in Yura's song.
The computer kept formulating and solving a series of equations. The
solutions were communicated to the installation in the form of electrical
commands.
"I wonder," said Boris Privalov, turning to Academician Markov, "if you
could tell us what you think of penetrability and its causes."
"It is really too early to say anything definite. However, it seems to
me that our friend Professor Bagbanly is fundamentally right. It is all a
matter of a reorganization of the internal bonds of matter. Something
special takes place in the Mobius band, with its one-sided surface. At a
definite frequency, of course."
Then, with the words "Let us proceed further," he led his visitors out
into a wide corridor. "A Mobius band in a high-frequency circuit is
certainly a most fortunate conjecture. It holds out great prospects,
prospects which perhaps you do not even suspect. But since we have a
definite goal in front of us-an underwater oil pipeline- we decided that in
the first stage we would apply our energies to this particular problem.
Actually, we face two problems. First, we need greater surface tension to
shape a stream of oil as desired. Second, we need penetrability in order to
reduce to a minimum, or else eliminate altogether, resistance to the
movement of the stream. Do you agree?"
"Yes, you're quite right," said Privalov.
"The second problem is still a matter of the future, but the first
one-well, take a look for yourselves."
He flung open a door.
A round concrete pool three and a half metres in diameter filled the
middle of the room. A large horizontal metal band attached to corrugated
insulators encircled it.
"A Mobius band?" Nikolai asked hesitantly, examining it. "It's a
giant!"
They followed their host up to a platform, from which they saw that the
pool was half full of a viscous black liquid having a greenish tinge.
"That's petroleum," said Academician Markov. "Ten tons of it. Now
watch."
He pressed a button on a panel.
The surface of the oil welled up in the middle and continued to^
expand. The edges began to draw away from the sides of the pool, exposing
its bottom. The process went ahead faster and faster. Some powerful force
was shaping the black liquid into an almost perfect sphere three metres in
diameter. Its surface grew shiny and iridescent. The figures standing on the
platform were reflected in it crookedly, as though in a distorting mirror.
"Oho!" Privalov exclaimed.
Nikolai gazed with glowing eyes at the black sphere lying in the pool.
His mind went back to the pulsating drop of mercury in Cooper Lane. But only
for a moment. Everything was swept away by the enormous black sphere. So
this was surface tension!
"The f-frequency-W-what's the f-frequency?" Nikolai asked, stuttering
in excitement.
"We'll give you all the details. But this force isn't strong enough to
take the place of the pipe wall made of steel."
The Academician switched off the current and the sphere immediately
collapsed, flowing back to fill the pool again. The oily black surface
heaved deeply and then became motionless.
"I think the Mobius band can give us a much greater degree of
intensification," said the scientist. "An interesting feature is the
reversible process, a law of physics. Within a very narrow range of
operational factors-which we still don't know completely-the set-up produced
a weakening of the bonds of matter. Strictly speaking, that business with
the finger in your laboratory, the penetrability, is a spin-off.
Incidentally, do you people realize what this amazing discovery means?"
Nikolai said nothing. He had long ago taken a pledge not to build
castles in the air. He would keep strictly to the oil pipeline.
"Not altogether, naturally," said Privalov.
"But we think there'll be a revolution in the cold working of
metals-cutting without resistance and the like."
Academician Markov nodded.
"Furthermore, penetrating tools will be used to sink coal mines and
drill oil wells," Privalov went on, his voice eager. "I even think-you
mustn't laugh, though-there might be a way of protecting spaceships against
meteorites."
"It's within the realm of possibility," the Academician said
thoughtfully. "But it won't be at all easy to work out the specific approach
required in each practical application. The surface of matter possesses
energy, and it looks as though we may lay our hands on it."
Privalov ran his fingers through his thick hair. "A new type of
energy?"
"No, a new source of energy," Academician Markov said. "A more
available source than nuclear energy."
All were silent for a moment.
"If only we could actually look at and feel a specimen of restructured
matter," the Academician went on. "Who can tell when our set-up yields the
first matter of this type? What a pity the effect produced on the finger of
your lab technician was so short-lived. Now if we could by some miracle
acquire Fedor Matveyev's knife-if such a knife actually exists, of course."
"What if the knife is just lying about somewhere at this very minute?"
The stocky young man in the sports jacket put in. "Fedor Matveyev did bring
it to Russia, didn't he?"
The words "lying about somewhere" conjured up in Nikolai's mind a
picture of a summer day flooded with hot sunshine, the boat races, Opratin's
zuotorboat and Vova Bugrov in the water beside it. When Nikolai swam up to
the boat he heard Bugrov say "All I want is the knife." Vova had an
aqualung. There was some kind of a scanning device in the motorboat. They
were searching the sea bottom at the spot where Rita had fallen overboard.
Before that, Opratin had come to their Institute and had questioned
them to learn just where she had fallen into the sea. Come to think of it,
he had asked-yes, he had-whether the woman had had anything metallic in her
hand. It was the knife, Fedor Matveyev's knife, that Opratin and Bugrov were
looking for.
If the little iron box containing Matveyev's manuscript had been taken
for a piece of ordinary junk and had been thrown out of Rita's house- and
Nikolai did not doubt that it had-it was possible she could have possessed
Matveyev's knife. It could have been in another box.
Nikolai recalled the sketches on the last page of the manuscript. The
box in which they had found the manuscript was named "The Source". There was
a sketch of another box, called "The Evidence". Evidence! What could be
better evidence than that knife?
Nikolai had finally woven all those scattered impressions into a single
picture. Fedor Matveyev's knife did exist. Rita knew about it. Opratin and
Bugrov were searching for it. Or perhaps had already found it.
Although Nikolai was eager to pour out the whole story he held his
tongue. This was neither the time nor the place. He brought his mind back to
what the others were saying.
"If Fedor Matveyev held the knife by the handle it means the handle was
made of ordinary material," the scientist stated. "There must have been a
transition zone in the blade.
"Should I send a wire to Yura?" Nikolai wondered. "Maybe he could pry
some information out of Bugrov or Bugrov's wife. We must lay hands on the
knife. We simply must."
Again he brought his mind back to the conversation.
"The bonds in matter are not stable. They are constantly changing-"
"Why didn't Yura and I think of it before?" Nikolai asked himself. "It
dawned on me only just now, when he said the knife might be lying about
somewhere."
"We may need some practical assistance from your Institute,"
Academician Markov was saying. "How would your director look upon that?"
"I don't know", Privalov confessed. "The pipeline across the Caspian
which we are designing is to consist of ordinary steel pipes. It's a
definite project, with a definite deadline, and we have to concentrate our
energies on it. The idea of a pipeline without pipes-well, that's merely a
vague conjecture so far."
"We'll arrange for permission from the Ministry, or rather, this girl
here will do it. She's a representative from the Ministry. She's so pretty
you might take her for an empty-headed little creature, but I can assure you
that she knows every nook, corner and path in the bureaucratic jungle."
"What a thing to say about me!" the girl protested, laughing.
Soon after, the two visitors made their farewells. Privalov settled his
tall caracul hat firmly on his head with a sigh, took Nikolai by the arm,
and they left the Institute of Surfaces.
The moment the men returned to Moscow Nikolai sent off a wire to Yura.
Am certain 0. and B. are seeking Fedor's knife. Investigate
immediately. Contact Bugrov's wife.
IN WHICH "THE KEY TO THE MYSTERY" DISAPPEARS AND FEDOR MATVEYEV'S KNIFE
REAPPEARS
Nikolai was flabbergasted by what he had seen and heard at the
Institute of Surfaces. The magnificent prospects which Academician Markov
had hinted at in passing were hard to take in all at once. They had to be
assimilated gradually.
He and Privalov spent several evenings in their hotel room talking
about those prospects.
As they were drinking tea in their room one morning there was a knock
on the door.
"Some letters for you," said the floor clerk. There were two letters,
one from Privalov's wife, the other for Nikolai from Yura. Nikolai slit open
the envelope and ran his eyes over the first few lines of Yura's letter. He
could not help laughing aloud. Yura was his usual self.
The letter began as follows:
"The Right Honourable Nicholas S. Potapkin, Esq.
"Dear Sir,
"First of all, allow me to inform you that when the mail coach at last
drew up to our gates, instead of the long awaited detailed letter all I
found in the pouch was a short and meagre message. Damn it all, sir. I am a
plain man, sir, arid I want to state in plain language that I looked upon
you as a gentleman. Nevertheless, I am writing to you, although I would
perhaps do better to exchange my pen for a pistol, which is the best thing
to use against damned coyotes like yourself. After reading your dispatch I
jumped into the saddle and galloped off like the wind. I hitched my mustang
to a chaparral bush, then strode through the gateway of your ranch-"
At this juncture Yura's patience with Wild West lingo ran out and he
continued more simply.
"I waited a long time under the archway before Bugrov's wife came out
of the house and into the yard. Then I humped into her, quite by chance, of
course, and gallantly bowed and scraped before her. I gave free rein to my
tongue as I brought her around to answering my main question: was it true
that Uncle Vova, using our scuba diving gear, had found an object which had
fallen into the sea from the deck of the Uzbekistan? 'How come you know
about that?' she asked, looking at me with suspicion. 'Were you on board the
ship too?' 'No,' I answered, 'but I was on board the sailboat that picked up
the lady in red.' At this she took me aside and told me the whole story."
Here Yura described in detail what had taken place on the deck of the
Uzbekistan.
When he finished reading this part of the letter Nikolai sprang to his
feet.
Privalov raised his head. "What's the matter?"
"Read this, Boris. Starting from here."
Privalov quickly scanned the page.
"Oho!" he exclaimed. "So Matveyev's knife really does exist! What
happened next?"
Next, Yura reported that Bugrov had left for Moscow together with
Opratin. Yura related how, after his talk with Claudia, he had gone upstairs
to see Nikolai's mother. Nikolai had authorized him to collect his pay
envelope and pass it on to her. While he and Nikolai's mother were chatting
about the cold weather in Moscow and wondering whether Nikolai wasn't too
lightly dressed for those severe frosts, there was a knock on the door. Yura
went to open it. A thick-set, unshaven, shaggy-haired, middle-aged man stood
there.
"I would like to see Nikolai Potapkin," he said.
"That's me," Yura said, making a sign behind his back to Nikolai's
mother.
"I'm Anatole Benedictov," the visitor said.
"Pleased to meet you. Won't you take off your coat and sit down?"
Benedictov refused to take off his coat, but he sat down at the table
and put his hat and gloves in his lap.
"This is a return visit," he said. "I'll get right down to the point.
My wife told me you were interested in some small iron boxes. Could you tell
me what it's all about?"
"You know the answer to that question better than I do," Yura replied.
"A little iron box that was thrown out of your house as a piece of junk was
found to contain a manuscript. We became interested in the manuscript and
began to search for the two other little boxes mentioned in it. One of the
boxes evidently contained Fedor Matveyev's knife. It's a great pity the
knife is lying at the bottom of the sea. Or have you found it by now?"
Benedictov's hands twitched nervously.
"Very well," he said, coughing to clear his throat. "Since you are so
thoroughly informed, could you tell me what's inside the third box?"
"I wish I knew."
Both were silent for a while. Then Benedictov said: "As far as I know,
you are working on the problem of penetrability. We're doing something along
those lines too. I've heard that you put together an original apparatus and
obtained interesting results. If it isn't a secret, could you-" He paused
and looked expectantly at Yura.
"It isn't a secret, of course," Yura said slowly, choosing his words.
We're designing an oil pipeline and while we were at it we became interested
in the diffusion of liquids. As for our experiments, I'm afraid I cannot
give you any details. I'm not authorized to do so. Why don't you approach
the director of our Institute through the regular channels?"
"Through the regular channels, you say?" Benedictov gave a wry grin.
"Thanks for the advice. It was a pleasure to meet you."
With those words Benedictov clapped his hat on his shaggy head.
"The feeling is mutual," Yura replied courteously. He picked up
Benedictov's gloves, which had fallen to the floor, and handed them to him.
"These are yours, I think. Did you get my address from the telephone book?"
he asked casually.
"No, from a member of our staff who lives in this house."
"Ah, yes, of course. By the way, it would be very interesting to have a
look at Fedor Matveyev's knife. If it isn't a secret."
"You yourself said it's at the bottom of (he sea," Benedictov muttered.
On his way to the door, accompanied by Yura, Benedictov paused for a
second to look at the blue draperies.
"Yes, you're right," Yura said in reply to Benedictov's unspoken
question. "This is where the experiment took place."
He pulled aside the draperies with a broad gesture. Benedictov
involuntarily stepped forward, but all he saw was a tape recorder of unusual
design and, under the table, several black boxes containing storage
batteries.
"We dismantled our set-up," Yura explained. "But you know what? If
you're doing work along the same lines, then why don't we co-operate? Why
not drop in at our Institute?"
Benedictov looked at Yura from under his heavy, swollen eyelids but did
not reply. He simply said goodbye and went out in a slow, shuffling gait.
Yura stood at the window watching him depart.
"Very curious news," Privalov remarked, pouring himself another cup of
tea.
"I had a feeling from the beginning that she hadn't simply fallen
overboard." Nikolai crumpled Yura's letter in his fist and began to pace the
floor. "She went over the rail because she was diving for the knife. That's
obvious. If she had found it she would have given it to her husband, of
course. But her husband is collaborating with Opratin, and he-Opratin, that
is-was searching for the knife at the spot where it fell into the sea. We
can assume that Rita didn't find the knife, and it is still lying at the
bottom of the sea, or else-"
"Or else what?" Privalov asked.
"Or else Opratin has found it."
"In that case we must speak to Opratin and ask him to lend us the knife
for a time so that we can study it," Privalov said quietly. "It would help
us enormously." He sipped his tea. "If Opratin is in Moscow we'll get in
touch with him. Sit down at the telephone and ring up the hotels. Start with
the Golden Wheat and the Yaroslavl."
With so many hotels the job of locating Opratin by telephone seemed
hopeless. Time and again Nikolai heard the words: "No one of that name
registered here", or else the clerk did not bother to listen to the question
but merely said, "Sorry, but we're full up." Finally, however, a voice said,
"Opratin? Just a moment. What's his first name? Yes, he's staying here.
Opratin and Bugrov. Room 130."
Nikolai laughed. "This is really one for the book. He's in a hotel
across the street from us." Nikolai dialled the number of Opratin's room but
no one answered.
"We'll try again in the evening," said Privalov. "I have to attend a
conference of oil industry construction experts. Meanwhile I want you to
straighten out a few questions at the Ministry."
Nikolai sighed. He did not like the Ministry. The endless corridors
there always had a depressing effect on him.
"Oh, yes, I almost forgot," said Privalov. "Get yourself a ticket for
Wednesday. I'll stay on a while longer."
When Boris Privalov entered the lobby of the underground his glasses
became clouded over from the warm air inside. He took them off to wipe them,
and when he put them on again the first person he saw was Nikolai Opratin,
who had just stepped off the escalator.
Opratin wore an elegant coat with a fur collar and a hat of young
reindeer skin. He hurried up and greeted Privalov with what struck him as
exaggerated affability.
"How pleasant to run into someone from home in the hustle and bustle of
Moscow!" he exclaimed, pumping Privalov's hand. "I'm really very glad to see
you."
"Why all this effusion?" Privalov wondered. "He's usually so
restrained. But, after all, it is indeed nice to meet someone from home."
After the exchange of small talk customary on such an occasion, Opratin
asked, in a casual tone, "What are they saying in the Academy about Fedor
Matveyev's manuscript?"
"They're still studying it. Incidentally, there is a supposition that
something else besides the manuscript has come down to our day."
"Really?" Opratin said, his voice now wary. "What's that?"
"Fedor Matveyev's knife."
"You don't put any stock in those Indian fairy tales, do you?"
Privalov did not like this. Why the subterfuge? He decided to take the
bull by the horns.
"But we know that one of the members of your staff, Benedictov, had
Fedor Matveyev's knife. We also know that you searched for it on the sea
floor at the spot where the woman fell overboard from the Uzbekistan. If you
found the knife, the Academy people would be interested in hearing a report
on it. You realize how important it would be for the advancement of
science-"
"You were misinformed," Opratin said in an icy tone. "I know nothing
whatsoever about the knife."
"But you were searching-"
"My 'searching', as you put it, was connected exclusively with the
problem of raising the level of the Caspian. As regards Benedictov, he is
working on a research project at our Institute, and I haven't the faintest
idea of what he does in his spare time."
This was a polite but firm rebuke. Privalov felt awkward. Indeed, what
grounds did he have for broaching this subject? Yura's letter? A remark made
by the talkative wife of a man called 'Uncle Vova'?
"I beg your pardon," he said. "It seems I was indeed misinformed."
"Yes, you were." Opratin glanced at his watch. "I must leave you now. I
have an appointment." He gave a thin smile and set off briskly towards the
exit.
Privalov followed him with a puzzled glance. If he only knew that at
this very moment Opratin, his hand in his pocket, was fingering the handle
of Fedor Matveyev's knife!
After several wearisome hours at the Ministry Nikolai went to Kursk
Station for a ticket.
There were queues at the booking office. Nikolai shook the snow off his
cap and took his place at the end of one of them.
"Who's last in the queue?" he asked.
A thickset man in a brown leather coat lifted his eyes from his
newspaper to glance at Nikolai disapprovingly.
"I'm next to the last," he said. "There's a lady behind me." He looked
round. "There she is, over there. You'll be after her."
Nikolai glanced fleetingly at the young woman in a black fur coat and
white fur hat. She was at a newsstand with her back to him.
The leather coat sniffed to clear his clogged nose and absorbed himself
in his newspaper. Bored, Nikolai took advantage of his superior height to
read the headlines over the man's shoulder. His eye was caught by a news
item about an exhibition of captured equipment used by spies and subversive
agents. The item described some of the displays: the wreckage of a foreign
reconnaissance plane brought down by Soviet airmen; pistols fitted with
silencers; walkie-talkies. There was also the equipment carried by an
Italian subversive agent who died in a Caspian port in 1942. His remains had
been accidentally discovered in an underground passage not long ago. The
agent had apparently belonged to the Society of Jesus, for around his neck
he wore a small flat box on which was engraved A M D G.
What was this? Nikolai leaned forward and fixed his eyes on the printed
lines.
AMDG. The initial letters of the Jesuit motto.
The leather coat said irritably: "I intensely dislike having someone
breathing down my neck, young man."
"I beg your pardon," Nikolai muttered in confusion. He hurried over to
the newsstand and bought a paper, which he began to read at once.
All of a sudden he felt someone staring fixedly at him. He glanced in
annoyance at the lady in black standing beside him, and then flung his head
back as though he had been hit on the jaw. The lady was Rita.
"Are-are you in Moscow?" he stammered.
"It's obvious I am, isn't it?"
"Yes. So am I. I'm on a business trip." Nikolai coughed and started
folding his paper.
"Are you returning home soon?"
"Yes, I'm getting a ticket for Wednesday. What about you?"
"I'm leaving tomorrow."
Nikolai thrust his paper into his pocket. Rita turned to the woman
behind the counter of the newsstand. "I'll take these picture postcards,"
she said.
She chose half a dozen cards with colour reproductions on them. Nikolai
glanced absently at them. One was a winter landscape, another Levi-tan's
"March", then a picture in the Bilibin style, of a ship with a taut,
wind-filled sail, bearing a drawing of the sun, approaching a landing stage
where bearded men in long robes stood beside cannon wreathed in clouds of
smoke.
Nikolai said the first thing that came into his head. "'Guns firing
from the wharf, ordering the ship to tie up.' I used to copy that picture
when I was a child."
Rita swung round to face him. "Did you ever give that drawing to
anyone?"
Nikolai caught his breath. He stared intently into that pleasant,
mobile, questioning face and suddenly saw long familiar features-a perky
freckled nose, a mischievous smile, and glossy yellow braids jutting out at
a belligerent angle
"Yellow Lynx?" he whispered.
What had Rita been doing in Moscow?
Her friend met her at the railway station on arrival and took her home.
That same day Rita went to a hospital in Pirogov Street and made an
appointment to see a famous neuropathologist. He listened attentively to her
story.
"Only a special course of treatment can help your husband," he told
her. "The cure takes time and patience-but it is the only way. You must
persuade your husband to undergo this course of treatment. I can arrange for
him to enter the hospital where a pupil of mine, Dr. Khalilov, is doing very
good work in this field. The sooner he does this, the better it will be for
him. I'll give you a letter to Dr. Khalilov."
Now Rita was more upset than ever. She was determined to leave for home
at once, before the end of the winter school vacation. However, her friend
persuaded her to spend at least a week in Moscow.
During that week Opratin came to see her three times.
It so happened that Rita and Opratin had travelled to Moscow on the
same train. They had discovered this when the train halted at Mineralniye
Vody and both had stepped out onto the platform for a breath of fresh air.
At Kharkov, Opratin had again approached her on the platform and chatted
with her for a few minutes. Rita had given him her friend's telephone
number, at which she could be reached in Moscow.
There was something threatening and alarming about Opratin's visits to
Rita in Moscow. His presence made her uncomfortable; she felt as though the
shadow of her husband were standing behind him.
Opratin talked to her in a gentle, friendly tone. He agreed with the
doctor, he said, that Anatole should undergo treatment. He himself would
help to arrange a leave of any duration for Anatole. Rita was not to worry;
there were no particularly alarming symptoms as yet. Anatole was cheerful
and enthusiastic about his work.
"That backbreaking, endless, senseless work of Anatole's is what has
estranged him from me," Rita thought.
"We're on the right track now," said Opratin. "But I want you to bear
in mind that it depends to a great extent on you how much longer the job
will take."
Opratin came to see her for the third time on a cold, snowy morning. It
was warm inside the flat, but tense, disturbing music poured from the radio.
"That's a waltz from Masquerade" Rita remarked in a low voice to
Opratin, who was seated on the sofa, his legs crossed, tapping one foot in
time to the music.
"Look here, Rita," he said as the violins soared and then fell silent.
"I know I'm making a nuisance of myself but I really must speak to you again
about Fedor Matveyev's knife."
"This is becoming intolerable," Rita said coldly. "I've told you twenty
times that the knife fell into the sea and was lost."
"No, the knife is in your possession," Opratin declared. "I can't
understand why you are being so stubborn. Now follow me carefully. Anatole
and I have invented a remarkable machine. If we exclude that accidental
phenomenon which your ancestor Fedor Matveyev witnessed in India, no one has
ever come so close to solving the problem of the mutual penetrability of
matter as we have. This will be a major breakthrough. Your husband's name
will stand side by side with those of the most brilliant scientists of our
age."
"But I don't want that!" Rita burst out.
She turned away, biting her lip to keep from crying, and walked to the
farther end of the room.
"He doesn't need fame," she continued in a calmer voice. "He needs to
forget about that damned knife, cure himself and return home. That's all I
want. That and nothing more. Please leave me alone."
Opratin rose. "Very well. I'll leave you alone. But Anatole will never
return to you. Well, goodbye."
He moved to the door.
"Wait!" Rita shrieked. "Why-why won't he return?"
Opratin turned round abruptly. "Because he is slowly but surely killing
himself. Because the doses he is now taking would kill an elephant. Because
he will not be able to endure it if we don't succeed. And success depends
only on the knife. The knife guarantees solution of the problem and, at the
same time, your husband's recovery."
Rita pressed the palms of her hands to her temples. Her eyes were those
of a sick, hunted animal.
Opratin waited. The wind whipped flurries of snow against the windows,
making the panes tremble.
Rita walked with wooden steps into the next room. Opratin heard the
click of a lock.
She returned and flung a knife on the table.
It fell with a strangely light tap.
Opratin walked unhurriedly over to the table. He picked up the knife by
the handle and fixed his eyes on the narrow blade with the wavy design.
Suddenly he plunged it into the table. The blade entered the thick, polished
wood almost up to the hill. Opratin's eyes blazed with triumph.
"Rita, allow me to-"
"Don't. Just go."
She stood by the window for a long lime, looking out from the ninth
floor at a Moscow wrapped in clouds of snow.
Then she threw on her coat, dashed out of the flat, and took a taxi to
the railway station.
"Yes, Yellow Lynx. That was what they called me when we were kids." She
took Nikolai by the arm. Her eyes shone as though a film had been stripped
from them. "I still have that drawing you made."
"I kept thinking there was something familiar about your face," said
Nikolai in a constrained whisper.
"I kept wondering too. When you and your friend came to my house I was
on the verge of recognizing you."
"You know who my friend was? It was Yura." "Yura?" Rita laughed. "Dear
me, he used lo be such a little boy. But so brave, with those feathers stuck
in his hair."
"But we told you our names. Didn't you-" "Do you know my last name?"
"No."
"Well, I didn't know yours either. Children are never interested in
last names. If we'd attended the same school it would have been a different
matter."
Nikolai studied Rita's face. "Can it really be Yellow Lynx?" he thought
in amazement. "You've changed a lot," he said.
Rita's face grew sober. She gave him a long, inquiring glance. Nikolai
had the feeling that she was about to tell him something important. But she
only said, "Do you still live in the same place?"
"Yes, in Cooper Lane."
"Cooper Lane," Rita mused. "It seems like a hundred years ago."
"Why not take a ticket for Wednesday?" Nikolai suggested hesitatingly.
"Then we could travel together."
Rita was silent. Did she want to spend another whole day in Moscow? No,
definitely not. She wanted lo leave tomorrow. There was nothing more for her
to do in Moscow. But she suddenly heard herself saying, "Yes, Wednesday
would suit me fine."
Afterwards they walked along the Sadovoye Ring. Rita, her gloved hand
raised to protect her face from the snow, told Nikolai how her family had
moved lo Leningrad and then the war had come and her father had been killed
when Tallinn was evacuated. He had been in command of a big Troop Transport.
She and her mother had survived the siege of Leningrad. After the war they
had moved back to the town on the Caspian Sea because her mother was very
ill and the doctors had ordered a warmer climate for her.
Rita said nothing about her marriage.
"Why didn't you ever pay a visit to Cooper Lane?"
"I did, soon after we came back. I stopped in to look at the flat where
we used to live. I saw a fat woman sitting on the balcony, knitting. The
place called up painful memories. Everything reminded me of Father. If only
Father had lived-" Rita stopped. "Everything would have turned out
differently."
She shivered. Nikolai screwed up his courage and took her by the arm.
"I remember now," he said. "There used to be two small bars of iron,
with some kind of mysterious letters engraved on them, on your father's
desk. Lately I've been wondering where I saw them before. Do you remember?
We pledged to do everything we could to discover their secret." "Do you know
that my maiden name was Matveyev?" Rita suddenly asked.
"Matveyev?" Nikolai repeated in confusion. "That means you're-"
"That's right, I'm-" Rita's face grew longer. "Rut we won't talk about
that now. Please don't. There's been too much for one day."
She gave Nikolai a searching look, studying his frank face and
attentive grey eyes. His ears were a bright red. Imagine going about in such
a frost with just a spring hat on one's head!
"I'm so glad I met you." she said in a low voice. "I have such a lot to
tell you. No, not now. On the train."
It was nearly five o'clock by the time Nikolai returned to the hotel.
"Boris, you simply won't believe your eyes!" he called out exuberantly
from the doorway. "Read this." He drew the newspaper from his pocket.
Privalov pushed his spectacles up to his forehead and skimmed through
the item about the displays at the exhibition.
"A small metal box with the inscription A M D G." Privalov leaned back
in his chair and his glasses dropped onto his nose of themselves. "You think
this has some relation to-"
"Yes, definitely. It's the same engraving as on our box. What if this
is 'The Key to the Mystery'?"
"In the hands of an Italian subversive agent? Hm-m. Sounds doubtful to
me."
"De Maistre came from Italy too," Nikolai protested. "And there are
Jesuits there to this day, of course. We ought to go to the museum and take
a look, Boris. If the size of the box coincides with the measurements in the
drawing-"
There were not too many visitors at the exhibition. Several youngsters
were arguing heatedly in front of the walkie-talkie display. Two airmen were
examining the wreckage of a foreign plane brought down on Soviet territory.
It did not take Privalov and Nikolai long to find, in the next room, a
tall glass showcase in which stood a life-size dummy dressed in a tattered
outfit, with a parachute on its back. A small golden crucifix gleamed at the
throat, visible through the open collar. Bars of blasting charges, an
aqualung, a frogman's suit, a pistol, a radio transmitter and receiver, a
ball of nylon cord and other articles were laid out at the dummy's feet.
Rut there was no sign of a small metal box with the inscription A M D
G.
"How odd!" Nikolai slowly ran his eyes again over the things in the
showcase. "Very odd indeed. The paper clearly slated-"
"Let's speak to the person in charge," said Privalov.
The director of the exhibition, a short, balding man, raised his
eyebrows in surprise when Privalov told him there was no metal box in the
showcase.
"That can't be," he said. "You simply failed to notice it."
But the director himself was unable to find the box with the initials
of the Jesuit motto. It had vanished.
"It was here last night," he said, looking worried. "I remember showing
it to a group of visitors." At this point he noticed that the tiny lock on
the showcase had been forced open.
The director gave Privalov a questioning look and asked him to explain
his interest in the little box.
Privalov briefly recounted the history of the iron boxes. He did not
say anything about their contents but merely mentioned that the Academy of
Sciences was interested in them.
"No doubt you have an inventory of the Italian agent's things,"
Privalov said when he had finished. "We should like to see the description
of the stolen box."
The director showed them the inventory. They could hardly believe their
eyes when they read that the body of the Italian agent and his equipment had
been found by a person named Nikolai Opratin, a Candidate of Technical
Sciences, in the environs of Derbent the previous August.
"At every turn we come up against Opratin," Nikolai said in a low
voice.
"I now recall having heard about some sort of adventure he had at
Derbent," said Privalov. "Let's read further." A flat metal box with the
letters A M D G, and below them the letters J d M engraved on it was listed
as No. 14 in the inventory. It weighed 430 grammes. Its size was-
"The very same measurements!" Nikolai exclaimed. "I remember them well.
This is 'The Key to the Mystery'. There's no doubt about it."
An hour or so later they had to repeat the story of the boxes to a
black-eyed young investigator, who wrote it all down in a notebook.
It was fairly late by the time Privalov and Nikolai emerged into the
street. A raw wind whirled the snow into their faces. The frost pinched
their ears.
"'The Key to the Mystery'," Privalov mused. "What could it be? Probably
some very important paper."
"Perhaps it's a description of the machine."
They walked along a narrow path in the snow leading to the hotel.
Fences stretched on one side of them and stalls and booths on the other.
Somewhere in the distance a dog howled. The lighted windows of the hotel
sparkled in front of them.
"What a day!" Nikolai thought. He recalled he had not had any dinner.
"I'll drop into the cafeteria, Boris," he said.
As he walked past the hotel across the street from his own, Nikolai
stopped at the entrance.
"Why not?" he thought. "I'll draw Uncle Vova out of the room-without
Opratin knowing about it, of course-and put the question to him straight.
Drive him into a corner. Something tells me he's the one who stole it."
Nikolai entered the lobby and asked the desk clerk to summon a man
named Bugrov from room 130.
"Bugrov?" The clerk looked into the register. "He checked out this
afternoon. Opratin and Bugrov. They called a taxi and drove off to the
airport."
IN WHICH ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE MATVEYEV FAMILY IS BROUGHT TO
THE READER'S ATTENTION
"Get in quick!" the plump conductress said to Nikolai.
Nikolai waved to Privalov for the last time and hurriedly followed Rita
up the steps and into the carriage.
The early winter twilight thickened fast. The houses of a small town
appeared in sight and vanished, to be followed by a frozen stream and three
motionless figures standing with fishing lines beside holes in the ice.
Nikolai was the first to speak. "There's something you wanted to tell
me, Rita, isn't there?"
"Yes, there is."
The wheels clicked rhythmically on the rail joints.
Nikolai stared out into the darkness with unseeing eyes as he waited
for Rita to begin.
"I don't know how to start," Rita finally said. "It's all so
complicated-and I've never told anyone about it before." She sighed softly.
"All right, listen. You remember those two small bars of iron that used to
lie on Father's desk when we were children, don't you? I'll tell you
everything I know about them."
The authors will now take the liberty of relating the story of the
boxes since they have every reason to believe that they now know it better
than Rita did.
The Story of the Three Boxes
Stories about strange doings in the Matveyev family had long been
circulating in St. Petersburg. To begin with, way back during the reign of
Peter the Great a Matveyev, a naval lieutenant, had returned from India with
a bewitchingly beautiful dark-eyed girl. The "taint" in the Matveyev family
had probably started with her. Her sons and grandsons did not rise high in
the government service. They cut short their careers by resigning and
burying themselves on their estate in the Tver Province. There they lived in
seclusion, rarely entertaining any visitors.
From the few outsiders who did enter the house it was learned that
rustling, grinding and crackling sounds would come from a forbidden chamber
long past midnight. These sounds were accompanied by infernal sparks; the
kind of freshness in the air that follows a thunderstorm would spread
through the house.
Moreover, it was whispered that the Matveyevs had a magic knife, the
Indian girl's dowry. No one really knew what kind of a magic knife it was
until it came the turn of Arseny Matveyev, great-grandson of Fedor Matveyev
and his Indian wife, to graduate from the naval school in St. Petersburg.
The young warrant officers hired a room in a tavern on the Moika for a
bachelor supper party to celebrate their graduation. They made a great many
fiery speeches over the wine. They recalled adventures from their cruises,
for all of them had sailed in seas near and far as naval cadets.
At the height of the party Arseny Matveyev placed his swarthy hand on
the table, palm downwards, snatched a knife from a scabbard inside his
shirt, and plunged it into his hand right up to the hilt. Then he quickly
returned the knife to its hiding place and held up his hand. It bore no
trace of a scratch, no sign of blood. Afterwards, the young revelry-makers
could not say for sure whether they had actually seen this or whether it was
a product of their wine-heated imaginations.
However that may be, Arseny Matveyev and his knife were soon forgotten.
Napoleon's army invaded Russia. The years that followed were wreathed in the
gunpowder smoke of danger and martial glory.
But there was one person in St. Petersburg, a man always dressed only
in black, who thought constantly about the miraculous knife. From trusted
men he received periodic reports about Arseny Matveyev, wherever the latter
happened to be.
The man in black was Count Joseph Marie de Maistre, Ambassador of the
King of Sardinia (a king who had been deprived of his realm) and an
important personage in the Society of Jesus.
Before the War of 1812 there had been a Jesuit school in St. Petersburg
where, for a high fee, quite a number of young men from distinguished
families learned Latin prayers and Bible history, plus obedience and
humility. When graduates of the school entered the government service they
did not forgot their spiritual fathers.
Young Prince Kurasov visited Count de Maistre perhaps more often than
others. He was the one who told the Sardinian Ambassador about the
miraculous knife. The prince had been one of the few non-naval men invited
to the supper party and had seen Arseny Matveyev plunge the knife into his
hand.
The prince's story gave Count de Maistre much food for thought. A knife
that passed harmlessly through a hand? The elderly Jesuit believed as firmly
in divine signs as he did in the glorious predestination of the Society of
Jesus, vigilant guardian of the faith and thrones. This was certainly a sign
from on high. Just as the knife had passed through human flesh, Jesuits
would pass without hindrance into the palaces of monarchs and into the
chambers of high officials to persuade them to stamp out free thinking. The
time had come to put a stop to the anti-religious sciences that had so
multiplied. These Devil's instruments advocated the Jacobinism that
destroyed thrones. The time had come to make men's hearts humble before
divine Providence. The time had come to elevate the Society, despite the
persecution to which it was subjected, despite the blindness of some rulers.
The great honour of bringing this sign to the attention of the Society had
fallen on him, Count Joseph Marie de Maistre.
The Count resolved not to let Arseny Matveyev disappear from view.
Through scraps of information brought him by other graduates of the school
he followed the young man's fortunes in the war. He knew that Arseny had
been wounded, had convalesced at his estate at Tver, had been recalled to
the Baltic Fleet, promoted to the rank of lieutenant, and was now stationed
at Kronstadt, near St. Petersburg.
One day in March 1815 a carriage drew up to the Sardinian Ambassador's
residence, and a tall, thin-faced man stepped out of it. Fastidiously
skirting a large puddle of melting snow, he mounted the steps leading to the
front entrance. The Count received him at once. The thin-faced man bowed
respectfully as he entered the Count's study.
The Count was sitting in a deep armchair before the fireplace. He
turned his lined, parchment-yellow face to the newcomer and indicated a
chair with a wave of his hand.
"What is the news, mon prince?" he asked in a weary voice.
Young Prince Kurasov seated himself on the edge of a chair.
"The news is fairly good, Your Excellency," he said wanly. "I have
learned that Arseny Matveyev does not carry the knife about with him but has
left it at Zakharino, the family estate. He has been appointed senior
officer on the brig Askold, now being outfitted at Kronstadt preparatory to
cruising in the Pacific Ocean in search of new lands."
The Count lowered his eyelids. "Is that all?"
"No. Now comes the most important news. Three days ago, in the company
of philosophers and atheists like himself, Arseny Matveyev made seditious
speeches. He spoke in favour of the convocation of a general assembly in
Russia."
Count de Maistre sat up straight and struck the arm of his chair with
his frail fist. The eyes in the yellow face glowed with an evil and
unexpectedly youthful sparkle.
"It seems to me, Your Excellency," Prince Kurasov said cautiously,
"that it would be well to set things in motion-"
The Count stopped him with a gesture and became lost in thought.
"No, mon prince,'" he said after a long interval, "we'll take a
different course. When does the lieutenant depart on the brig?"
"In June."
"Splendid! We've waited a long time, and we can wait a little longer,
until June. The matter must be arranged without undue fuss. Do not disturb
Arseny Matveyev."
A little over two and a half years later, on a hot day in February, the
brig Askold, badly battered by severe storms, dropped anchor at Rio de
Janeiro. There the Russian Consul handed Arseny a letter from his father
that had arrived nearly two years before.
"I shall briefly set forth the misfortunes which have befallen our
house, not through God's will but because of the evil designs of wretched
creatures," his father wrote. "You of course remember Prince Kurasov. He
used to be a friend of yours. Fawning and deference have enabled this man
Kurasov to rise to the higher ranks and, some say, to involvement with the
secret police. Out of spite, or for some other reason, Kurasov has informed
against you, repeating everything that you said in your youthful hastiness
and naming the books you read. This denunciation brought officials to
Zakharino. They searched the house from top to bottom, turning everything
upside down, under the pretence of looking for seditious papers.
"But it seems to me that they were looking for something else. Since
they did not find any papers of that kind some of those hounds ransacked our
special chamber most painstakingly. They examined the electricity machines
from all sides. Furthermore, they confiscated the manuscript in which Fedor
Matveyev, my grandfather and your great-grandfather, described his Indian
travels. They also confiscated that wonderful knife of his."
At the beginning of June 1818, after an absence of nearly three years,
the Askold sailed into the roadstead near St. Petersburg.
Early next morning Prince Kurasov's valet announced that Lieutenant
Matveyev wished to see him. The Prince, in his dressing-gown, was being
shaved by his barber.
"Tell him I'm not at home," he ordered.
A few minutes later there was a commotion downstairs, and the valet's
raised voice could be heard. Then the door was flung open. Arseny Matveyev,
his cheeks tanned a deep brown, stood on the threshold. He was in uniform,
with a sword at his side. Prince Kurasov pushed aside the barber's hand and
slowly rose to his feet, wiping the lather from his cheek. Arseny looked at
him with burning eyes.
"Is this how you welcome old friends, Prince?"
"Please leave the room, sir," the Prince said coldly. "You should thank
the Almighty you got off so easily."
Arseny put his hand on his sword-hilt. "I give you exactly one minute
to hand back the souvenirs you took from my father's estate," he said with
restrained fury.
The Prince's narrow face turned whiter than his lace cuffs. He took
several slow steps backwards, towards his canopied bed, and stretched out
his hand to tug at the bell-rope. In two bounds Arseny, his sword drawn, was
at the Prince's side.
Meanwhile the barber had fled, whimpering, from the room.
The Prince, frightened out of his wits, stammered that the things
confiscated during the search had been turned over to Count Joseph de
Maistre, the former Sardinian Ambassador.
"Where does that Jesuit reside now? Tell me, quick!"
"The Count left Russia last year," Prince Kurasov replied sullenly. "I
do not know where he is now."
Arseny spent only a short time in St. Petersburg. He tendered his
resignation arid left for Zakharino.
The warm September day was drawing to a close. Candles had been lighted
in the small snow-white Villa standing in a garden on the edge of a town in
northern Italy. Their flickering glow was reflected in the mahogany panels
that lined the walls of the study. A spare old man in black stood leaning
against an elegant table, examining a sheet of parchment which he held close
to his eyes. Another man, portly and somewhat younger, stood to one side,
waiting.
"My friends were not mistaken in recommending you and your erudition to
me," the old man said, laying the sheet of parchment on the table.
The scholar bowed.
"You have done the Society of Jesus a great service," said the old man,
taking a purse out of a drawer in the table.
"Ad majorem Dei gloriam" the scholar said, accepting the purse. "I wish
Your Excellency a good night."
After seeing his visitor out of the room the old man summoned a servant
and told him to close all the shutters in the house and kindle a fire in the
fireplace. In his old age Count de Maistre suffered greatly from the cold.
He sat down at the table and again examined the parchment. He was
pleased. The old riddle brought back from cold Russia had been given an
excellent interpretation. He could already foresee the great day when the
glory of the Society of Jesus would shine as never before. He, Count Joseph
de Maistre, had not toiled in vain these many years.
The clatter of horses' hooves on the stony road not far away came to
his ears for a minute or so.
Opening a carved casket, the Count removed from it a rolled-up
manuscript tied with a ribbon, and a knife with an ivory handle. Then, one
after another, he took out three small iron boxes and gazed admiringly at
their gleaming sides. A master craftsman in Turin had fashioned them
according to his design, and on each box had engraved the initial letters of
the great motto: A M D G
Below it he had engraved Count Joseph de Maistre's crown and his
initials:
J d M
The Count placed the rolled manuscript in one of the boxes, muttering:
"The Source".
Then he cautiously took the knife by its handle and laid it in the
second box: "The Evidence," he said.
"And this-" he neatly folded the parchment which the scholar had
brought- and this will be 'The Key to the Mystery'."
All of a sudden he glanced with a start at the dark window. He thought
he had heard the crunching of pebbles. But no, all was quiet.
The Count placed "The Key to the Mystery" in the third box. Now he had
only to close the covers and have them sealed.
He heard a rustle outside the window. Was it the porter making his
rounds?
The Count went up to the window and flung it open, but instantly
started back with a cry. A man in a cloak and a wide-brimmed hat was staring
at him from the shadow of an old hornbeam. He was young and swarthy, and his
dark eyes gleamed fiercely at the Count.
"You have vigilant guards, Count," he said in French. "I was forced to
climb over the wall. Do not be afraid. I am not a robber."
The Count had recovered somewhat from his fright. "Who are you, sir?
What do you want in my house?"
"My name is Arseny Matveyev. Now you know what I want."
Fear distorted the Count's yellow face. Suddenly, with an energy
unexpected in such an old body, he dashed to the table, on which his pistol
case lay.
By this time Arseny was in the room.
"Stop where you are, Count!"
The unbidden guest whipped out a pistol from under his cloak and aimed
it at the Count, who took a step backwards. Realizing that the game was up,
the old Jesuit said in a gentle voice:
"It is not becoming, my son, to threaten an old man with a pistol.
Someone has evidently misled you."
"Silence!" Arseny Matveyev barked. "I didn't travel the length and
breadth of France and Italy searching for you just to listen to your
miserable evasions. Put the knife and the manuscript on that table. I'll
count to three."
"There is no need," the Count said dispiritedly. "They are lying on the
table."
Arseny strode over to the table. His eyes sparkled with joy at sight of
the knife.
"The manuscript is in that little box," said Count de Maistre. "Don't
touch the third box. It is mine."
"I am not a Jesuit. I do not covet what belongs to others," Arseny
snapped, this time in Russian. "Take this for your iron boxes."
He tossed a gold coin on the table. Then he closed the covers of the
two boxes, one containing the knife and the other the manuscript, and thrust
them into his pockets.
"Don't you dare to raise the alarm, you old fox," he said as he turned
to leave. "If you do, you'll get a dose of lead."
With those words Arseny Matveyev jumped down from the window. Soon
after, the sound of horse's hooves on the stony road faded into the
distance.
On returning to Russia, Arseny Matveyev was unable to get down to a
thorough study of the secret which his great-grandfather had brought from
India. Other affairs absorbed him. After his father's death he freed the few
serfs the family owned and turned over the estate to his younger brother. He
had the two small iron boxes reliably sealed. Then he moved to St.
Petersburg, where he joined a secret society of revolutionaries.
On December 14, 1825, after the failure of the December uprising in St.
Petersburg, Arseny came galloping into Zakharino in the night. The next
morning gendarmes broke into the house. As they led Arseny out of the house,
under arrest, he only had time to whisper to his brother: "Guard those two
little iron boxes like the apple of your eye. Farewell."
Arseny Matveyev was exiled to salt mines in Siberia. He never returned
from there.
"All I know," said Rita, "is that Arseny brought home two small iron
boxes from abroad, and they were in the possession of the Matveyev family
ever since. No one knew that anything was inside them. When my husband and I
started packing our things before moving to our present flat, the knife
suddenly dropped out of one of the boxes. Mother threw the other box away
along with a lot of old junk. It was dirty and rusty and had been used to
prop up an old wardrobe with a broken leg. Who could have guessed there
would be a manuscript inside?"
"Did you ever hear anything about a third box?" Nikolai asked.
"No. That's why I was so surprised when you and Yura came to ask me
about it. What do you know?"
"Only that it exists."
Nikolai then told Rita about the Italian subversive agent and the theft
in the museum.
"There was something very important in that third little box," he said
in conclusion. "De Maistre called it 'The Key to the Mystery'."
The other passengers in the carriage had gone to bed. The plump
conductress was sweeping the corridor. They continued to stand by the
window, watching the snowbound night fly past, marked off by telegraph
poles.
Nikolai reflected in amazement that here was Rita standing by his side,
elbow to elbow, no longer an infinitely distant stranger but Yellow Lynx, an
old friend from his childhood. Yet still in all a stranger.
"Look here, Nikolai," Rita said suddenly, pressing her forehead to the
glass and closing her eyes. "Can I trust you?"
He wanted to say that he was ready to jump off the train into the
darkness then and there if she asked him to.
"Yes," he said.
Rita was silent for a while. Then she threw back her head. "I feel as
though I'll burst into tears in a moment if I don't tell someone-"
She then proceeded to tell him, without holding anything back, about
the misfortune that had befallen her. She told him how Anatole had started
to study the knife and how she had encouraged his ambition. How, desiring to
increase his working capacity, he had become a drug addict. How she had
jumped overboard after the knife, caught it in the clear water, hidden it
under her dress and told her husband it was lost because-so she had
thought-without the knife he would not be able to continue his
investigations. How she had urged Anatole to give up those accursed
experiments, but instead he had joined up with Opratin and was wearing
himself out with work and with drugs. How he had walked out of the house.
And finally, she told Nikolai how she had given Opratin the knife the
previous day in the hope that this would help them to complete the project
sooner, after which Anatole would return to her.
"You gave the knife to Opratin!" Nikolai exclaimed.
Rita measured him with a long look.
"Promise me you won't tell a soul about any of this. Not a single soul.
Not even Yura."
"But why, Rita? Why keep silent? On the contrary, something has to be
done. We must convince your husband that such single-handed experiments
aren't fruitful. We must persuade him to switch to our Institute."
"No," she said. "He wouldn't pay any attention to that kind of talk. It
would only make him still angrier."
"He wouldn't listen to me, of course. But he would to Privalov and
Professor Bagbanly."
"No, you don't know him," Rita repeated insistently. "You must promise
to say nothing. I demand it."
"Very well," said Nikolai in a downcast voice, "I promise."
"They unfurled their canvas sails
And sped across the Caspian Sea."
-From the Russian epic poem
Vassily Buslayevich
IN WHICH PRIVALOV'S LABORATORY IS BLOWN UP
Valery Gorbachevsky felt, on that lovely day in June, that his
bottle-green sun-glasses were rose-coloured. His leave of absence to take
his correspondence college exams was over, and everything had gone well, if
you closed your eyes to a mediocre mark in English.
He was now on his way to work after an interval of twenty days. He was
walking fast because he had had to stop at the library, which opened at
eight o'clock, to return some textbooks, and he was afraid he would be
reprimanded by Nikolai Potapkin for being late.
Valery skirted the bed of gladioli near the entrance and flew into the
lobby. He dashed past the cloakroom, with its thickets of nickel-plated
racks, and past the time-board, now closed, hoping that speed would enable
him to avoid the timekeeper.
It did not work out that way. The timekeeper, pleasant-faced Ella, was
at her place. Strangely enough, Yura Kostyukov, incredibly handsome in
cream-coloured flannels and a new green-and-yellow checked shirt, was
sitting beside her. Still under the influence of Fedor Matveyev's
manuscript, Yura was amusing himself by paying the girl courtly compliments
in eighteenth century fashion. Ella did not understand half of what Yura
said but she was flattered and could not stop giggling.
When Yura caught sight of Valery he turned with great dignity to glance
at the clock. "Please note, Ella," he drawled, "that this man, returning
from a leave of absence, has arrived eleven minutes late but does not look
the least repentant."
"What the hell are you doing here?" Valery wondered disrespectfully.
Out loud he said the first thing that came into his head. "The trolleybus-"
"Ah, to be sure, to be sure." Yura nodded understandingly. "I hadn't
thought of that. But fate is always merciful to the lazy ones." He drew a
folded sheet of paper from his breast pocket. "Here you are. This is for
you."
"My annual vacation?" Valery said, reading the paper. "But I don't want
it just now."
"There are times when the management has the right to insist that the
personnel go on vacation even if they don't want to," Yura said in a tone of
mock authority. "I didn't ask for my vacation either. Neither did any of the
others".
"All of us? The whole laboratory?"
"At nine o'clock you'll be able to draw your vacation pay. And don't
ask idle questions."
"I'll step into the laboratory meanwhile."
"Follow my example, young man, and restrain your zeal."
Yura was right. Managements do have the right, when circumstances arise
that prevent the normal functioning of a factory shop, office or the like,
to insist that members of the staff take their annual vacation regardless of
any schedules that may have been drawn up previously.
In this case the circumstances had been the following:
After Privalov and Nikolai returned from Moscow the development of a
pipeless oil pipeline had been included in their Institute's research
programme. Since the main research was being done at the Institute of
Surfaces in Moscow, cautious Pavel Koltukhov forbade experiments in this
field.
"The devil take the lot of you!" he exclaimed in reply to Privalov's
arguments. "I'm fed up with your delightful habit of sticking your finger in
other people's pies. First thing I know your lab technician will be putting
his head in an inductor, and I'll have to answer for it."
When a thick envelope arrived from Moscow towards the end of April the
Institute director summoned Koltukhov and Privalov to a conference. When
Professor Bagbanly arrived shortly afterwards he was also shown through the
massive leather-covered door of the director's office. The conference lasted
for hours. First glasses of tea were carried in, then bottles of mineral
water.
Yura appeared in the reception room after lunch. "Smells like something
burning," he remarked with a glance at the closed door, wrinkling up his
nose.
The secretary did not pause in her typing. "Run along now, Yura," she
said. "They'll manage without you."
Yura went back to the laboratory.
"Something's cooking in the director's office, Nikolai," he whispered
to his friend. "They've been at it since morning. Boris forgot all about his
yoghurt during the lunch break. It's probably news from Moscow. Listen,
can't you tear yourself away from your slide rule? What's the matter with
you, anyway?"
Nikolai said nothing. He studied his unfinished drawing with
exaggerated attention. The curve he had just plotted reminded him of a
wind-filled sail. This association brought back a picture of the high white
side of the Uzbekistan, and a slender figure in a red sun-dress diving into
the sea. Also, a picture of melancholy dark eyes.
Nikolai drew his hand across his forehead.
Rita had once been simply a stranger, gradually to be forgotten, driven
from his mind. But now- now everything was all confused. No matter how he
tried he could not forget her. She was no longer a stranger. She was Yellow
Lynx, a childhood playmate.
Nikolai had hardly seen her since their return from Moscow. She had
phoned him several times at work. He had asked her, in a wooden voice, how
life was treating her. She had told him that Anatole had returned home and
had promised her to go into hospital for treatment as soon as he finished
the job. Anatole's work was going along well. Rita spoke about it in a gay,
animated voice. Nikolai was glad for her sake. But every time she rang up he
experienced pain.
One day Rita invited Nikolai and Yura to drop in for tea. She wanted to
introduce them, her childhood friends, to her husband.
Nikolai had never seen Anatole before. He was struck by Anatole's
unhealthy colouring, the bags under his eyes, and his dull glance.
Anatole picked languidly at the cake on his plate. He took no part in
the conversation. Nikolai was dying to ask him about Fedor Matveyev's knife,
but that question and many others on the tip of his tongue could not be
asked because of the promise he had given Rita.
Anatole turned his lacklustre eyes on Nikolai. "Has your apparatus
produced any sort of long-term penetrability?" he asked.
Nikolai almost choked in surprise. He hurriedly chewed the piece of
cake in his mouth. "I don't really know," he replied. "We turned everything
over to the Academy of Sciences."
"How are your experiments coming along?" Yura politely asked
Benedictov. "When will we be able to offer you our congratulations?"
"How can we compete with the Academy?" Anatole asked glumly.
Yura twitched his blond eyebrows. "Why compete? Join us. The days of
ivory-tower scholars are over. Modern scientific problems are so-"
Anatole interrupted him. "You're too young, far too young, in fact, to
tell me which days are over and which aren't." He frowned. No one said
anything. Rita hurriedly changed the topic. "You boys are going to
tomorrow's concert at Philharmony Hall, aren't you?"
But this did not help. The afternoon was ruined. Soon after, Anatole
rose, complaining of a headache, and left the room.
Yura could see what was troubling Nikolai, but for the first time in
their many years together he could think of no way to help his friend. He
even went so far as to ask Val's advice, but she viewed the matter rather
disdainfully. She did not seem to like this newly-found playmate of their
childhood.
The envelope that had come from the Institute of Surfaces in Moscow
really did contain interesting news. The frequencies which had influenced
the Cooper Lane installation had been ascertained. What had been vaguely
hinted at in the clumsy experiment mounted by the young engineers had been
translated into the language of formulas and figures. The workers at the
Moscow Institute had obtained their initial result: the rods pressed
together in the field of the Mobius band had penetrated each other, although
not deeply. They felt that their southern colleagues could begin
experimenting with liquids.
The cautious Koltukhov surrendered. He gave Privalov the go-ahead to
set up an experiment.
Preparations took all of May and half of June. An apparatus having a
glass coil mounted inside the stator of an electrical machine was installed
in one of the rooms of Privalov's laboratory. A Mobius band of yellowish
metal, a metre and a half long, was placed beside the stator. Behind the
band there was an aluminium disc, a condenser screen linked up to a powerful
electrostatic generator.
The glass coil was filled with water and connected to a small drum of
oil.
The idea was that penetrability-in this case, permeability, to be more
precise-would arise in the field of the Mobius band, that is, the oil would
flow through the water in the coil. This would be the model of a pipeless
oil pipeline, a model of complete diffusion of liquids with reorganized
internal bonds. The particles of oil would pass freely through the particles
of water.
The Institute of Surfaces believed there ought to be a certain amount
of external excitation of the field when the installation went into
operation. A hard gamma beam would be suitable, Academician Georgi Markov
thought. And so, a lead container with an ampoule of a radioactive substance
inside it had been suspended beside the Mobius band.
Chief engineer Koltukhov had the control panel and measuring
instruments moved into an adjoining room. He himself locked and sealed the
door of the room in which the installation stood.
During the first few days different types of operating conditions were
tried out, but with no results. The oil that was pumped into the coil simply
pushed the water out of it.
The eventful day started just like the others. The men took their
places at the control panel, and Yura switched on the television
transmitter. The Mobius band and the glass coil appeared on the screen.
"Attention. All sec. Let's start," said Privalov. "The container."
The electrician pressed a button. In the next room an electromagnet
removed the lid of the lead container and a flux of gamma rays streamed
towards the border area of the oil and water. The ruby eye of the
radioactivity indicator began to glow.
"Now the static charge!" A switch clicked, and the generator on the
other side of the wall began to whine. A green zigzag appeared on the
rounded bottom of the cathode-ray tube of the oscillograph in front of
Nikolai and crept to the right, along the scale. Nikolai turned the knob to
hold the zigzag in place.
"Let's have frequency 230, Nikolai," said Privalov.
Moving from one frequency to the next, Privalov patiently proceeded
through the programme planned for that day.
Suddenly Yura leaned forward to the screen. The borderline between the
dark oil and the transparent water had become smudged.
"It's begun!" he whispered tensely.
All eyes turned to the screen. It did look as though the oil was no
longer pressing against the water, pushing it ahead of itself, but was
passing through it.
Privalov kept his eyes fixed on the pressure-gauge. Resistance was
dropping. There was no doubt about it. One hundred and twenty grammes per
square centimetre.... Seventy.... Fifty-two.... Glancing at the TV screen,
he saw that the glass coil was cloudy.
Yura laughed jubilantly. "It's permeability, Boris!"
The water's resistance was rapidly dropping towards the desired zero.
Thirty-five.... thirty.... Suddenly the needle quivered, then stopped
at twenty-seven.
Privalov impatiently tapped the glass of the pressure-gauge with a
fingernail. The needle was motionless, as though it had come up against an
impassable barrier.
"Add five-tenths, Nikolai," he said in a low voice.
Nikolai gave the field intensity knob a slight turn. The green zigzag
on the oscillograph screen climbed, but the pressure-gauge needle refused to
budge.
"Some sort of threshold," Privalov said. "Let's have another
five-tenths."
"Look!" exclaimed the electrician. "Just look at this."
They turned to glance at the electric meter. Electricity was being
consumed at a much greater rate than usual. The meter was whirling so fast
that the right-hand figures were a blur.
Privalov glanced at the ammeter. The needle was almost on zero, as
though the installation had been switched off. But the electric meter was
spinning faster and faster. The electricity from the mains seemed to be
vanishing into a bottomless pit.
Koltukhov came up.
"It's simply being swallowed up," he said. "What's happening?"
The telephone rang. He picked up the receiver.
"Yes, this is me, Koltukhov. No, we haven't switched on any new
machines. What? Yes, we'll have to. I'll call you back in five minutes."
He put down the receiver and turned to Privalov. "They're worried at
the substation. Voltage in the district is falling. They've switched on
their reserve but it doesn't help. The power loss is appalling and quite
incomprehensible. Shall we stop the whole thing?"
The zigzag on the oscillograph kept climbing, although operating
conditions had not changed.
"No!" Privalov kept his eyes glued to the zigzag. "Give us another
one-hundredth."
The green zigzag jumped to the top of the frame. The meter was now
screaming like a siren. The figures blurred into grey streaks. Suddenly the
glass shattered and the meter flew to pieces. The electrician barely had
time to cover his eyes with his hand.
A bright light flooded the TV screen. Yura involuntarily sprang
backwards.
Privalov dashed to the main switch to turn off the installation but
before he could reach it there was an explosion on the other side of the
wall. Plaster rained down on their heads. The floor shook. Privalov jerked
the switch down and looked round. As he pushed back his hair with his sleeve
he smeared his face with plaster dust. No one seemed to be hurt, or even
particularly frightened, for that matter. It had all happened too suddenly.
"Turn on the TV receiver," Privalov said hoarsely. "Just the TV."
The screen lit up with lustreless horizontal bands. There was no image.
Yura fiddled with the knobs.
"It looks as though the transmitter was knocked out," he said softly.
"Along with everything else in that room."
"Close the container," said Koltukhov.
The electrician pressed a button, but the red bulb continued to glow.
"It doesn't close," he said. "Something's wrong with the
electromagnet."
"Something's wrong with the whole thing," Koltukhov put in. Then,
raising his voice, he said: "Everyone leave the room, please."
The corridor buzzed with alarmed voices. The director of the Institute
came hurrying down the stairs.
"What happened?" he asked.
Leading him aside, Koltukhov and Privalov told him briefly about the
explosion and what had preceded it.
"There's an open container inside that room," Koltukhov added. "The
blast may have ejected the ampoule and smashed it. The walls are thick, but
after all, that's 1,500 milligrams of radioactive matter-"
"Seal the laboratory and summon the emergency squad," said the
director.
The damage done by the blast was relatively insignificant. Part of the
floor was charred, plaster had fallen from the ceiling and walls, and the
installation was wrecked. The copper cartridge with the ampoule inside it
had flown out of its lead container, just as Koltukhov had said it might,
and the radioactive matter had dispersed. That room, the two adjoining
rooms, and the three second-floor rooms above them could not be used until
everything had been rendered quite harmless.
Privalov's entire laboratory was closed down for the time being.
And so, Valery Gorbachevsky found himself taking a vacation before he
had time to return to work eleven minutes late.
For a while he had thought Yura Kostyukov was pulling his leg, and he
decided to go upstairs and see for himself. Before he had put his foot on
the first step he saw Privalov coming down, carrying a small suitcase, with
a raincoat over his arm.
"Goodbye," he said, offering Valery his hand. Then he shook hands with
Yura and moved towards the outer door.
"For heaven's sake, tell me what happened," Valery begged Yura.
"Privalov's taking a plane to Moscow."
"What for?"
Yura did not know. He knew only that Privalov and Koltukhov, wearing
protective clothing, had entered the room and found something there that
prompted them to go to Moscow at once. He also knew that a steel-bound crate
had been shipped off to Moscow.
IN WHICH THE AUTHORS REMEMBER THEIR PROMISE TO ARRANGE A SHIPWRECK
At five o'clock in the morning the city on the horseshoe-shaped bay was
still asleep. A mist hovered above the grey water of the harbour and the
black hulks of the barges in the roadstead. But the red and gold fires of a
new day were beginning to blaze in the east.
-Carrying small suitcases, Nikolai and Yura, accompanied by Rex,
approached the entrance to the marina. Valery Gorbachevsky, outfitted with a
transistor radio and fishing gear, was already waiting for them.
At the far end of the pier, dockmaster Mehti sat leaning against an
overturned boat. His tanned, large-featured face looked like old bronze. A
grey halo fringed his round, mahogany-coloured bald spot. His striped
jersey, ring in one ear, intricate tattooing on his arms, and the knife in
his hand made him look as though he had just stepped out of a story by
Robert Louis Stevenson.
A large sun-cured fish and a tin filled with small lumps of sugar were
neatly set out in front of him on a clean white cloth. Strong tea steamed in
a mug. The dockmaster was cutting a loaf of fresh unleavened bread into
thick slices.
"The terror of the seas is taking his morning grog," Yura whispered to
his companions. Aloud he said:
"Good-morning, Mehti."
The dockmaster turned a bright black eye on the newcomers and nodded.
"We made the boat ready yesterday," Nikolai told him. "Everything's
shipshape."
"That's what you think," Mehti said sternly. "I'll take a look and see.
Have a snack with me."
The young men sat down beside him and were each handed a mug of tea.
"Taking music along with you, I see," Mehti remarked, glancing at the
transistor set.
"Yes," Yura replied. "Besides listening to music we'll keep in touch
with the world while we're out at sea."
Mehti said nothing. He put q sizable piece of cheese into his mouth and
chewed it thoughtfully.
After breakfast they set out to inspect the boat.
The Mekong lay at anchor some two hundred metres from the pier. The
dockmaster walked over to the edge of the pier with his rolling gait and
stepped into a dinghy. The young men followed him.
Mehti had paid no attention to Rex up until then. Now he said, "That
dog will have to get out."
"But why?" Yura protested. "Rex is a fine dog."
"Fine dogs stay at home. They don't go to sea."
"He'd die of a broken heart if we left him at home, Mehti."
"He didn't die whenever you went sailing without him before, did he?"
"Oh, Mehti, please let us take Rex. Rex is really a nautical dog."
"The next thing I know you'll bring a donkey and try to tell me it's
nautical too," Mehti retorted. "Put that dog ashore at once."
This was done. Valery, who was quietly enjoying the scene, then untied
the painter at the bow. Energetic strokes of the oars carried them out to
the sailboat.
Mehti painstakingly checked every knot and every lanyard. Finally he
pronounced the boat ready to sail.
Nikolai and Yura left Valery aboard the Mekong and returned to the
clubhouse, where Mehti put on his spectacles and opened his register.
"Here," he said to Nikolai, poking a fingernail at a clean page, "write
down the number of people aboard, list their names, and state where you're
sailing to and for how long. Then sign that you have permission from the
port authorities, that you were given a copy of the latest weather forecast,
and that you have the necessary maps and charts."
Now that they were so unexpectedly on holiday our friends had decided
to make a voyage along the coast, to the mouth of the river Kura. If the
wind was right they would continue farther south, as far as Lenkoran, and
visit the botanical gardens there. En route they intended to stop at some of
the islands in the archipelago.
Valery, a newcomer on the Mekong, was terribly excited about the
cruise. He had practically memorized Yura's sailing manual.
Val had also expressed her delight at being invited to come along.
One evening, two days before they were to sail, when the men were at
Yura's house checking their route and their lists of gear and provisions,
Nikolai suddenly pushed the map aside and reached for a cigarette.
"Let's invite another passenger," he said, lighting his cigarette.
"Okay," said Yura, who guessed at once whom Nikolai had in mind. "Ring
her up."
"It would be better if you did. You're more persuasive."
Rita picked up the receiver at the first ring. "It's really nice of you
to think of me," she said after Yura had invited her to come along on the
cruise. "But I can't be away from town for any length of time."
"It's just for a week, Rita. The school vacation has begun, hasn't it?"
"Oh, Yura, I'm so sorry, but I simply can't. Thanks for the invitation,
though. And remember me to Nikolai."
She put down the receiver, settled herself in her favourite corner of
the sofa, her legs under her, and opened her book. Her eyes ran down the
lines but the meaning of the words did not sink in.
She was alone again. Anatole had not been home for two weeks now. They
hadn't quarrelled, it wasn't that. She looked after him to the best of her
ability and did not ask him any questions. She realized that he was ashamed
to take the drug in front of her but could not get along without it. He
often made long trips to some sort of special laboratory. A hitch had
cropped up in his work again. He spent the nights at Opratin's, where he
never heard any reproaches.
The next morning Rita went to the Institute of Marine Physics. Anatole
was not at his desk, and she had to wait in the lobby a fairly long time
before someone found him and he came downstairs.
"How clever of you to drop in," he said. He took her hand in his sweaty
palm. His eyes were tender.
They stepped out into the garden and sat down on a bench at the edge of
the lawn.
"Are you coming home tonight?"
His face darkened. "This is just our busiest time, Rita. We've done the
main part of it. Now we have to make sure there are no flaws. It will take
another few weeks-"
"Very well," Rita said sadly. "I'll wait."
"I'll be going out to the laboratory again in a few days. If it doesn't
work- Then I'll collect all the material that's out there and try it a
different way."
"I went to see Dr. Khalilov. He's willing to take you in whenever
you're ready. The sooner you start, Anatole, the better-"
"I know, I know. Just wait a little." Anatole took her hand again. "Has
the school vacation started already?"
"Yes." The instant Rita said this she remembered the previous day's
telephone call. "I've been invited to go sailing, Anatole. Do you think I
should?"
"Who invited you? Those childhood friends of yours?"
"Yes. It's a seven-day cruise along the coast." "Go by all means. The
change will do you good. Remember our cruise of last year?"
After a few more minutes of desultory conversation Rita said goodbye to
Anatole and left. At the gate she looked back. Anatole was standing at the
edge of the sunflooded lawn, gazing after her. His arms hung by his sides.
On returning home Rita rang up Yura and told him she would be glad to
join them.
As Nikolai finished writing his entry in the register and signed his
name with a flourish they heard rapid footsteps. '"That's Val", said Yura.
"Here we are, Val." "Hullo, there." Val ran up, panting for breath. "I was
sure I'd be late. How do you do, Mehti." Mehti acknowledged the greeting
with a nod, picked up the register, and disappeared with it into his office.
"What a glorious day," Val exclaimed. "I was worried I'd be late.
Nikolai warned me so sternly yesterday about coming on time. Well, what are
we waiting for? It's seven already, isn't it? Time to start."
"Let's wait a bit longer," Nikolai muttered. He walked to the edge of
the pier, where he could look down deserted Seaside Boulevard.
"I see. That friend of your childhood, is it?" Val pulled a wry face
and looked at Yura. "So you did invite that nut."
Yura spread his hands reproachfully. "There she is," Nikolai cried as
he caught a glimpse of a red sun-dress far down the boulevard.
Rita came up smiling, her face relaxed. She shook hands with everybody
and patted Rex.
"You're a bit late," Val could not resist saying.
"It doesn't matter in the least," Nikolai put in hastily.
They walked to the end of the pier. Mehti was not in sight, so Yura
pushed Rex into the dinghy and ordered him to lie down.
"Couldn't we do without Rex?" Val asked.
"Dogs need a change of scenery too," Yura explained.
As they approached the sailboat Rita read the name on its bow. "Mekong"
she said. "Is it the same one?"
"The very same." Nikolai replied gaily as he helped her to climb on
board. Then he snapped: "Make sail."
As they hauled the sheets home Yura and Nikolai pretended it was hard
work and struck up an old sailors' chantey they had heard Mehti sing many
times:
Sail to have a fast clipper.
Pull, boys, pull, boys!
With each "pull" they gave a tug in unison and the sail rose higher and
higher.
Will you tell me who is skipper?
Pull, boys, pull, boys, pull!
"Regular pirates, they are," Val remarked.
"They do everything very neatly," Rita said approvingly.
"Of course they do. Sailing is their hobby."
The lines were belayed and the sail swelled tautly. The Mekong, listing
slightly, glided off.
Nikolai sat at the tiller. Yura rose, planted his feet wide apart on
the deck, thrust an arm forward and declaimed:
An unforgettable moment. .
The breeze freshens,
We round the lighthouse,
You are so near, so dear,
Yet your hand I dare not touch.
In the water Cassiopeia's lights
Glitter like gold, and clouds sail by.
Valery gazed admiringly at Yura. Rita listened with a smile. Speeding
before the wind into the sparkling blue morning gave her a deep sense of
contentment.
"I'll be the taskmaster," Yura said. "Courageous Commodore Nikolai will
sail our ship over the bounding main." He made Nikolai a deep bow. "I'm his
first mate. And with your kind permission I'm also his fearless navigator.
Valery will be our deck boy and vigilant lookout. Carnivorous Rex will, in
case of mutiny, bite the lower limbs of the mutineers."
Hearing his name, Rex put out his tongue and licked Yura's bare foot.
"What about us?" Val asked. "How dare you rank us below Rex in your
silly hierarchy?"
"But I don't. You and Rita will provide the crew with nourishing meals.
In your spare time you can protect the delicate skin of your noses from the
scorching rays of the tropical sun by pasting a strip of paper on them."
The boat sped out of the bay into the blue sea, its sail billowing. The
city behind them disappeared into a bluish haze.
Yura lay down on the deck beside Nikolai.
"This is the very same place. Do you suppose that knife is still on the
seabed?"
Nikolai did not answer. He was busy setting a new course.
"You're not bored, Rita, are you?" he asked.
She smiled at him. "Not at all. It's terribly interesting. Everything's
fine. You promised to teach me to steer the boat."
Nikolai handed her the tiller and showed her how to steer a course by
compass.
"It's not easy," Rita said after a few minutes. "The boat won't obey
me."
"Don't jerk the tiller, move it gently. Now turn it to port, that is,
to the left. That's right."
"Grip the rudder tight," Yura advised.
Rita did not raise her eyes from the compass. "Why?"
"All sea stories say so."
Nikolai grinned. "Don't listen to him. You'd have a hard time gripping
the rudder because the rudder is under the boat. What you're holding is
called the tiller."
After several days at sea the two girls were able to walk a sloping
deck and to light the primus-stove that swung in a hanger. They had finally
come to believe that the boat was rocking and the primus-stove was almost
motionless. Dinners were prepared according to Yura's recipe: a tin of meat
was poured into a mixture of millet grits and potato cubes and cooked
together. The crew of the Mekong ate this stew with great gusto.
The weather was perfect. No one aboard the Mekong wore anything more
than the briefest bathing costume and sun-glasses. Before long they were all
a deep bronze from the sun.
"Darwin was right," Nikolai remarked one afternoon. "He says, in his
Voyage of the Beagle, that a white man bathing beside a Tahitian does not
look at all impressive. A dark skin is more natural than a white skin."
Val lifted her head from her book. She opened her mouth to say
something but after a glance at Nikolai's dark brown shoulders she changed
her mind.
Gradually the coolness between the two young women faded. Prompted by a
feeling of feminine solidarity, Rita often took Val's side in the frequent
debates aboard the Mekong. Sometimes the two of them went off by themselves,
to the extent that this was possible on such a small boat, and held long
conversations. Or rather, Val talked about herself and the thesis she was
writing, and how annoying and unfeeling Yura was at times. Rita listened
with an understanding smile.
The sun, the sea and the fresh air all had their effect. Rita developed
a beautiful tan, she grew more relaxed. Her appetite began to horrify her.
The anxieties and disappointments of the past few months were being pushed
out of her thoughts by the sea and the sky.
One evening when the velvety black sky was strewn with diamonds and the
Mekong was gliding across a smooth, dark sea, leaving behind a silvery wake,
Rita sat in the stern, hugging her knees, while Nikolai half-reclined beside
her. His watch was coming to an end but he was in no hurry to waken Valery,
asleep in the cabin. In the silence, broken only by the wash whispering
softly alongside the hull, the words "Your hand I dare not touch" flashed
through Nikolai's mind. He closed his eyes.
"I've been recalling our childhood," Rita said. "Calm, starry nights
like this belong only to childhood."
Her voice seemed to float towards him from afar.
"What a strange power the sea has," Rita went on slowly. "You can
actually feel it cleansing your soul."
"Your hand I dare not touch," Nikolai repeated soundlessly.
"Are you listening?"
Nikolai opened his eyes. "Yes."
"Now I am beginning to understand why there have been so many sailors
in our family."
Val and Yura sat out of sight in the bow, behind the stay-sail. Val had
her dark head on Yura's shoulder as she gazed enthralled at the sea and the
stars.
"Look how bright it is," she whispered: pointing to a golden star.
"That's Venus," said Yura. "Did you know that the Greeks thought Venus
was two stars? They called the evening star in the west Vesper, and the
morning star in the east Phosphor."
"Oh dear, you always have something to say about everything. Why can't
you just sit quietly and drink in the beauties of Nature?"
Suddenly she turned her head and peeped out from behind the stay-sail.
"I wonder what they're talking about," she whispered. "Do you suppose
they're on intimate terms with each other?"
"I haven't the faintest idea."
"Oh, Yura, do tell me."
"But I really don't know. " Yura was compelled to add: "You women
always want everything pigeon-holed neatly. In such cases it's best not to
meddle."
The cluster of islands lay baking in the sunshine.
The Mekong glided past Duvanny Island, where Stepan Razin and his men
divided the booty of the Persian campaign. They visited Bull Island to see
the vast number of birds that nested there, and then dropped anchor on Los
Island, where hot mud bubbled constantly in craters, some all of twenty
metres in diameter. In places the mud tipped over the edge of its crater and
flowed down to the sea in a brown rivulet.
"I had no idea all this rather frightening wilderness was so close to
us!" Rita exclaimed.
It was noon. The wind had dropped, and the sun was blazing. The sails
hung limp. Yura tossed a match into the smooth green water. It floated on
the surface without drifting away from the boat.
Heat waves shimmered in the motionless air. The horizon had vanished in
a haze; land could not be seen anywhere.
"What do you do if there is no wind for a long time?" Val asked.
"Haven't you read any sea stories?" Yura asked. "We eat up all our food
and then draw lots to see who is the first to be divided up for dinner." The
talk turned to how long a person could live without food or water, and they
recalled well-known cases of men who had survived many days alone at sea.
"I wouldn't be able to eat raw fish the way Dr. Alain Bombard did,"
said Val.
"If you had nothing else you'd eat it and like it," Yura retorted. "As
for water, we have some miracles we can work if we have to." "What kind?"
"A resin that turns sea water into fresh water through ion exchange.
But there's no need to worry-it won't come to that."
"I'm not worrying."
There was still no wind. The sky was a milky white, as though it had
been drained of colour. A fog crept towards them from the north.
"I don't like this dead calm," Yura said to Nikolai in a low voice.
"Let's drop anchor. By evening there may be a current that will carry us off
to where we don't want to go."
The water, as smooth and colourless as the sky, swallowed the anchor
without a splash.
The storm broke without warning. Squalls of a raging north wind tore
the fog to shreds and whistled menacingly in the rigging.
The entire weight of his body on the tiller, Nikolai held the boat
against the wind. Yura and Valery took down the jib and ran up the hurricane
sail. Then, bracing themselves on the pitching deck, they reefed in the taut
mainsail with great difficulty. Valery was almost swept overboard at one
point. The stays and shrouds moaned as the wind tore at them.
The Mekong, her mainsail tightly reefed, was driven southward. Waves
swept over her and crested on her deck; the foam hissed and dissolved.
Rita and Val sat silent in the cockpit, pressed close together, staring
at the wild sea.
On the water-swept foredeck Valery helped Yura to fashion a floating
anchor from boathooks and oars which they wrapped in a staysail.
To be carried forward into the unknown, into the roaring night, across
a sea strewn with reefs and submerged rocks, was terrifying. Holding to the
tiller with difficulty. Nikolai tacked back and forth. As she tacked, the
boat lay on her side, her reefed mainsail dipping into the waves. Nikolai
knew the keel was heavy and was confident they would not be upset. "Hold on
tight," he shouted. "Don't be scared! We'll soon right ourselves!"
Each tack demanded tremendous exertion. Nikolai's muscles ached, his
forehead was beaded with sweat.
He bore down on the tiller with all his might, overcoming the furious
resistance of the waves.
"Hurry up there!" he shouted to Yura above the howling of the wind.
Suddenly a shudder went through the boat. There was a grinding sound
under the keel; boards snapped in two, the mast came crashing down. All
these sounds almost drowned out a short cry-but Nikolai heard it. He dashed
forward along the listing deck, pushed Valery aside and jumped overboard. A
breaker washed over him, the undertow tugging at his legs. But he managed to
touch bottom with one foot. Looking up, he caught a glimpse of a beach a
short distance ahead.
The wave rolled Nikolai back beside the Mekong. He dived and felt along
the pebbly bottom. In another moment his head was out of the water and he
had Yura in his arms. But, unable to keep on his feet, he sank to his knees
in the water. He rose again, now standing chest-deep, and shouted
breathlessly: "All ashore! It's shallow here! Rope yourselves together!"
Carrying the unconscious body of his friend over his shoulder, he was
knocked off his feet again and again by the waves as he stumbled along a
sandbar towards the shore.
The Mekong lay on its side. The three on board clung to whatever they
could lay hands on. Rex, pushed up against the cabin handrail, whimpered
softly.
At the sound of Nikolai's voice Valery recovered from his fright. Now
he was the senior crew member aboard the boat.
"Listen, you girls!" he shouted. "Everything's all right! We'll go
ashore."
He tied the end of a sail sheet round his waist, then roped Rita and
Val to it and ran the other end through Rex's collar. He jumped out of the
boat and helped the girls to do the same. The three of them staggered
towards shore, Rita carrying Rex.
Finally they came ashore. Still roped together, they climbed a clay
slope. On the other side of the hillock they took shelter from the wind in a
hollow. The sand in the hollow was surprisingly warm underfoot.
Here they saw Yura lying on the sand. Nikolai was energetically giving
him artificial respiration.
Val dashed forward. "Yura!" she cried wildly.
IN WHICH THE MOBIUS BAND THAT SANK INTO CONCRETE IS EXAMINED
To save the 'reader unnecessary anxiety, we announce here and now that
Yura survived the ordeal.
Meanwhile, the action shifts to Moscow. Boris Privalov and Professor
Bagbanly arrived in the capital by plane several days before the heavy
steel-bound crate.
From the airport they drove straight to the research centre in which
the Institute of Surfaces was situated. Rooms had been reserved for them in
the hotel there.
"What do you say now?" Privalov asked Academician Markov after he had
looked through the records of the experiment.
But the Academician refused to be hurried. "We'll examine your latest
miracle first." Turning to Professor Bagbanly, he remarked, "I haven't seen
you in Moscow for quite a time, have I?"
A few days later, in the middle of the afternoon, a lorry drove into
the yard of the Institute workshop and a crane lifted a heavy crate out of
it. What the Institute employees saw after the crate had been opened up was
a block of concrete. It had been the support on which the Mobius band stood
during the experiments. Now a yellowish metal arc about the size and shape
of a pail handle jutted up from it. The remainder of the Mobius band had
sunk into the concrete.
Academician Markov slowly ran his hand along the arc. His hand passed
through the metal. All he felt was something like a warm, gentle puff of
air. The sensation was not unfamiliar to him. The Institute experiments had
already produced several models of restructured matter.
When they cut the block in two they found that the section of the band
which had sunk into the concrete was impenetrable. Analysis showed, however,
that all the elements found in concrete were present in the area occupied by
the band. The atomic-molecular systems of concrete had filled the
interatomic spaces in the metal. This was penetrability.
"It's a fantastic, unprecedented mixture," the Academician remarked the
next morning as he looked through the analysis report. "Yet it actually
exists."
"The Mobius band came into the zone of its own action," said Professor
Bagbanly, "and therefore it sank into the concrete."
"Yes, you could say that the band devoured itself."
"But why did it get stuck?" asked Privalov. "Why didn't it go in
deeper, through the floor and then through the earth too, for that matter?
How did gravity act on it?"
"Gravity? How little we know about gravity! We may suppose, of course,
that the band descended until it reached some sort of limit, where it
encountered repulsive forces."
"The energy limits of penetrability," Professor Bagbanly suggested.
"Yes, the energy limits." Academician Markov took a sheet of squared
paper from a folder and placed it in front of his visitors. "I asked our
power experts to make a chart of the phases of your experiment. This curve
is power consumption," he said, pointing to it with his pencil. "You can
clearly see the moment when consumption skyrocketed."
There was silence for a while as all three studied the chart.
"The moment when matter absorbed energy, to be more exact," the
Academician went on. "An energy abyss, if you wish. You simply did not have
enough energy to fill it."
"What if there had been enough?" Privalov asked quickly.
"Then I believe the experiment would have continued calmly to the end."
The Academician pointed a long finger at Privalov. "You did not complete the
process of restructuring the internal bonds of matter. The process exploded
backwards, returning the energy-not only what had been expended but also the
energy of the surface."
"That means we-"
"Yes, Boris. What you called an explosion was the surface energy. Do
you recall, last winter, my mentioning a new power source? Well, you
obtained it."
Professor Bagbanly tapped the chart with a fingernail. "This section of
the curve must be reduced to a dot."
"Yes, but if we are to reduce the time factor the process must have an
independent and sufficiently large power supply."
"What kind of supply?" Privalov asked.
"I don't know yet."
-That evening Academician Markov rang up the hotel and invited Bagbanly
and Privalov to visit him at home. He met them in the front garden of his
attractive little cottage and led them into a simply furnished sitting room.
Tea was served.
Over the tea and cakes the Academician said: "I should like to tell you
a rather curious story. Or would you prefer to watch telesivion?"
"I vote for the story," said Professor Bagbanly, setting down his empty
cup and preparing to listen.
"Well, here it is. While I was rummaging through my collection of old
manuscripts the other day I came across a strange Chinese tale. Excuse me a
moment." The Academician left the room, returning a minute later with a
folder. "I do not possess the original manuscript, unfortunately. It is a
rare collector's item; the characters are embroidered on silk. This is a
photographic reproduction I brought back from India a few years ago."
The guests examined the copy of the manuscript with interest.
"Here is the translation." The Academician produced a sheaf of papers
from the folder. "Let me read it to you."
The Story of Liu Ching-chen, Seeker of Complete Knowledge
Liu Ching-chen dedicated his life to seeking Truth and Knowledge. He
mastered all the sciences and all the natural elements: metal, wood, fire,
water and earth. He knew there existed three worlds: Desire, Colour, and
Colourlessness.
He often gazed at the moon. On clear nights he saw, in the moon, a jade
hare pounding a drug in a mortar. Liu Ching-chen knew that anyone who took
this drug would gain immortality. But the moon was far away. The wisdom of
complete knowledge was still farther away.
Liu Ching-chen read and reread the Buddhist secret books which
Hsuan-tsang had brought from India. But Hsuan-tsang had not brought all the
wisdom of Buddha.
To the west, beyond the high mountains, in distant India, stood the
mysterious temple of Peals of Thunder, where books about the heavens,
treatises about the earth, and sutras about evil demons were preserved.
So Liu Ching-chen turned his face to the west and set out for India on
foot, knowing this would please the gods. He experienced thirst in the
desert, fear in the forests, and hunger on the barren plains. He crossed
high rocky mountains, where on stormy nights evil spirits sharpened their
bronze swords against the rough boulders. Finally, after making his way
across the last eight mountain passes and through the last nine ravines, Liu
Ching-chen reached India. This was in the year of Metal and the Tiger.
Liu Ching-chen came to the Temple of Incarnation, where special cells
were set aside for meditation. Here he was told of a Hindu sage living in
the mountains who, through frugality, silence and immobility, had attained a
state of mystical awareness that was the Third Degree of Holiness.
Liu Ching-chen set out for the terrifying mountains in search of the
cave where this India sage sat contemplating his inner self, having
renounced a world that was merely the semblance of reality.
The sage did not turn Liu Ching-chen away. He told him about the system
of philosophy known as Sankhya, the eight aspects of the Unknown, the eight
aspects of Delusion, and the eighteen aspects of Absolute Darkness. He
taught Liu Ching-chen the Four Modes of Breathing and all else that gives
man power over his own body. He taught Liu Ching-chen the science of the
power of the spirit over the world around him.
Liu Ching-chen moved into a cave not far from the Indian sage. He did
not disturb the sage; he did not see him in the flesh, but he communicated
with him by the force of his spirit.
He learned to renounce all that was earthly. He was indifferent to the
changing of the seasons, to inclement weather, to wind and snow.
One day, the sky grew dark. Hot air streamed down the mountain slopes,
driving before it masses of snow that melted instantly. Frightful heat swept
over Liu Ching-chen; he felt the mountain tremble beneath him. Then he saw
one of the Five Beasts, the Unicorn, descend from the heavens.
The Unicorn was more than 300 chi, or 100 metres, long, and at least 80
chi, or 25 metres, around. Its body was covered with golden scales. It lay
without moving. Then it expelled a breath, and the hissing of the air that
came out of its nostrils was so loud and so terrifying that Liu Ching-chen
could no longer bear to be alone. He fled to join his Hindu mentor. They
huddled together, trembling with fear as they gazed at this sign from
heaven, and they prayed to Buddha.
Then the jaws of the Unicorn opened and a man stepped out. Although he
was more than seven chi tall and his naked body had a transparent covering
through which gleamed copper-coloured skin, he was a two-legged creature
with nine orifices, and therefore a human being.
The copper-coloured man looked round. He carried a weapon, a
three-pronged spear, which he thrust into the rocks without leaving a
scratch on them. Then six more like him stepped out from between the
Unicorn's jaws. They strode along, plunging their three-pronged spears into
the rocks, producing streaks of green lightning with which they splintered
the rocks.
After a large number of rocks had been splintered into rubble the
copper-coloured men drew a scroll out of the Unicorn's mouth, unrolled it,
and turned it into a path that ran of itself but remained in the same place.
They tried to feed broken stone to the Unicorn, but every time they picked
them up the stones fell through the palms of their hands like water through
a sieve.
They collected switches of gold and silver, wove a cage out of them,
and placed the cage on top of the pile of rubble. They drew red tendons from
the body of the Unicorn and tied them to the cage. Liu Ching-chen and his
companion heard the Unicorn give a long scream. They saw a radiance about
the cage, and they sensed, in the air, the freshness that follows a
thunderstorm. The copper-skinned men could now pick up the stones, which
they flung on the running path. The path carried the stones into the mouth
of the Unicorn, and the Unicorn swallowed them. After this the men stepped
into the mouth of the Unicorn, carrying away all the switches from the cage,
and the Unicorn roared with pleasure as it swallowed the stones.
Finally the Unicorn belched up the stones it had not been able to
digest. These were black and scorched from being in his belly, and the smoke
they gave off was green. Together with the black stones the Unicorn threw up
iron crowns that looked like flowers with many petals, after which its jaws
snapped shut. The Unicorn rose on its tail, erupting fire, and soared
upwards. It hovered over the mountain for a long time, resting on the fire.
Liu Ching-chen and his mentor fell flat on the ground, for the air
round them was hot and heavy, and it scorched and oppressed them. When they
dared to lift their heads the Unicorn was gone.
At the bottom of the ravine lay smoking stones, the remains of its
meal.
The two men sat there for a long time in a state of silent meditation,
attempting to comprehend what had taken place.
Then the Hindu sage rose and walked over to the stones. He bent down to
pick up the remains of the Unicorn's meal, but his fingers passed through
the stones. He was unable to hold them in his hands.
They meditated three more days. On the morning of the fourth day the
Hindu sage said: "We are wrong to regard the world about us as Maya, the
world of illusion. Take those stones. We could see them and we could feel
them, but the celestial beings could only see them; they could not feel
them. Yet they had knowledge. Applying their knowledge, they changed the
essence of the stones so that they could feel them.
"Woe is me! How many years I have lost seeking knowledge in the wrong
place! Man does have power over material things. Man smelts ore to obtain
iron. He fells trees and makes resin. There is no Maya; there are only
things and man's power over them."
The Hindu departed. But Liu Ching-chen did not lose faith. He wrote
down what he had seen, and having thus freed his mind he resumed his
meditation. He was now at peace again. But this peace was disturbed when the
Hindu sage returned to the ravine.
The Hindu was richly outfitted and was accompanied by many servants.
They placed a black wheel with golden discs before the Hindu and whirled it
for a long time, like a prayer wheel, until sparks flew and the air took on
a fresh smell.
Imitating the copper-coloured men, the Hindu placed a golden cage on
top of the stones and the iron, the food of the Unicorn, and repeated what
the copper-coloured men had done. The stones obeyed him, and he was able to
pick them up.
"Liu Ching-chen," he called. "A nobleman has given me these servants
and the food and the vessels. I shall live in his house and seek Power over
Things. You were my disciple before; be my disciple now."
However, Liu Ching-chen refused to yield to temptation. He knew that
the Hindu, the servants, the mountains and everything else were Maya, the
world of illusion.
After the Hindu departed, carrying away the stones and the iron of the
copper-coloured men, Liu Ching-chen remained in the mountains a long time.
Then he went down to the valley, to the Temple of Incarnation. There the
mantle of holiness descended on him. He now returned home to teach his
fellow-men meekness and humility, inasmuch as the world of the senses is
merely Maya, the seeming, non-existent world.
The Hindu, so it was rumoured, learned something mysterious when he
entered into the affairs of earthly rulers and was therefore done away with.
His soul went through a bad reincarnation, descending the Ladder of
Perfection. Thus, too, will it be with all who attempt to give a
materialistic interpretation to heavenly miracles and signs. Such an
interpretation is an insult to the gods, for the world of things is merely
Maya, illusion.
Academician Markov fell silent. He neatly folded the pages of the
photographic reproduction and put them back into the folder. Then he removed
his glasses and polished them with a handkerchief.
The afterglow of the setting sun slowly faded outside the window. A
bird cried somewhere in the pine woods. The blue silence of twilight settled
over the Moscow countryside.
The Academician's guests, spellbound by the story he had just read
them, sat in silence. Professor Bagbanly was the first to speak.
"The Hindu in this story reminds me of the ancient sage in Fedor
Matveyev's manuscript," he remarked, rising. He began to pace the floor. "To
what century does your story relate?"
"The sixth, according to the European system of chronology. Not
earlier. The hero read books which Hsuan-tsang brought from India, and
Hsuan-tsang lived in the sixth century."
"But wasn't some kind of year mentioned in the tale?"
"Yes. Liu Ching-chen came to India in the year of Metal and the Tiger.
According to the old Chinese system, that was the twenty-seventh year of a
cycle. There were sixty years in a cycle. The first year of a cycle was the
year of Wood and the Mouse."
"How does that fit in with our calendar?"
"Well, in the current cycle the year of Metal and the Tiger was 1951.
If we go back sixty years from that we get 1891, then 1831, then 1771, then
1711-"
"The year 1711?" Privalov interrupted. "That tallies with Fedor
Matveyev's manuscript. Liu Ching-chen could have come into contact with the
same Hindu sage who several years later gave Matveyev's knife the property
of penetrability.
"Why can't we assume," he went on, "that a spaceship from some distant
world was forced to land somewhere in the Himalayas? The ship came from a
world where the bonds connecting matter are different. The spacemen had to
replenish their supply of nuclear fuel. The rock they found in the Himalayas
proved to be active enough for their needs. They split it by the
electro-spark method."
"Not the Lazarenko method, by any chance?" Professor Bagbanly asked
joshingly.
"At any rate, they probably had a similar method. But a hitch arose:
they found matter on earth to be penetrable. They then assembled some sort
of apparatus and changed the properties of the stones, making them
impenetrable, and loaded them into the spaceship on a belt conveyor. Next
they repaired the ship, putting in some new gears and discarding the used
ones-those were the 'iron flowers'-and flew off to wherever they were
bound."
Professor Bagbanly laughed. "You'd make a good science-fiction writer,
Boris."
Academician Markov was sketching the head of an old man with a beard
and a hooked nose on his writing pad. He appeared to be completely absorbed
in what he was doing, but suddenly he raised his head and looked at
Professor Bagbanly. "Why not?" he said. "Anything's possible in this world.
The wildest fantasies do not surprise science any longer."
"True enough. But a spaceship in the Himalayas-"
"The Hindu happened to be in the mountains," the Academician went on
quietly. "He watched those creatures from outer space. He had probably
dabbled in physics before this. Later he may have used the restructured
stones as a force for passing on their properties to other objects."
Privalov sprang to his feet. "Passing on their properties to other objects?
What an odd idea!" "Not at all," the Academician insisted. "If we had
something made out of a substance with changed bonds-for example, that
legendary knife of Fedor Matveyev's-we'd immediately look for a way of
transferring its properties." Privalov seemed upset to hear this. "Do you
mean we aren't on the right track? Does that mean the 'half-twist spiral'
which Fedor Matveyev mentioned was not a Mobius band at all but something
else?"
"No, we're on the right track, Boris. About that band of Matveyev's,
it's hard to tell- It may have been simply a part of the apparatus. The
important thing is that the word suggested a magnificent idea to your
Nikolai Potapkin." The Academician paused, then went on, "However, it's
still merely an assumption. Only one thing is obvious. At the beginning of
the eighteenth century India had a great scientist, a man whose name we do
not know. He greatly enriched his age, but his own life was a tragedy."
Boris Privalov sat lost in thought. His mind was on Liu Ching-chen and
the Hindu sage. In his imagination he saw the towering peaks of the
Himalayas, and exhausted men bringing down some sort of resins from the
mountains. Fedor Matveyev mentioned those resins, leading Koltukhov to
conceive the idea of powerfully charged electrets.
After a time he said: "What if we tried to fill in the power abyss with
electrets?"
"With electrets?" The Academician looked at him in surprise. "But
they're a very weak source, even though, I admit, inexhaustible."
"Weak, you say? But listen to this!" Privalov retold the episode
described in Fedor Matveyev's manuscript and then spoke of Koltukhov's
supposition that Lal Chandra's men had charged the resin with cosmic rays.
"Yes, now I remember," said the Academician. "But it never entered my
head- Well, well, do go on."
Privalov excitedly gave a detailed account of Koltukhov's experiments
with electret coatings for pipelines.
"By Allah, that's not a bad idea at all!" Professor Bagbanly exclaimed
when Privalov had finished. "The Academy has the most powerful electrostatic
generators in the world. Let's use them to charge resin according to
Koltukhov's method."
"A powerful, inexhaustible battery of electrets," Academician Markov
murmured thoughtfully. "Very well, let's try it." He paused, then said, "The
frequency situation is clear. Now we'll tackle the power situation. Let's
build a model of your pipeless oil pipeline, but in a small pool and without
glass tubes."
"Like Lal Chandra's?" Privalov asked.
"Something like it. But without any theatrical effects such as burning
water. Lal Chandra must have broken down the water in the pool by
electrolysis and ignited the hydrogen with a spark.
That's no use to us, of course. But pumping oil through water is
something we want to do. We'll set up a Mobius band in the pool, both a
reception band and a transmission band. Also a power beam installation.
We'll test the electrets.
"We'll try to drive a stream of oil through water. We'll see how the
restructured matter behaves within the framework of intensified surface
tension. If we get results that look promising we'll try to shift our
experiment to your place on the Caspian. We'll choose a suitable area of the
sea and do the experiment under natural conditions. By the way, I must go
down to the Caspian for something else besides this pipeline business.
There's another problem that is just as important."
IN WHICH THE CREW OF THE MEKONG LEARNS TO LIVE ON A DESERT ISLAND
Kneeling behind Yura's head, Nikolai energetically brought Yura's arms
up over his head and then back to his sides. He worked steadily, up and
down, up and down. Val stood beside him. She was shaking all over. Suddenly
Yura gave a faint groan. Sobbing, Val fell to her knees beside him.
"Go away!" Nikolai shouted angrily, moving Yura's arms up and down more
vigorously than ever. Yura's body jerked. He opened his eyes, sighed, then
turned his head and vomited.
Meanwhile, the storm continued to rage. The wind howled savagely and
the surf thundered as it crashed against the rocks. Sand began to fill the
hollow. It grated between their teeth and sifted into their ears.
"He'll live," said Nikolai as he threw himself onto the sand in utter
exhaustion.
"My head aches," Yura muttered, looking up at the dark figures around
him. "One, two, three-" he counted. "Where's Rex? Ah, there he is." He
closed his eyes. Val held his hand tightly in hers. "I hit my head on a bitt
when the stay-sheet swung past me," he whispered a little later.
"Nikolai pulled you out of the water," said Val. Big tears were rolling
down her cheeks. Yura muttered something that sounded like "He did the right
thing".
When it started to grow light the crew of the Mekong climbed the slope.
Below they saw a strip of beach. Stiff tufts of tall brown grass thrust up
out of the sand. The Mekong lay on its side on a reef. Without its mast it
looked headless. Waves were washing over it. The sea, an angry dark grey,
was covered with whitecaps.
"Let's take a look at the boat," said Nikolai, running down to the
beach.
Yura was about to follow but stopped when Nikolai turned round and
shouted: "Stay where you are! Valery and I will go."
The two young men slowly waded along the reef, pushing their way
through the cold, heavy waves. Large chunks of sandstone were scattered over
the bottom.
The boat's rudder was firmly wedged between two submerged rocks. The
broken mast, still attached to the deck, was being pounded by the waves
against the side of the boat.
Nikolai and Valery scrambled up onto the deck and made their way to the
cabin, which was half full of water and in a complete mess. The portholes
had been smashed in; a lady's slipper, several ring-shaped bread rolls and a
bunch of onions floated on the water. On the starboard side there was a hole
four planks wide below the waterline. Nikolai discovered this when he put
his foot through it.
"Looks like we're stuck on this island," he muttered.
He dived, ran his hands round the corner of the cabin that was under
the water, and brought up a canvas sack of tools.
"Now I feel better," he told Valery, snorting and blowing out water.
"Here's the fishing gear!" Valery shouted joyfully. During the night he
had been silent and a bit frightened. Now he was his old self again. "We'll
catch fish and live like Robinson Crusoe."
They dragged up to the deck everything the water had not swept away
through the hole. Then they fashioned a small raft out of boards, loaded
what they had salvaged onto it, lashed the things all down securely with
ropes, and dragged the raft to shore. Immediately afterwards, they made a
second trip, returning bowed down under the weight of the wet sails. Also,
they dragged the mast to the beach.
When they had rested up a bit they spread the sails out to dry, placing
rocks on the corners to prevent them from being carried away by the wind.
They likewise spread out the salvaged food and clothing on the pebbles to
dry.
The high wind drove low, ragged clouds over the little island and sent
huge waves sweeping across the reef. The five young people and the dog were
stranded on an inhospitable patch of land.
Setting her bare feet down gingerly on the pebbles, Rita walked over to
Nikolai.
"What are we going to do, Commodore?" she asked.
"We're going to have some breakfast first, and then we'll see."
They went back to the hollow, where they were sheltered against the
wind. Yura opened three tins of meat with his knife.
"Couldn't we heat them up?" Val asked.
"Certainly. If we had kerosene and matches."
"No matches at all? How will we get along without fire?"
"Oh, we'll have fire," Yura promised. "After all, this isn't the Stone
Age."
They ate in silence, using two knives, two screwdrivers and Yura's
trusty Durandal screwdriver.
Nikolai reviewed their situation. "The boat's smashed," he said, "so
we'll have to forget about, any further sailing for the time being. We'll
have to live on this island for a while. Fishing, vessels and ships of the
Caspian oil prospecting service sail among these islands all the time, so we
needn't worry about not being rescued. We'll keep a signal fire burning all
night long."
"Let's take stock of our food," Yura suggested. "Any self-respecting
Robinson Crusoe always starts with that."
The castaways found they had nine tins of meat, four tins of sardines
and a tin of hardtack. They also had three packets of dehydrated pea soup
that were splitting open, twenty-seven potatoes, six packages of soggy
biscuits, a bundle of onions, and two bottles of vegetable oil. Their
supplies of flour, sugar, millet grits and butter had vanished for good.
"What about water?" Rita asked.
"I think there's enough." Nikolai indicated a wooden cask. "There must
be thirty litres here. It'll last us a good ten days. Then we can use this
resin to turn sea water into at least twenty litres of drinking water. But
we don't have enough food."
"We'll catch fish," said Valery.
"Yes, of course. Fish will be our mainstay. We'll save the tinned meat
for an emergency. I'm sure we'll manage."
The other items salvaged were: Rita's sundress, one sandal of Val's
(the right foot) and one sandal of Valery's (the left foot), the blankets,
the primus stove, the transistor radio, the aqualung, the camera, the
fishing rod, the binoculars and the compass. Printed matter included sailing
directions, Kaverin's novel Fulfillment of Desire, whose pages the wind was
indifferently ruffling, and a map, now spread out to dry on the beach and
held down by stones along the edges.
A mess-tin, a saucepan and a canvas pail were the only vessels they now
had. In the tool case they found, besides the two knives and the two
screwdrivers, a hatchet, pliers, a chisel, a hacksaw, nails, a tin
containing sail thread and needles, and a tin of polish with which to keep
the brass on the boat bright. The label said the polish could be used to
clean jewels, dentures, lavatory pans, samovars, wind instruments and
trolleybuses.
"The funny thing is that it's all true," said Nikolai, turning the tin
about in his hands. "What a pity we don't have any trolleybuses or precious
stones!"
They all wore watches, but only Rita's and Valery's still kept time.
Nikolai's watch ticked only when he shook it, while Yura's waterproof and
shockproof model did not react to shaking or to anything else.
"Well, the warranty that came with my watch said the wearer should
guard it against shock and water," Yura remarked.
He was studying the map, running his finger over the still damp
surface.
"Where are we?" Nikolai asked, squatting on his haunches beside Yura.
"This must be Ipaty Island," Yura said. "We were driven southwards and
the gale struck right here. Yes, Ipaty Island." He leafed through the
sailing directions. "The island emerged from the sea about a century and a
half ago. Before that there was a shoal here known as Devil's Site."
Towards noon the wind died down and it grew warmer. The castaways set
about building themselves a shelter. They placed the mast on the ground in
such a way that it jutted all of three metres over the hollow. Next, they
heaped stones on the end of the mast to make it secure, and supported the
jutting end with crossed boat-hooks. They draped the spinnaker over this
frame and tied the edges to stakes driven into the ground. The storm sail
was arranged to curtain off part of the tent for the ladies. They turned the
folded mainsail into a springy floor and the jib into a door.
Yura clicked his tongue. "A tiptop wigwam. I've dreamed of living in a
cosy wigwam like this since I was a kid."
"Our next job," said Nikolai, "is fire. The sky seems to be clearing up
a bit. As soon as the sun comes out we'll make fire. Meanwhile, let's get
some firewood."
"You sound as though someone had laid in a supply of firewood
especially for us," Val remarked sarcastically.
"That's exactly what the sea has done. North of us lies a
densely-populated coast. The north wind is the prevailing wind here. And to
top it all, our camp is situated on the north side of this island. So there
must be firewood somewhere close by."
Valery was told to find a calm cove and try his luck with the
fishing-rod. The others wandered off along the shore.
"Here's the first piece of wood!" Nikolai exclaimed, picking up an old,
cracked slat from a dinghy. After that they found boards from crates and
pieces of square beams and fishing-net frames.
When, loaded with firewood, they returned to the camp, a patch of blue
was visible through the clouds. The sun peeped out timidly but immediately
dived back into a cloud.
Valery had caught a few little bullheads and one good-sized carp, which
he handed over to the girls to clean. The cloud slid away from the sun. Yura
unscrewed the lens of the camera and used it as a magnifying glass to set
fire to several strands of rope. After energetic blowing, a few chips of
wood caught fire. It was not long before a fire was blazing merrily in the
hollow.
"We'll never have to worry as long as you boys are here," Val remarked,
smiling.
The men sharpened the knives on a flat stone and carved, out of
driftwood, five objects more or less resembling spoons.
They set to dinner with a healthy appetite.
"I never tasted a better fish stew in my life," Rita confessed. "I'm
ashamed of myself but I can't seem to stop eating-"
After lunch they grew drowsy, for none of them had slept much the
previous night.
"Crawl into the wigwam and take a nap," Nikolai said. "I'll stand watch
for a while."
He sat alone for a long time, tossing pieces of driftwood on the fire.
Rex dozed by his side. He was glad the girls showed no signs of being
worried but were content to leave everything to Yura and himself. But,
facing the facts squarely, he had to admit it was unlikely that they would
be rescued. They could not bank on anyone calling at the island. He'd have
to think of a way cut-in the primeval silence the surf pounded with a sullen
roar. The sky had cleared in the west, and it now glowed red and gold from
the setting sun.
He'd have to think of a way out-
He dozed off, but before long a rustling sound caused him to jerk up
his head. Rita had emerged from the tent. She yawned and sat down beside
him.
"Are we going to be here long, Nikolai?" she asked, picking up a
handful of sand and letting it run through her fingers. "It's important for
me to know."
"I'm afraid I can't tell you. We'll think of a way out. Are you sorry
you came along?"
"No, not a bit. But I'd like to return to town as soon as possible."
"We'll think of a way out," he repeated. "There's no such thing as a
hopeless situation."
Rita smiled at him. "Be sure to find a way out," she said softly.
That evening they sang songs in chorus. They were in high spirits as
they learned the words of a Papuan song that Nikolai had found in a book by
the explorer Miklukho-Maklay. The rather repetitious Papuan song, which
fitted in with their present situation, spoke of how to make the pith of the
sago palm edible. Yura conducted, while the others danced round the fire,
hands linked, and sang:
Bom, bom, marare;
Marare, tamole.
Mara, mara, marare,
Bom, bom, marare.
Rex howled conscientiously, his muzzle pointed skywards.
When they finished singing they decided in what order they would stand
night watches of two hours each. The man on duty would keep a fire going on
top of the hillock as a signal to any ship that might pass by.
Yura was the first to go on duty. Val sat beside him. Reflections of
the fire flickered across their faces.
"Does your head ache badly?" Val asked,
"No, it's much better."
"Just think of it-if it hadn't been for Nikolai-" She did not finish
the sentence but moved closer to him. He put his arm round her shoulders and
said in a voice she did not recognize, "Know what, Val? Let's get married."
He did not see Val's face light up because just then the fire gave off
a shower of sparks and he leaned forward to toss on a piece of wood.
Val laughed softly. "First we'll have to get off this island-" "Well,
what do you say?" Val kissed him quickly and rose to her feet. "Good night,
Yura," she whispered, and crawled into the tent, smiling happily in the
darkness.
The morning dawned on a blue sea without a single ripple. Wispy white
clouds floated in the sky.
Yura and Nikolai waded along the reef until they reached the Mekong. A
careful examination convinced them that they would not be able to patch up
the hole or get the boat off the reef. Two pontoons and a launch would be
needed to tow their sailboat back to the marina.
On their return to shore Nikolai slowly swept the horizon with his
binoculars. Then he handed them to Yura. "Look over there."
What Yura saw through the glasses was a lacy network of lines in the
sky that looked as though they had been drawn in India ink on blue silk.
This was the top of an oil rig.
Yura ran into the tent for the map and compass. He studied the map
carefully and then declared that what they saw was an offshore exploratory
rig near Turtle Island.
"Yes, that confirms it," he said. "We're on Ipaty. (Turtle Island is
about fifteen nautical miles from here. The rig can be our reference point.
Shall we try to swim there?"
"No, it's too far. Besides, the current will be against us. What we
must do is build a raft."
"A raft?"
"That's right. With a sail and a sliding rudder. Like the Kon-Tiki.
We'll choose a day with a south wind-with a north wind we wouldn't make it
on a raft-and it shouldn't take us more than eight hours to reach Turtle
Island. If we find geologists there they'll have a transmitter. We'll radio
to town and Mehti will send a motor-boat for us."
"Suppose there aren't any geologists working there?"
"Then we'll continue on to the next island. We'll go island-hopping."
"So be it. We'll start building a raft at once."
After breakfast the castaways set out to explore their new domain and
to search for building material for a raft.
The north shore of the island was strewn with driftwood. There were
also logs that storms had torn loose from timber rafts, with staples
sticking out of them. They selected logs they could use for the raft and
rolled them higher up on shore.
Some five hundred metres farther on the sloping shore turned southwards
and grew steeper. There the water was a bluish-grey. Large gas bubbles
seethed in it and burst on reaching the surface.
"Another volcano!" Yura exclaimed.
"And here's his land brother," said Nikolai. Ten metres from the
water's edge there was a little mound topped by a small crater from which
warm, watery mud was slowly flowing down to the sea.
Nikolai climbed to the top of the crater, pulled off his shirt, spread
it out on the ground, and heaped thick grey clay from the crater on it.
"What's that for, Nikolai?" Valery asked.
"A stove."
"But you'll ruin your shirt," said Rita.
"Quite the contrary. This clay is a fine cleansing agent."
The south shore proved to be steep. It was edged with a narrow strip of
pebbles and boulders, and there was no sand.
"An easy place to approach from the sea," Nikolai remarked when they
came to a cove. "Look, the water here is deep very close to the shore; you
could come close in a boat."
"That's just what somebody has been doing," said Valery, pointing to a
piece of pipe half buried in the pebbles on the beach. It had obviously been
used as a bollard.
The young engineers examined the pipe. They discovered the trade-mark
of the Southern Pipe Mill and also a series of numbers indicating the size
of the pipe, the number of the melt, the grade of steel, and the year it was
made.
"Why, it's last year's date!" Yura exclaimed.
"That means geologists come here." Nikolai looked at Rita. "I told you
we wouldn't be stuck here."
The tour of the island did not take long. The total length of the
shoreline could not have been more than three kilometres.
"Now, my friends, let's get to work," said Nikolai after they returned
to camp. "Valery, cast your fishing-line again. Yura and I will drag some
logs."
With the help from the girls Yura and Nikolai rolled the logs on the
north side of the island down to the water, roped them together, and pulled
them round to the camp. On the way Nikolai picked up a stump that was half
rotten and covered with a thick coating of salt.
"What are you going to do with that horrid thing?" Val asked.
"You'll see."
After a dip in the sea Yura and Nikolai built a stove out of chunks of
sandstone and coated it with volcanic clay.
"Campfires may be more romantic but they don't produce much heat and
they eat up a lot of wood," said Yura. "We're not savages, after all."
Valery returned with his catch, followed by Rex, rapturously sniffing
at the fishtails trailing over the pebbles.
Meanwhile, Nikolai set fire to the rotten slump. When it had burned
away he collected the ashes in a tin, tasted them, nodded with satisfaction,
and dropped a pinch into the pot in which the fish were cooking.
"What are you doing?" Val exclaimed in horror. "Are you mad?"
Nikolai held the tin out to her. "You try it."
"Not for the world!"
Rita stuck a dampened finger into the tin and licked it.
"Why, it's salt!" she exclaimed.
"Miklukho-Maklay is helping us again," Nikolai explained. "He wrote
that the tribes of New Guinea eat the ashes of a tree that has lain in salt
water for a long time."
Rita laughed. "I've read Miklukho-Maklay too but I don't remember that.
There certainly is nothing to worry about when you boys are around."
After lunch they boiled some water and rationed it out. Although water
was poured into a tin for Rex as usual, he refused to drink it. Instead, he
stretched out in the shade of the tent and placed his tongue on his front
paws. Yura and Nikolai exchanged glances. "What's wrong with him?" Yura
asked. "He hasn't touched water since morning."
"Could he be going mad?" Val suggested worriedly.
Rita called to Rex, took his head between her hands, looked closely at
his eyes and nose, then opened his jaws and examined them.
"I've never seen a healthier dog in my life," she said, pushing Rex's
nose into the tin of water. "Please drink, Rex."
But Rex squirmed 'out of her grip and ran off.
"I don't like that," said Yura. "I wonder where he's off to. I intend
to find out."
He set off after the dog, in the direction of the middle of the island.
The others followed. At the top of the rise they saw another mud volcano, at
the foot of which grew tufts of brown grass. Nearby, between two parallel
slopes, there lay several pools of water. Rex was wandering from pool to
pool.
"There's the answer," said Yura. "The water from the cask isn't
fresh-and he must have found fresh water here this morning. Fine explorers
we are! We investigated the edge of the island but didn't think of going
into the middle. Rex did our thinking for us."
Skirting the mud volcano, they reached a rise beyond which they could
see the blue water of the cove where they had found the mooring pipe. From
above they saw a reinforced concrete dome rising out of the grey clayey
soil. Beside it protruded a concrete ventilation pipe covered with an iron
grating. On the other side of the dome a pipe covered with a flaky film of
oxide jutted out of the ground.
Nikolai ran his hands over the rough surface of the pipe. "Looks like
the exhaust pipe of an engine," he said.
On the slope there was a depression that led to a massive steel door. A
large lock wrapped in a piece of oily cloth hung on the door. A lead seal
dangled from the lock.
"I should certainly like to know what it all means," Yura remarked at
sight of the seal.
"Look!" Rita exclaimed. "What's the matter with Rex?"
The dog was sniffing the sand near the door and whining. Then he ran to
one side and started digging into the pebbles.
"This looks like an old pillbox," Nikolai said thoughtfully. "There may
have been an antiaircraft gun here during the war. Now the pillbox is being
used for something else. Perhaps a storehouse."
"Let's forget about it," said Yura. "This must be something very
hush-hush. It's no business of ours."
"What's that dog growling about? Rex, come here," Rita called. "Take it
easy, old boy. We're going home now."
A week passed. A cloudless sky stretched above Ipaty Island. The sea,
alas, was deserted. Neither a wisp of smoke nor a glimpse of a sail appeared
on the horizon.
Making a raft out of different-sized logs was a slow process for the
inexperienced builders. After much effort and many arguments the logs were
selected and neatly tied together. The sliding keel, made out of pieces of
board, required just as much effort.
The spanker boom from the boat, fastened down with shrouds and a stay,
was the mast. A steering oar made of two long poles and the seat of a chair,
all gifts of the sea, wore attached to the stern.
All day long an axe tapped, a hack-saw whined, and songs rang out on
the reef where work was in progress on the raft.
The fish were biting well. Just in case, the girls strung the fish on
cords and hung it up to dry in the sun and the wind, the oldest way there is
of curing fish.
It was not long, though, before all of them were sick and tired of
their fish diet.
"But it's good for you," Rita scolded when she saw Yura toss a
half-eaten piece over his shoulder. "Fish has lots of phosphorus; it's the
best brain food."
"There's nothing I'd like better right now than some sausage," Yura
said with a sigh.
Rex was also tired of fish. He ran about the island hunting lizards and
water snakes, partly for the fun of it. Sometimes he sniffed about the
reinforced concrete dome and threw up pebbles with his paws-always at one
and the same spot. Nikolai and Yura were intrigued by the dog's odd
behaviour. They deepened the hole Rex had dug, and about a metre below the
surface of the clayey soil they found the body of a dog. Yura gave a
whistle. "This dog was dissected!" he exclaimed.
"A desert island and experiments on dogs!" Nikolai said. "I'd certainly
like to know what's going on here."
Widening the hole, they found that several other dogs had been buried
there. Rex alternately growled and whined piteously, pressing close to
Yura's leg. They filled in the hole and stamped on the earth when they had
finished.
When Nikolai returned to camp and told the others about their queer
find a shadow fell across Rita's face.
"Experiments on dogs?" she repeated.
She said nothing more for the rest of the day. In the evening, alone
with Nikolai beside the signal campfire, she said, "I can't stand it any
longer. I simply must return to town."
"The raft's ready," said Nikolai. "As soon as we get a south wind-"
"Suppose we don't for another week?"
Nikolai did not reply. What could he say? There had been a dead calm
for days. Even the flames in the campfire hardly flickered at all.
In the red glow from the fire Nikolai looked remote and estranged. Rita
turned her head to glance about forlornly at the night; the familiar
pounding of the surf rang in her ears.
"He also experimented on dogs," she said in a low voice.
"He did?" Nikolai looked at Rita, then turned his eyes away. An odd
thought had occurred to him. What if-
Rita was thinking the same thing. Anatole often went away to some sort
of secret laboratory for long periods of time. He had never told Rita where
the laboratory was.
"You made me promise, Rita, so I'm not saying anything. But we're not
doing the right thing. The whole matter should be brought out into the open.
Those two ought to be drawn into our joint project. Or, at least, Anatole-"
Rita remained silent. Finally she said: "I think he'll realize that
himself. Anyway, I can't stay here any longer. You promised to think of a
way out. Well, keep your promise."
Nikolai was on the point of saying that he couldn't conjure up a south
wind, but he refrained.
Towards the end of the eleventh day, after supper, when it had grown
somewhat cooler, Val suddenly burst into laughter.
"What a sight you are!" she said, running her eyes over the three young
men. "You're unshaven and dirty-faced. You look like savages." She put her
hand out to touch Yura's soft reddish beard. He jerked his head away and
clicked his teeth. She drew back her hand. "You really have turned into a
savage," she said.
"You know, Val, you and I don't look any better," Rita remarked, her
glance falling on her scratched and bruised arms and her broken fingernails.
"You're right," Val agreed mournfully. "How grand it would be to wash
my hair in fresh, hot-water and to put on a little perfume-"
"You know what? Let's drive the men away tomorrow and heat up some
water. We'll have a glorious bath."
"You're wonderful, Rita!" Val cried. "And let's do the laundry too."
This conversation took place on the eve of their twelfth day on Ipaty
Island, a day of important events.
Next morning Nikolai, Yura and Valery brought armfuls of seaweed to the
campfire and burned it for ashes. They carried fresh water from the pools
near the mud volcanoes and filled all the vessels. Then they departed. Rita
and Val scrubbed the clothes, using ashes and volcanic clay for soap, and
had a good wash themselves. Meanwhile, the three young men went swimming off
the southern tip of the island, diving and fishing with their spear gun.
Afterwards they stretched out to rest on the beach of the cove. Rex went up
the slope in pursuit of a lizard.
"I swam to the other side of that headland," said Nikolai. "The water
there is agitated; there must be a strong discharge of gas at that
particular spot."
"Yes, we're living on top of a volcano," Yura stated. He was lying on
his back, his face covered with his faded red kerchief. "How hot it is
today! Feels like there's going to be a change in the weather."
They lay motionless, exhausted by the heat and their long stay in the
water. Suddenly they heard a faint sound in the dead silence of high noon.
Nikolai sat up and cocked his head. "What's that? An engine?"
The sound was repeated a moment later and then stopped short.
Nikolai scooped up the binoculars and ran to the top of the slope. Yura
and Valery followed close behind him.
A boat was coming towards the island from the west. Although it was
still far away they could make out three figures in it. One of them was
steadily bending forward and then backward.
"It sounded like a motorboat. Why should they be rowing?"
"Let's have a look." Yura took the binoculars from Nikolai. "They're
coming this way. And I'll be damned if that isn't Uncle Vova Bugrov at the
oars!"
Nikolai snatched the binoculars away from him.
Yes, it was Bugrov. He sat with his back to the shore, but he turned to
look at the island two or three times and Nikolai recognized him. Bugrov was
propelling the motorboat towards the island with strong strokes of his oars.
Now Nikolai could make out the two passengers. One of them was Opratin. He
sat in the stern, in a short-sleeved green shirt and a straw hat. The third
person, a thickset, shaggy man, sat hunched over in the bow. Nikolai could
see only his back, across which a white shirt stretched tight, but he
immediately knew the man was Anatole.
"How do you like that?" Nikolai asked, handing the binoculars to Yura
again.
"They've certainly chosen a secluded spot for their experiments," said
Yura. "Shall we let them know we're here?"
Nikolai did not answer at once. "Should I tell Rita?" he wondered. From
their hollow on the north-eastern shore the girls would not see a boat
approaching from the west. Best not to hurry. He and Yura and Valery would
watch a while longer.
"Wait a bit," he said. "Let's see what they're up to."
Yura nodded. "Right you are. There must be some important reason why
they've hidden themselves away on this island. Let's go over to the big
crater. The grass is high there and we'll have a good view."
They whistled for Rex to come back to them and then stretched out on
the slope of the crater. The sun blazed down on their backs; the stiff,
prickly grass scratched their bare skin. But they had a perfect observation
post. The cove lay spread out below them.
The nose of the boat touched the shore. Bugrov sprang out into the deep
water and tied the painter to a ring on the mooring post.
Next, Opratin and Anatole stepped out of the boat. Anatole at once
started up the slope, panting and halting at frequent intervals to catch his
breath. Opratin remained behind to talk with Bugrov.
"Good thing we were close to the island when the engine died on us,"
they heard Bugrov say in his booming voice. "I'll have to check the
ignition."
Opratin said something and then turned away to follow Anatole in the
direction of the reinforced concrete dome. They vanished from view when they
descended into the hollow in front of the pillbox door. The bolt clanked,
then the massive door creaked and slammed shut.
Bugrov got down to work on the beach. He took the ignition distributor
out of the engine and laid it on a piece of canvas spread on the ground.
Yura, Nikolai and Valery continued to lie in hiding for some time,
watching him work.
"I'm fed up with this cat-and-mouse stuff," Yura finally whispered. "We
ought to come out into the open and let them know we're here."
"Wait a bit," Nikolai insisted.
"Then let's move into the shade. My brains are sizzling."
Bending low, they noiselessly skirted the mud volcano and came into the
shade near the concrete outlet of the ventilation shaft. The heat was less
oppressive here. Cool air from the underground chamber was wafted to them
through the dark grating covering the shaft. They could hear a faint
rustling.
Suddenly Anatole's voice came to them-so clearly that they gave a start
and involuntarily bent lower.
"You'll have to get along without me," Anatole was saying. "I'll do
what I have to do."
"Contact Bagbanly? Privalov?" Opratin's voice was so muffled they could
barely make it out. They leaned closer to the grating, their bodies tense.
"Yes, I will. I'll give them the material and we'll all work together."
Opratin's voice was calm. "You have no right to do that without my
consent."
"Do you have the right to use the Institute laboratory, which isn't
yours, and to buy expensive equipment for this project on the Institute's
money?"
There was a short pause.
"So that's how you view the matter," said Opratin. "Very nice of you.
Why have you considered it possible to work here up until now? Why this
crisis of conscience all of a sudden?"
Anatole muttered something and gave a cough.
"The result is what counts," Opratin went on. "No one's going to blame
us after we announce a major breakthrough. Winners are never blamed."
"We haven't anything to announce. There isn't any breakthrough."
"Yes there is. Penetrability is in our hands."
"It's like a grenade in the hands of a child. No stability. We don't
know the essence of the phenomenon."
"In another month or two we'll achieve stability."
"You're deceiving yourself!" Anatole shouted.
Rex growled softly in reply and received a slap from Nikolai.
Fortunately, the men below had not heard the dog.
"We've reached an impasse," said Anatole. "We're not making any
headway. We must climb out of this damned cellar and write to the Academy of
Sciences. I realized that long ago, but I was just being obstinate-"
"You have no right to do that," Opratin said in a harsh voice. "We did
the work together."
"Very well. I won't say anything about the circuit you developed. You
can choke on it for all I care. But the idea of the 'transmission effect' is
mine. I'm taking the knife and I'll write up a paper on my own work."
Yura's eyes were round as he nudged Nikolai with his elbow. The knife!
"You forget, my dear man, that I was the one who obtained the knife,"
Opratin remarked coldly.
"She gave you the knife only because of me, and not because she was
smitten with you. Ah, if only I had listened to her! Oh well- But why are
you being so stubborn?" Anatole asked after a pause. "We've done an enormous
amount of work. Let's declare honestly that we can't go any farther without
help. Fame and honours won't slip through our fingers-"
"That's enough!" Opratin shouted. "I'm sick and tired of fussing over
you. You're nothing but a miserable dope addict!"
"But who made me an addict? You're a scoundrel, that's what you are!
Who procured the drugs for me? You did-because you wanted to hold me in the
palm of your hand. But I'm not a finished man yet. I'll go into hospital
and- And you can go to the devil! You may take 'The Key to the Mystery' with
you for all I care!"
"Get out of here! We're returning to town at once."
"I should say not. I'm going to finish my latest experiment. I'll go
down below now, rest a while where it's cool, and then-"
The voices fell silent. The two men must have moved to a different
room.
"Did you hear that?" Yura whispered eagerly. "They have Fedor
Matveyev's knife and 'The Key to the Mystery'. We were right. They were the
ones who stole 'The Key to the Mystery' from the Moscow museum."
"Keep quiet!"
They waited, listening intently.
"Look here, Nikolai. We must come out into the open. There's something
very fishy about the whole thing."
"It doesn't smell fishy to me. It smells of ozone."
"Ozone?" Yura sniffed. The air coming up through the ventilation shaft
had a fresh smell as if before a thunderstorm. "High voltage-" he muttered.
The door on the other side of the pillbox squeaked as it was opened and
then slammed shut.
Bending low, Nikolai ran to the mud volcano, with Yura and Valery
behind him. They returned to their first hiding place.
They saw Opratin descend the slope to the beach, carrying a black
attache case. He walked over to where Bugrov was working.
"Why all of a sudden?" they heard Bugrov growl. "We were going to stay
three days."
Opratin said something that they could not hear.
"Is he staying behind?" Bugrov asked.
"Yes."
"Wait a bit, until I put the engine together again."
"Be quick about it." Opratin began to stride nervously up and down the
beach.
"What are we going to do, Nikolai?" Yura whispered. "Are we going to
wait till they return for Anatole?"
"The devil only knows when they'll come back. We can't wait."
"Then let's go down to them now. At least one of us could return to
town with them."
"I don't want Opratin to know we're here," said Nikolai. "He'll get the
wind up if he sees us here and he'll play some dirty trick on Anatole."
"But why couldn't Valery go down to them and say he was shipwrecked?
Opratin doesn't know Valery."
"No, we'll do it differently. He'll never suspect anything."
Yura stared at his friend, blinking in puzzlement.
"Valery, be a pal and run down to the camp for the scuba gear," said
Nikolai. "Bring some vegetable oil too. We'll be waiting for you over
there."
"What are you planning?" Yura asked. "Are you going to-"
Nikolai nodded. "Yes, I'll hide underneath the boat and-"
"You're mad!"
"Run along, Valery, and be quick about it. Not a word to the girls,
mind you!"
Valery gulped in bewilderment. "No, of course not." He raced round the
mud volcano, clambered down the slope to the east shore and ran towards the
camp.
"Don't be an idiot," Yura hissed. "It's fifty miles to town."
"I know that," Nikolai replied calmly. "The cylinders are practically
full. I'll tie myself under the bow of the boat and breathe through the
snorkel."
"You'll freeze before you're halfway there."
"I'll cover my body with vegetable oil."
Yura raised himself on his elbow. "I won't let you do it. I'll tackle
Opratin. To hell with him-"
Nikolai pushed him down hard. "Don't worry about me," he said. "I'll be
all right. After we leave, you go in to Anatole and talk to him. Tell him
Rita is here. I'll get Mehti to send a launch for you this evening. Or
tomorrow morning, at the latest. Okay?"
Yura knew it was useless to argue.
They crawled over to the opposite slope of the big crater, from which
streams of warm mud were flowing, and descended to the beach on the east
coast.
Valery came running up. Nikolai took the bottle, poured some of the oil
into the palm of his hand, and began to rub it into his skin. His body soon
became shiny and slippery. He looked at the pressure gauge on the aqualung
and found that it stood at 140 atmospheres, which meant it was almost full.
Yura helped him to strap the cylinders to his back.
"Well, here we go." Nikolai squeezed Yura's hand, then shook hands with
Valery. "See you soon, boys."
"Be careful, Nicky." Yura could say nothing more. He looked miserable.
Nikolai clapped him on the shoulder and grinned.
He moistened the mask in the sea and clamped his teeth on the
mouthpiece. From the mouthpiece two goffered hoses led to the cylinders,
while a snorkel for ordinary breathing led upwards. Nikolai put on the mask,
which covered his nose and eyes. He tied a length of rope around his waist,
walked awkwardly down to the edge of the beach in his flippers, and entered
the water.
When he had waded in up to his chin he switched on the cylinders, dived
straight down and then swam along the shell-strewn bottom.
He rounded the steep headland and entered the cove. Using his air
supply sparingly, he slowly swam along the shore until he saw the dark
bottom of the motorboat. He swam under the boat, cautiously running his hand
along the slimy bottom. At the bow his fingers encountered the lifeline
hanging from the starboard side.
The motorboat rocked and settled deeply in the stern. The two men had
evidently climbed in.
"If only they don't notice the bubbles," Nikolai thought as he took a
firm grip on the life line.
IN WHICH IMPORTANT EVENTS TAKE PLACE ON IPATY ISLAND
Yura and Valery stood on the shore, silently watching the air bubbles
that marked Nikolai's movement under water.
The silence of the cove was broken by the roar of the outboard motor.
Yura gave a start, then turned and began to climb up the slope. Pebbles
rattled under his bare feet and sand trickled down.
From the slope of the big mud volcano Yura and Valery watched the
motorboat leave the cove and disappear round the headland. When it came into
sight again the motor was droning steadily. Its bow rising into the air, the
boat rapidly moved away from the island.
Through the binoculars Yura saw Bugrov and Opratin, both in the stern.
A head in a mask jutted out of the water at the bow.
"He's sitting pretty," Yura muttered.
"Boys! Where are you?" came Val's voice from the middle of the island.
Val and Rita appeared on the crest of the next slope. Yura rose and waved to
them. The girls climbed up the side of the mud volcano.
"We heard a noise," said Rita, breathing hard. "It sounded like a
motorboat."
Valery pointed towards the motorboat, now a dark streak against the
blue water.
"A boat?" Val asked in astonishment. "Is it coming in?"
"No, it's going out."
"Why didn't you signal?"
"Where's Nikolai?" Rita asked.
"I'll tell you all about it." Yura gave them a brief run-down of the
day's events on the island.
"You say Anatole's in there?" Rita sprang to her feet and raced to the
concrete dome. She jumped down into the depression in front of the entrance
to the pill-box, then paused to catch her breath. Her face was pale through
the suntan.
A lock with a lead seal dangling from it hung on the steel door.
The others came running up.
"It's locked," Valery said. "How could that be?"
"Anatole must have changed his mind and left with the others," said
Yura. "Actually, we didn't see them getting into the boat."
"No, we didn't see them getting in but-"
Yura interrupted him. "He was probably lying in the bottom of the boat
resting."
"But what if Opratin locked him in?" Rita pounded on the steel door
with her fists.
"Don't start inventing things," Yura said sternly. "They quarrelled, I
know, but to lock him in- That's nonsense."
"How did you ever manage to overhear their conversation?"
Yura gestured with his head. "We were on the other side."
They skirted the dome and came up to the ventilation shaft.
"Anatole!" Rita shouted through the grating into the black maw of the
shaft. "Anatole!"
The hollow echo was followed by silence.
"He went away, I tell you," Yura insisted. Meanwhile, his brain was
working feverishly. "He could have come out later than the others- while we
were outfitting Nikolai on the beach," he thought. "We didn't see him in the
boat, but he might have been lying in the bottom for all we know."
"I simply must get inside, Yura."
"You mustn't break the seal."
"I won't have any peace of mind until I see for myself." Rita's dark
eyes were filled with fear. Yura looked away. He put his hand on the rusty
ventilation grating.
"Oh, to hell with it!" he exclaimed after a pause. He looked round. His
eyes fell on an old, broken oar. He picked it up and thrust it between the
rods of the grating. After pushing the oar up and down a few times he heard
the grating creak and give. Valery helped him to pull one end of the
loosened rods out of the concrete and bend them upwards. The opening into
the shaft was now wide enough to crawl through.
"I'll go first," Valery volunteered.
"No, you stay here. Rita and I will crawl in," said Yura. "Rita, you
really oughtn't to, of course. You'll scratch your arms and shoulders badly.
But if you insist-"
"We'll all crawl in," said Val. "Valery and I also want to see what
it's all about."
"I'll swear everyone's off his rocker today!" Yura exclaimed. "Well, I
can't do anything about it. Hand me a rope, Valery."
He tied the rope to the concrete pipe and dropped the end into the
shaft.
"I'll signal who's to go when," he said. "You'll come down last,
Valery."
Yura wriggled through the opening, crawled into the cool darkness and
began to slide down the rope. Before he knew it he had scraped his shoulders
and elbows on the rough concrete. The camera banging round his neck
interfered with his movements. The shaft was no more than two and a half
metres deep, after which it levelled out into a horizontal passageway.
Pressing against the concrete, Yura moved forward, feet first. Soon his
feet reached empty space. Bending forward, gripping the rope tightly, he
lowered himself into a dark room. When his feet touched the floor he rose to
his full height and wiped the sweat from his face with the back of his hand.
After his eyes had adapted themselves to the darkness he saw shelves of
instruments in the faint light that entered the room through the ventilation
shaft. He took a cautious step forward but stubbed his bare toe against
something hard. He swore out loud. The hard object was a table leg. He ran
his hand over the top of the table, feeling papers, books and some kind of
blocks. At last, a table lamp! Yura pressed the button and light filled the
room. He glanced round curiously.
"Did you switch on a light?" Rita called from above. "May we come
down?"
"Yes, come down," Yura shouted back. He stepped over to the shaft
opening that yawned in the low ceiling and explained how to crawl down.
Rita was the first to appear. Yura helped her crawl out of the shaft.
"Have you looked round?" she asked, letting her eyes run over the room.
"No, not yet. Wait a while."
Val crawled out of the shaft, followed by Valery. All four were badly
scratched. Their tanned arms and legs were covered with white streaks.
They looked about. Electrical instruments, optical instruments, jars of
chemicals, panels of electronic dials and a great deal of other laboratory
equipment lay on the shelves that lined the walls. The long table was piled
with books, white blocks and rolls of squared paper covered with charts. A
canvas folding chair completed the furnishings of the room.
"We mustn't touch anything," Yura warned his companions. His face was
grave; a worried wrinkle lay between his eyes. It was clear he felt a deep
sense of responsibility.
A narrow opening in the wall led into darkness. Rita resolutely headed
towards the opening.
"I'll go first," Yura said, putting out an arm to stop her. He
carefully moved through the opening and descended a few steps. His fingers
encountered a switch. Strong lights flared up beneath a vaulted ceiling,
evidently the under-surface of the dome visible from outside. In the middle
of the circular chamber stood an internal combustion engine connected with
an electric generator.
Yura leaned over to look at the trade-mark on the generator, and raised
his head in surprise. It had a capacity of six thousand volts!
"He's not here," said Rita.
Yura recalled having heard Anatole say: "I'm going downstairs." He
glanced round. There it was, a hatch in the concrete floor. He gave a strong
tug at the ring, and the lid came up. Holding onto rungs in the wall, Yura
descended the steps in the direction of a light.
"You can come down!" he shouted as he stopped to look round.
Two white columns that were insulators stood on the other side of a low
partition. The tops of the columns went through the ceiling into a chamber
where they were crowned by large metal spheres. In a deep hole at the foot
of the columns there was an electric motor with a roller across which ran a
wide band of silk.
The motor was in operation. Yura heard the faint swish of the silk band
as it passed over the roller. A smell of ozone came up from the hole.
"Is that a Van de Graaff generator?" Valery whispered.
Yura nodded. His mind was on something else. He could not understand
why everyone had gone away and left the generator running and the lights on.
Then his attention was caught by something else.
A pile of thick discs about one metre in diameter, apparently plastic,
lay beside the Van de Graaff generator on a support made of high-voltage
insulators. On the top disc lay a sheet of copper from which an unbelievably
thick cable ran to a white control panel.
"Look at this!" Yura held out his Durandal screwdriver. The neon
indicator bulb in the handle shone a bright red. "Don't touch anything, he
warned. "This seems to be a battery of electrets with a colossal charge from
the generator. Everything here is live."
"Electrets?" Valery asked. "The things Koltukhov is investigating?"
Yura did not reply. The situation worried him. "This is quite a voltage
and quite a setup," he said to himself. He walked over to the white panel of
instruments and levers. The face plates of cathode-ray tubes gleamed. Inside
a coil beside the insulators hung a medium-sized knife with a yellowed
handle.
"My knife!" Rita exclaimed, moving towards the coil, her hand
outstretched.
"Get back!" Yura roared. "Are you mad? Look at this!"
The bulb in the handle of the Durandal was blinking away for dear life.
"This must be the main voltage node," Yura thought. "I wonder where
those wires go."
Wires ran from the coil to a large cage of vertical copper tubes. The
cage was empty except for two rods, joined by a cross-piece, that jutted out
of the concrete floor. A piece of cloth that looked like tarpaulin or canvas
lay on the cross-piece.
Yura brought his screwdriver up to one of the tubes out of which the
cage was made. The indicator continued to light up.
"What's that?" Val pointed to a half-open cardboard box lying beside
the cage.
Yura picked up the box. Glass ampoules sparkled in it. Before Yura had
time to read the Latin name on the blue label Rita snatched the box from
him. She gave the box one glance and then flung it away. Her lips quivered.
She turned aside. Completely mystified, Val and Valery stared at her.
Yura alone noticed that the box had fallen on the floor inside the
cage-and had vanished. It had sunk into the concrete floor without leaving a
trace.
Yura stared dumbfounded at the spot where the box had fallen. This was
penetrability!
"I want that knife," he heard Rita say.
He turned to her. "You mustn't touch anything."
"But it's mine!" Rita's voice rose. "Besides, you said yourself that
Anatole wanted to break with Opratin and take the knife with him."
Yura shrugged. After all, it was her knife.
"All right," he said. "But first I'll use my camera."
He took several pictures of the mysterious cage, the wooden rods
jutting up out of the floor, and the control panel with the knife and the
coil.
Then he carefully examined the apparatus. The wire that ran from the
knife handle was plugged into a socket in the control panel. Yura pulled out
the plug. After reading what was written above the buttons, he pushed one of
them, in the middle of the panel. Cautiously he switched off the magnetic
starter, then brought his screwdriver up to the coil. Now the indicator did
not flicker.
His heart beating fast, he released the coil that held the knife in
place and drew it out of the spiral.
"Is that Fedor Matveyev's knife?" Valery whispered, breathing down his
neck.
So this was Fedor Matveyev's knife! It had an ivory handle yellow with
age, and a wavy pattern on the damask-steel blade, the blade that had slain
the Incorporeal Brahman in the temple of the goddess Kali.
Yura placed the palm of his hand against the cutting edge of the blade.
His hand passed through the steel. Valery tried to seize the blade but his
hand closed over emptiness. His eyes shone with excitement.
Yura held out the knife to Rita. "Here you are. See that you don't lose
it again. Are you satisfied now?"
"I certainly am," Rita replied. "Anatole was here but he left. Let's
go."
"As soon as we return to town give the knife to Anatole," said Yura.
"Otherwise you may land in all sorts of unpleasantness."
"You're quite right." Rita's thoughts turned to Nikolai. "Isn't it
awfully dangerous to hang in the water under a boat for such a long time?"
"He'll hold out."
They climbed the steps to the top floor of the laboratory. Yura looked
at the table again. This time he noticed a small flat iron box half
concealed by papers. One of the sides had been removed, so that the row of
tenons of the dovetail joints seemed to grin menacingly at them.
"This is it!" Yura exclaimed, seizing the box. "This is 'The Key to the
Mystery'."
Indeed, it was the last of the three boxes which Count Joseph de
Maistre had sketched on the final page of Fedor Matveyev's manuscript, the
box that had been stolen from the exhibition in Moscow. There was the
familiar engraving on the cover:
AMDG
JdM
"It's 'The Key to the Mystery'," Yura repeated, his voice solemn. "It
should contain an explanation of the riddle of Fedor Matveyev's knife."
"Oh, Yura, let's look inside it," Val pleaded.
"Well, here goes. You are witnesses." Yura, pale with excitement, drew
out a thick yellowed sheet of paper folded several times.
The sheet did not rustle.
"It must be parchment."
"Yes, it is." Val fingered the sheet. "Calfskin.
354
My, how thin it is! Calfskin was used only for the most important
documents."
Yura unfolded the sheet. His eyebrows, bleached white by the sun, rose
higher and higher.
What he saw was a strange drawing of a seven-pointed star surrounded by
circles, with radial lines, ciphers and symbols.
"The zodiac, eh?" Yura muttered.
"Let me look." Val took the parchment from him. "Why, it's a
horoscope!"
Yura was astonished. "A horoscope?"
"Yes, and evidently the horoscope of some important person."
Yura began to laugh.
"What's so funny?" Val asked.
"A horoscope," Yura groaned. "So that's what we've been hunting so
long!" Laughter choked him. "That old scoundrel! He led us all up the garden
path."
Valery burst out laughing too, although he had only a vague idea of
what it was all about.
"Who's a scoundrel?" he asked, still laughing.
"Count Joseph de Maistre." Yura had calmed down somewhat. "He was the
one who called a horoscope 'The Key to the Mystery'."
Val did not share their merriment. "Stop giggling," she said. "This
might be some kind of a code. There are Latin words at the bottom."
The text under the horoscope started with the words Anno Domini
MDCCCXV.
"That's the year 1815," Val explained. "In the middle there's another
date-MCMXV-the year 1915. A century between the two dates."
"Look, there's something written on the back too," said Rita, who was
examining the parchment. "What's this? Why, it's my name!"
The other side of the parchment was thickly dotted with circles
connected by lines.
Theodor Matvejeff Ж 1764 was clearly written in the top circle. (The
sign Ж means "died". -Ed. It is used in genealogies')
Marguerite Matvejeff was written in the circle at the bottom.
"This is the genealogy of the Matveyev family," Yura said thoughtfully.
"Starting with that naval lieutenant and ending with you, Rita."
Rita gave him a startled glance. "Do you mean to say the Jesuits have
been spying on our family all these years?"
"We'll soon find out." Yura took the parchment from her, folded it and
put it back in the iron box. He closed the box and fitted the cover into
place. "I'm taking this with me. It was stolen from a museum."
He wound the chain attached to the box round the strap of his camera
and looked about him once more.
"Let's get out of here. You go first, Valery." Valery seized the rope,
pulled himself up on it, and vanished into the ventilation shaft. Val
followed him. When Rita went over to the wall and grasped the rope she
suddenly turned to look at Yura. She was struck by the strained expression
on his face. She followed his eyes but could see nothing except the folding
chair. "What's the matter, Yura?" "Come, climb up," he said in a low voice.
He was staring fixedly at the folding chair, at the two rods with a
cross-piece over which canvas was stretched. Down below, inside the cage,
the top of the same kind of folding chair was sticking out of the concrete
floor.
The chair had sunk into the concrete floor! In the same way as the box
of ampoules but not completely.
Yura shuddered. He squeezed his eyes tight and shook his head. No, it
was impossible! It could not be!
"Yura!" came Val's voice from the "shaft. "Yura, where are you?"
Yura shook himself. He turned out the light, walked slowly to the wall
and began to climb up the rope.
The sun now hung on the very horizon. The slopes cast long shadows on
the sand.
"Do you suppose Nikolai is there by now?" Rita asked.
"He must be," Valery said.
"Why did he risk it?"
"He's an excellent swimmer. Besides, you know how strong he is."
Rita gave Valery a grateful look.
They reached the camp. Their dinner hour was long past; it was time for
supper. Suddenly Yura halted.
"Where's Rex?" he asked. Putting two fingers in his mouth, he gave a
long whistle. "Rex!" he called.
The dog was nowhere in sight.
"You go ahead and prepare supper," said Yura. "Valery and I will look
for Rex."
They found him on the shore of the southern cove, sitting at the very
edge of the water. He turned round for an instant when Yura called to him,
shifted his paws restlessly, and turned back to stare into the water.
Yura and Valery ran down the slope to the beach and came to an abrupt
halt. The cove was swarming with water snakes. Holding their heads above
water, they were swimming out to sea. From higher up the beach more and more
were slithering out of their holes and heading for the water. There were
hundreds of them, all good swimmers. They were accustomed to migrating from
island to island in search of birds' eggs, but such a mass-scale exodus was
extraordinary.
"It's all very strange, their deserting this island," said Yura.
"Something is worrying Rex, too."
He lay down on the beach beside Rex, and suddenly felt faint,
wide-spaced earth tremors. What a damned island!
"Let's go up to the big crater!" he cried, springing to his feet. "Rex,
come with us!"
Warm grey volcanic mud usually flowed slowly over the edge of the
crater. Now the flow had stopped, and the mud was hardening.
"The crater is closed," said Yura. "What do you know about that?" "Is
it a bad sign?" Valery asked. "Yes, very."
When the two young men returned to camp they found the girls busy round
the fire. Val was telling Rita something about horoscopes, while Rita kept
one eye on the fish stew.
"No need to upset them," Yura thought. "It may all blow over. At least,
we won't tell them till the launch arrives. It probably won't come this
evening. Most likely tomorrow morning. I wonder how Nikolai made out. What a
stubborn devil he is! And what a day this has been!"
They ate the now unbearably tiresome fish stew in silence.
Val sighed. "It seems impossible to believe we'll really be home
tomorrow. Imagine-a hot shower, clean sheets, and food that doesn't taste of
fish."
"Just wait, Val," said Rita. She sat up straight, her body tense,
listening. "I may be imagining things but it seems to me the earth is
moving." For a time there was silence round the fire. "I may as well tell
you," Yura remarked casually, removing a fishbone from his mouth.
"Something's happening inside the earth. The craters, which are
safety-valves for gas that is compressed by tremendous pressures, are
blocked up. Now the gas is bubbling deep down inside the earth, seeking a
way out-"
"Where will it come out?" Val asked.
"If we only knew! Or when- Perhaps a hundred years from now-or in a
minute. On the whole, that's the situation." He rose. "Get your things
together. We're moving out to the raft. We'll be safer there."
It took them only half an hour to break camp. The population of Ipaty
Island, with all its possessions, migrated to the raft.
Time passed slowly. The underground rumbling suddenly grew much louder.
Whimpering, Rex pressed himself against Yura's leg.
All of a sudden the island rocked as a white pillar of gas flew up out
of the moving ground. A shower of pebbles and chunks of clay drummed down on
the raft. Fierce heat hit their faces. Fire flashed. A gigantic torch leapt
skywards with a roar.
WHICH TELLS OF FIRE AND WATER
Nikolai waited a few seconds after the stern of the motorboat settled
into the water, then cautiously raised his head beside the bow, knowing that
he could not be seen from where the men were seated.
The boat had cast off. Nikolai could hear the clink of metal. Bugrov
must be putting the ignition distributor back in place.
"You're always in such a tearing hurry," Nikolai heard Bugrov grumble.
"I didn't even have a chance to catch any fish. There's lots of fish here.
See all those bubbles on top of the water?" "Stop chattering," came
Opratin's hard voice. "They don't suspect anything," Nikolai thought. "I
mustn't lose any time. I'd better make myself comfortable here under the
bow."
He quietly drew one end of his rope through the lifeline hanging over
the starboard side. He ran the other end of the rope through the lifeline on
the port side. Then he tied the two ends together under the water and thrust
his arms through the loop so that the rope ran under his armpits. Now the
two aqualung cylinders pressed against the bottom of the boat, with the keel
beam between them.
"Not bad at all," Nikolai thought, gripping the rope, his arms bent at
the elbows. "It won't be so bumpy."
The motor began to drone evenly, and the boat moved away from the
shore, slowly at first, then faster and faster. The headland swam into view
and vanished.
As the boat ploughed forward its prow rose into the air, lifting
Nikolai's head and shoulders out of the water. He now breathed through the
snorkel to save the air in the cylinders.
He calculated that the motorboat should cover the fifty miles to town
in about five hours. The cylinders of the aqualung held about 2,000 litres
of air. He had used up some two hundred litres swimming underwater to get to
the motorboat. The aqualung could be used until the pressure in the
cylinders dropped to thirty atmospheres. This meant the last four hundred
litres could not be used. Near town he would have to drop off and swim
underwater for ten minutes or so. That gave him 1,000 litres for the trip,
in other words, half an hour's supply of air. It was to be used in case a
head sea prevented him from breathing through the snorkel. He must try not
to make unnecessary movements. Still, he could not get along on less than
thirty litres of air a minute.
Everything went well at first. Skimming above the smooth sea, Nikolai
enjoyed the water that streamed round his body. His feet, supported by broad
flippers, trailed behind. The cylinders on his back pressed firmly against
the keel beam.
But soon the boat encountered a head sea. The prow rose and fell, and
Nikolai had to adapt himself to this by inhaling only when the prow was out
of the water. Even so, water got into the snorkel now and then, and Nikolai
did not always have time to clear the tube.
Once, when the prow rose high out of the water, Nikolai saw, on his
left, the sun shining brightly on black rocks surrounded by foamy white
surf.
He knew these rocks. He felt as though he had been under that keel,
lashed by the waves, for an eternity. Yet they had only covered about five
miles, one-tenth of the distance!
Nikolai was getting used to meeting the waves head on, but his body was
growing chilled from the wind and the water. Evidently the oil he had rubbed
into his skin was being washed off. He felt colder and colder. The rope to
which he was clinging cut into the palms of his hands. A sharp pain twisted
the big toe of his left foot and quickly rose to his calf. With difficulty,
he turned on his right side. Bending his knee and then straightening out his
leg, he struggled desperately against the cramp.
Suddenly he heard the motor slow down. The prow sank into the water. He
was now submerged. The boat came to a stop.
Breathing at once grew easier. The motionless water seemed much warmer.
Nikolai cautiously thrust his head out of the water.
"Why must you take a dip now?" he heard Opratin's irritated voice ask.
"Why can't you wait?"
"Why wait? It's hot," said Bugrov. "Just a quick dip. There's Bull
Island on the 'left. That means we're halfway."
"Only halfway? We're going very slowly today."
"You're right," Bugrov agreed. "I wonder why." Opratin spoke again. "By
the way, where did you pick up Anatole Benedictov in town?"
"Where we agreed-at pier 16. Then we went to pier 24 to pick you up."
"Was there anyone else on 16? Did anyone see you?"
"I don't think so. Why?"
"Oh, nothing. Hurry up and take your dip."
The boat listed and there was a splash. Bugrov must have dived from the
stern. Nikolai slipped out of the rope, turned on the air valve, and,
twisting his body so that he faced the bottom, dived.
While Bugrov splashed about the stern, Nikolai waited to one side, at a
depth of three metres. That clown was hot and wanted to cool off, so he,
Nikolai, had to expend some of his precious air! True, this break gave him a
chance to stretch his stiff arms and legs and warm up. How thirsty he was!
He had not had anything to eat or drink since morning. His mouth felt
horrible from swallowing salt water. And only halfway there-two hours
more-an eternity. Oh, for a cup of hot tea! The strong tea Mehti brewed at
the marina.
There was a rattling sound in the boat. Working his flippers
energetically, Nikolai swam up to the bottom of the boat, gripped the rope
again, and switched his breathing to the snorkel.
The motor came to life. The waves that beat against him kept sending
water into the tube. Before he managed to blow it through he took another
gulp of sea water. He was growing steadily colder. His body did not have
time to compensate for the heat that the air and water were carrying off.
A transparent edge of water splashed in the plexiglass eyepiece of the
mask. Every now and then Nikolai lifted his head out of the water by raising
himself on the rope. The sea had grown darker, and so had the sky. A crimson
sun hung in the sky to the left, ready to sink into the sea.
Something black suddenly flashed before his eyes, followed at once by a
painful blow on his left shoulder.
It was a heavy, watersoaked log which could easily have ripped a hole
in the bottom of the boat. But luckily it only hit the boat a slanting blow
on its port side after scraping Nikolai's shoulder.
"A close shave," Nikolai thought, unaware that his shoulder was
bleeding. He did not know which was worse-the constant cramps in his legs or
the nausea caused by loss of blood, the cold, his thirst and the large
amount of sea water he had swallowed.
The nausea, the cramps, the tearing pain in his shoulder and the cold
water sweeping over his tortured body began to obscure his consciousness.
"You told me to think of a way out. Well, here it is. It's all for your
sake. Sitting beside the fire with you was wonderful. Your hand I dare not
touch. Your hand I dare not touch."
The drone of the motor intruded into his fading consciousness. With a
great effort he lifted his head.
Lights ahead! The red and white lights of the channel buoys winked in
the twilight.
Lights had been switched on in the city too. He'd made it!
Nikolai turned on the cylinders and climbed out of the rope. Placing
his flippers against the bottom of the boat, he shoved off.
How black the water was! Inhale-exhale- inhale-exhale-
He came to the surface and pulled out the mouthpiece. The boat was no
longer in sight.
To the left-he must swim to the left, in the direction of the marina.
That evening dockmaster Mehti climbed into his dinghy, as usual, and
set out to see if all the sailboats were properly tied up at their buoys.
Old Mehti was in a foul mood. Almost two weeks had passed, and no
Mekong. Nikolai was an experienced sailor, but why hadn't he informed him
about the delay? He had rung up Lenkoran and talked with the coastguards
there. They told him the Mekong had not entered the mouth of the Kura. They
had promised to send a launch to search among the islands.
His job at the marina was becoming altogether impossible. He had no
time to do anything but take phone calls. From one woman in particular, who
said her daughter was aboard the Mekong. She cried as she talked to him. He
could not understand why the men had taken girls with them. When you had
women aboard you had tears. That was a well-known fact.
Mehti steered his dinghy up to buoy No. 2. The Hurricane was well tied
up. But why was there a man with cylinders on his back and flippers on his
feet lying on the deck?
"Hey, you, this isn't a hotel!" Mehti shouted angrily.
The man did not stir. Mehti climbed aboard the sailboat. He bent over
the man, who was lying face downwards, a mask clasped tight in an
outstretched hand, and turned him over.
"Nikolai," he muttered in astonishment.
It was all of twenty minutes before Nikolai recovered consciousness.
His limbs jerked spasmodically. The light hurt his eyes. When he tried to
throw off the blanket Mehti had laid over him his arm refused to move.
Suddenly he realized that he was lying in the dockmaster's quarters at
the marina. He saw Mehti's face bending over him. He heard Mehti's familiar,
grumbling voice.
"Ipaty Island," he said hoarsely, his tongue moving with difficulty.
"Send a launch-Ipaty Island-" Then he fainted again.
The ambulance which the dockmaster had summoned sounded its horn.
After Nikolai was driven away to hospital Mehti rang up the port
authorities to notify them that he was putting out to sea in a launch. He
could not understand how Nikolai had reached the marina. It was nonsense to
suppose he had swum all the way from Ipaty Island. The days of miracles at
sea were over. But one thing was certain: something had happened to the
Mekong. Mehti put a first-aid kit into the launch. He was bending over the
engine, tuning it up for the trip, when he noticed a glow in the sky. The
rosy-hued reflections of a distant fire shone in the southern section of the
evening sky. Mehti climbed back to the pier from the launch. He stood there
wondering what to do, his gnarled fingers moving impatiently. First, he must
find out where the fire was. He stepped into his office but before he could
lift the receiver the telephone rang.
"Mehti? Port duty officer Seleznov here. You just told us one of your
boats was stranded at Ipaty, didn't you? Well, we're sending a torpedo boat
to that area to investigate the fire. Want to come along?"
"Of course I do," Mehti replied.
The torpedo boat slid up alongside the pier soon after. "Climb in,
Mehti, and we're off," the tall, helmeted captain shouted from the
deckhouse.
Mehti sprang onto the deck. "How are you, Konstantin," he said, shaking
hands with the captain. "Haven't seen you for a long time."
"Since last year's regatta. How have you been keeping, old man?"
The engines revved up, and the torpedo boat swung round and headed out
of the bay, leaving two long trails of white foam behind.
Mehti sat down on the low deckhouse railing. Two men in civilian
clothes were standing on deck, and several more were below in the tiny
cabin. Mehti guessed they were oil experts and oilfield firemen.
When they were well out of the bay the captain nodded to the petty
officer beside him and the officer pressed the lever of the accelerators.
The engines roared deafeningly and the launch leaped forward. The glasslike
bow-wave was motionless and pink in the glow of the fire.
Mehti descended the narrow ladder to the cabin, where he sat down on a
folding chair. It was quieter down below. The oil experts were exchanging
brief comments. Some thought the fire might be at the oil well on High
Island, the well farthest out in the archipelago.
The captain came down the ladder. "My radio operator says the situation
on High Island is normal. From there they can see the fire to the southeast.
A message from a fishing village at the mouth of the Kura reports that a
fire can be seen in the northeast."
He spread a map on the table. "It must be somewhere in the Ipaty area,"
he said,
Mehti went up on deck. The ominous red glow that filled the sky and the
sea was growing brighter by the minute. Soon a pillar of fire came into
view. There was no longer any doubt about it. Ipaty Island was in flames.
Mehti stared in silence at the giant torch erupting out of the sea.
"Was this where your young people were?" the captain shouted in his
ear.
The dockmaster did not reply. His face, lit up by the fire, was stony.
Advancing from the weather side, the torpedo boat slowly approached
what had only recently been an island. The water at the foot of the gas
torch seethed and raged.
"Ipaty has gone to the bottom," someone said gloomily.
"We must extinguish this fire," one of the oil experts said, shielding
his face from the heat with his hand. "If the wind rises the fire may spread
to the rigs on Turtle Island-and there's gas there too."
The torpedo boat circled around the remains of the island. It pitched
heavily, for the sea bottom was still shifting and the sea was turbulent.
"May I take a look?" Mehti asked the captain. He trained the binoculars
on the reef and saw the black skeleton of the sailboat. Tongues of flame
were still licking the deck. Mehti lowered the glasses. His face was
expressionless. Big tears rolled down his bristly cheeks.
A call was sent out for fire-fighting launches. Several of these
manoeuvrable little boats with high superstructures arrived on the scene an
hour later. Surrounding the pillar of fire, they trained powerful jets of
water on its base.
The fire put up furious resistance. First it retreated hesitantly, then
leaped forward in an attack on the launches. The paint on the launches
cracked and peeled off in curlicues. The fierce heat scorched the sailors in
their asbestos suits.
Although the launches were tossed from side to side by the waves the
firemen, most of them former navy gunners, firmly controlled the hoses. They
crossed their jets of water at the base of the pillar, to sweep the flame
off the surface of the sea:
It was impossible to tell whether it was night or day.
Finally the jets of water sliced off the pillar of fire at its base.
After a last burst of flame the fire died away.
Darkness fell instantly. It was not exactly dark, though, for the sky
was just beginning to grow light in the east. Could it have taken an entire
night to fight the fire?
Dockmaster Mehti asked the captain to come as close as possible to the
reef. He stared at the blackened framework of the sailboat for a long time.
The captain touched his shoulder. Mehti silently gave him the
binoculars. He slowly went down to the cabin, stretched out on the little
sofa, and turned his face to the wall.
Their engines roaring, the torpedo boat and the fire launches moved
away from the island that no longer existed.
IN WHICH AN INCORPOREAL MAN APPEARS ON THE SCENE AGAIN
Nikolai Opratin sat on a bench on Seaside Boulevard, watching the
crowds strolling past him. It was a hot summer evening, and the entire city
was streaming towards the sea.
The clicking of triggers came from the shooting-gallery. The majestic
strains of Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto floated from the bandshell.
There was not a single vacant place on the benches. On Opratin's left
some young people were eating ice-cream and laughing. On his right others
were joking and laughing. "What a pack of fools!" Opratin thought
disdainfully. "Cackling like geese."
He found he was unable to concentrate. This had never happened before,
and it made him angry.
He had returned from the island only two hours before. From the pier he
had taken a taxi home, where a cold shower had failed to dispel his anxiety
and despair. A vein under his left eye throbbed annoyingly. He examined his
face in the mirror and pressed the vein with a forefinger, but it did not
stop throbbing.
He felt that he simply could not remain at home alone. He had to get
outdoors. A few minutes later he put on his straw hat and went out to sit on
a bench on the boulevard.
How had it all happened? After Anatole went below, Opratin remained
alone for a while, studying the charts of the latest experiments. He was
upset by the talk he had just had with Anatole. That miserable dope fiend!
Wanting to surrender the hard-won fruits of their labours! He certainly was
not going to let that happen. First, he'd see to it that Anatole and the
Institute parted company. He knew he could convince the director that
Anatole had to be dropped because he was no longer suitable for his post.
Then he would render Anatole helpless by confiscating all his papers and the
records of the experiments. The knife, too. Actually, though, the knife was
not really needed any longer. There were "charged" pieces of metal and a
portable installation.
Opratin gathered together the papers he needed and went downstairs for
the portable installation.
Anatole was dozing in the folding chair, inside the cage. He must have
given himself another shot in the arm. Opratin kicked the box of ampoules
that lay on the floor. He stared down at Anatole, frowning. The puffy face,
the rumpled hair, the hoarse breathing. A living corpse, actually.
As he picked up the black attache case containing the portable
installation Opratin became aware of a faint rustling and crackling. He
glanced at the control panel and swore under his breath. The Van de Graaff
generator was switched on. The endless silk band rustled from pulley to
pulley, carrying a flow of static charges to the spherical tips. And the
tips were strongly charged as it was.
Anatole was a maniac! He must have again tried to adjust the
installation by increasing the field intensity. ; Restructured matter was
not supposed to drop downwards; the earth's gravitational field pushed it
up. Or, at any rate, this had been the case in the beginning. But in recent
weeks the installation seemed to have gone mad. The concrete floor of the
cage swallowed up everything thrown into the cage.
Lately, the cage seemed to draw Anatole like a magnet. He would fuss
with it for hours, rearranging the pipes and the wiring. What is more, he
had developed the dangerous habit of taking a siesta in the cage. Time and
again Opratin had warned Anatole not to climb into the cage because he was
absentminded and might easily forget to switch off the installation.
This time Anatole must have turned off the installation after his
latest experiment but had forgotten about the Van de Graaff generator. As
Opratin was on his way to the control panel to switch off the generator a
low crackling sound came from above. He stopped short. A dazzling white
sphere the size of a basketball came rolling out of the generator column
with a swish. Globe lightning!
Opratin stared dumbfounded at the glowing fire-ball. The scorching clot
of energy was heading straight for his feet, giving oft sparks as it rolled
along. Opratin backed towards the steps which led to the hatch. The cover of
the hatch was open; a breath of wind could send the fire-ball upwards and
out through the hatch. But what if it exploded down here instead?
The fire-ball swayed gently and glided upwards, almost into Opratin's
face. Then it floated along in front of the control panel.
Opratin felt behind him for the steps, then swung round and scrambled
upstairs. But before he could jump out of the hatch there was a flash of
dazzling light, a short hiss, and a sharp metallic click. A blast of heat
struck his back.
Forcing himself to turn round, he saw that the fire-ball was gone. It
had disintegrated without exploding.
The cage was empty-except for the upper part of the folding chair
jutting up out of the floor.
Opratin, horrified, closed his eyes. His heart beat violently.
He stepped out of the laboratory and stood before the door for a moment
to get his face and hands under control. Only after his hands stopped
trembling did he lock and seal the door.
Dimly, in the background of his consciousness, he heard the ceaseless
scuffle of the feet of the animated and colourful summer throngs promenading
along the boulevard.
What was he to do? How could he explain Anatole's disappearance? If he
told the truth, no one would believe him. You only had globe lightning
during a thunderstorm. There had been no thunderstorm. No one had ever heard
of a man-made fire-ball. Who would believe that a Van de Graaff generator
had produced one?
Opratin shuddered at the memory of the flash of light and the metallic
click. As the fire-ball floated past the control panel it had activated the
magnetic starter of the installation.
An accident during an experiment? But then there would be an inquiry,
and the installation, which had nothing to do with cloud condensation and
the level of the Caspian, would be discovered. People would want, to know
where Benedictov's body was. No, no-not that.
What if he said that Benedictov had remained behind alone on the island
to finish a series of experiments, and had probably drowned while bathing?
His body had evidently been carried out to sea. But Bugrov knew that Anatole
hated sea bathing. Should he talk to Bugrov? No, that scum of the earth had
been looking daggers at him lately. He would not hesitate to claim that he
had been forced to steal from a display case in a museum.
Should he tell the whole truth? After all, he was in no way to blame
for anything. He was on the verge of a major breakthrough in science. It was
not his fault that Benedictov had fallen victim to his own absentmindedness.
Yes, he'd make a full confession, and let come what may.
Suddenly he heard alarmed voices. Raising his head, he saw a wavering
glow on the southern horizon. Something was burning far out at sea.
Opratin pushed his way through the crowd and headed for home. He did
not sleep a wink all night. He paced the floor, he flung himself into an
armchair, then sprang to his feet and paced the floor again-
Early next morning his telephone rang.
"A big crater erupted on Ipaty last night," came the excited voice of
the Institute director. "The Island no longer exists."
Opratin was struck dumb. He passed the palm of his hand over his
inflamed eyes.
"That's terrible," he said into the phone at last. "Anatole Benedictov
was on the island-"
Ipaty no longer existed.
Opratin took a shower, shaved himself slowly and thoroughly, and
dressed carefully. When he set out for the Institute he was his usual smart,
dapper self.
Four days later a white launch chugged up to the marina. Four
fantastically-garbed young people stepped out onto the pier. One was a lanky
young man with a tawny beard, wearing only shorts and, on his head, a faded
kerchief; camera and binoculars straps ran across his chest in opposite
directions. Another was a round-faced, swarthy, black-haired youth in blue
swimming trunks with a fishing rod in one hand and a transistor radio in the
other. There was a fair-haired young woman in a torn red sun-dress, the
tatters held together with safety pins. The fourth was a pretty brunette
with big black eyes who, despite the hot day, was wrapped in a
yellow-striped green blanket. All were deeply sunburnt and barefoot. A
tiger-striped yellow boxer brought up the rear.
The sailing enthusiasts at the marina stared in amazement at the
procession. When they realized that the man with the tawny beard was Yura
Kostyukov they rushed up to shake his hand. Dockmaster Mehti vigorously
pumped Yura's arm and then turned to shake hands with Yura's companions.
The four had drifted on the becalmed sea for three days. On the morning
of the fourth they were picked up by a rescue launch from Lenkoran that was
searching for them in that area. "You can thank Nikolai Potapkin for saving
your lives," Mehti said to Yura. "He was the one who told us you had a raft.
If we hadn't known that we wouldn't have outfitted search parties. We would
have thought you all perished on the island." One of the boating people
offered to drive the four of them home and they left the marina in his car.
"Well, we're back home again, old man." Yura said to Rex as the car
drew up in front of his house. He thanked the driver and ran up the stairs
to the fourth floor. Rex leaped and danced in front of the door. No one
answered Yura's ring. "They're not back yet," he thought thankfully. His
parents had left for a holiday in the Caucasian spa of Kislovodsk just
before the cruise.
Yura picked up his key from the neighbour with whom he had left it, and
entered his flat. First, a hot shower. Yura scrubbed his body energetically
with a stiff loofah. The water that ran down the drain was black. He soaped
again and again. Finally, when his skin squeaked under his hands, he heaved
a sign of relief. What a job it had been to remove all that dirt!
After he had dressed, Yura glanced into the kitchen. Rex was drowsing
on his pad. When he saw Yura he rose and gave a long yawn.
"You'll stay at home," Yura told him. "I'll run over to see how Nikolai
is getting along. I'll bring you back something to eat. Would you like some
fish?"
Rex barked his indignation. Yura had learned from dockmaster Mehti that
Nikolai was in hospital-the same hospital where Nikolai's mother was
employed as a nurse. Arriving at the hospital, he asked for her. When she
came down into the lobby and saw Yura her face lit up. She embraced him and
shed a few tears. "Forgive me for weeping," she said. "It's so wonderful to
see you. I had been told-"
"How is Nikolai?"
"Much better. He has pneumonia, you know. Besides, he lost a lot of
blood from a deep cut on his shoulder where a log scraped it. He keeps
asking for you. I've been telling him you're in town, but that he can't see
you yet because the doctors don't allow him any visitors."
"I must see Nikolai at once."
"I'm sorry, not today, dear. He's still weak. Come tomorrow."
"May I send him a note? It's extremely important."'
"Well, all right."
Yura tore a page out of his pad and quickly wrote: "Hi, old man. We're
all safe and sound and dying to see you. Meanwhile, just one question: was
Benedictov in the motorboat?"
"All he has to answer is one word-yes or no," Yura said, handing the
note to Nikolai's mother.
"It's our last hope," Yura thought as he restlessly paced the lobby
waiting for Nikolai's mother to return. "If only the answer is yes. Then we
can forget all about that dreadful top of a folding chair sticking out of
the concrete. If only-"
A few minutes later Nikolai's mother came down the stairs. She handed
Yura a sheet of paper on which the word NO was printed in block letters.
When Rita entered her flat she could tell at once that Anatole had been
living at home. The bed was unmade, his pyjamas were tossed over the back of
a chair, and half a glass of cold tea and a sugar bowl stood on the table.
He must have left Opratin's place and been living at home all the time she
was away.
She rang up the Institute of Marine Physics but it was the end of the
day and no one came to the phone. She stood lost in thought for a while,
then dialled Opratin's number. The phone rang and rang without an answer.
Her mother was visiting relatives in Rostov. Whom else could she phone?
What a pity Nikolai could not be reached.
Rita took a bath, then called Opratin again. This time he answered.
"Rita?" he asked in astonishment. "Are you in town?" "Obviously. Where's
Anatole?" "Excuse me-" Opratin fell silent for a few moments. Then he said:
"You ask about Anatole's whereabouts. Don't you know what happened?" "What's
happened?" she cried, pressing her hand to her heart. "Tell me at once."
"I hate to be the one to break the news. Anatole was working in our
island laboratory. He was killed when the island suddenly blew up." "You're
lying. He wasn't in the laboratory." "I realize the state you are in,"
Opratin said gently and with sympathy. "Believe me, I am quite sincere when
I say-"
"It's a lie!" she cried furiously. "He left the island with you. What
have you done to him, you horrid creature?"
"If you're going to carry on like this I must say goodbye."
Rita heard a click, and then the line went dead. She slowly replaced
the receiver. For a moment she stood motionless, her arms hanging by her
sides, in the deathly silence of the empty flat. Then she snatched up the
receiver and dialled Yura's number. No one came to the phone. She waited a
few minutes, then tried again. Still no Yura.
On leaving the hospital Yura took a taxi straight home, locked himself
in the bathroom, turned off the light, and set about developing his last
roll of film.
On the other side of the bathroom door hungry .Rex whined. The
telephone rang frantically. Yura was too busy to go out to answer it. "It
must be Val," he thought. "I'll call her back as soon as I'm free."
Snatching the wet film out of the fixer, he switched on the light and
studied it frame by frame. The negatives of the pictures he had taken in the
island laboratory did look odd. There it was-the cage, the back of the
folding chair jutting up out of the concrete floor, and below it a vague
whitish spot. What the devil was that? How could the camera have
photographed what was under concrete?
Yura turned on the fan to dry the film more quickly.
Now for the printing. He ran the roll of film through the enlarger
until he came to the frame with the cage. He printed an enlargement of it
and tossed the paper into the developing tray. In the red light the cage and
then the cross-piece of the chair showed through slowly, as though
unwillingly. He could see the hazy outlines of the chair itself and - Cold
shivers ran down his spine.
Now the vague contours of a human body were emerging. The body was
reclining in the folding chair and had been photographed from a strange
angle-from almost directly overhead.
Bugrov felt terrible. The man sitting on the other side of the desk
knew far too much about him.
"Whom did you buy the drugs from?" "I don't know his surname," Bugrov
replied sullenly. "They called him Mahmud."
"The one who used to stand on the corner of Ninth Street, near the
filling station?" "Yes."
"Well, Mahmud's been arrested." Bugrov scowled at the investigator. "I
didn't buy the drugs for myself."
"I know you didn't." The investigator's voice hardened. "But you bought
them, and you ruined a man."
Bugrov leaped to his feet. "That's a lie! He ruined himself. I refuse
to be held responsible. He begged me to buy him the drugs. Do you think I-"
"Calm down," the investigator said. "I'm not accusing you. He could not
get along without them, poor chap. Now tell me this. What were the relations
between Nikolai Opratin and Anatole Benedictov-"
"They squabbled all the time. They'd start quarrelling every time we
set out for the island and they'd keep it up all the way."
"What about?"
"How do I know? I don't know the science part of it. Opratin wouldn't
let me any farther than the motor compartment. 1 think there was a hitch of
some kind."
The investigator asked Bugrov to describe the last trip to the island
in the minutest detail.
"So you left Benedictov in the laboratory, did you?" he remarked after
Bugrov finished his story. "You sealed the door and left. Is that it?"
Bugrov stared at him in astonishment.
"Who'd seal a door if there was a living person inside?"
"H'm, a living person, you say?" The investigator stared intently into
Bugrov's eyes. "Did you climb up to the pill-box before you left the
island?"
"No. I was busy tinkering with the engine."
"What did you and Opratin talk about on the return trip?"
"What did we talk about? I don't remember talking at all. He was like
an owl."
"But you did talk all the same. When you stopped the boat to take a
dip."
On hearing this Bugrov was more astonished than ever. "Why, that's
right," he said. "We spoke of how slow the boat was going."
"Anything else?"
"He asked me on what pier I had picked up Benedictov. And whether
anyone had seen us."
The investigator nodded and wrote something down. "Now we're getting
somewhere."
"He talks as if he was in the boat with us," Bugrov thought. "Maybe
Opratin told him about it. But no, that slick customer wouldn't go talking
to the law."
The investigator carefully took a small, flat iron box on a chain out
of his drawer and laid it on the desk in front of Bugrov.
''Ever seen this before?" he asked.
Sweat broke out on Bugrov's forehead. "I'm sunk!" he thought, searching
in his pocket for a handkerchief.
"As far as I'm concerned," Bugrov said in a bored voice, "this little
piece of iron junk is the last thing I'd want. I took it for scientific
purposes."
"You stole it."
"Have it your own way." Bugrov pushed away the chain disdainfully with
his little finger. "I just gave it a little snip with a pair of pliers,
that's all. I didn't take it for myself."
"You'll have to answer for this museum theft."
Bugrov turned to look at the sky outside the window. He wouldn't be
able to wriggle out of this one.
"It's a pity. The Institute gave you very good references. Well, you
may go now. Just sign this statement promising not to leave town."
Nikolai Opratin drummed with his fingers on the black attache case
lying in his lap and said evenly, "You have no right to level such a charge
against me. It's slander."
The investigator placed a folder on the desk. He had spent quite a few
days studying the papers inside the folder before he summoned Opratin for
questioning.
"Please answer the question," he said shortly. "Why did you lock and
seal the door before leaving the island?"
"I did nothing of the sort. I left the key and the seal with
Benedictov."
The investigator gave Opratin a severe look. Opratin met it calmly.
"What did you ask Bugrov on the way back when he stopped the boat to
take a dip?"
"I didn't ask him anything."
The investigator pressed a button and said to the man who entered:
"Show Bugrov in."
When Bugrov entered the room a few seconds later Opratin did not glance
at him.
"He asked if anyone had seen Benedictov get into the boat when I picked
him up that morning," Bugrov said in reply to the investigator's question.
"They boarded the boat at different piers."
"I never asked such a question," Opratin said quietly.
"What do you mean?" Bugrov exclaimed. "You certainly did!"
The investigator stopped him with a gesture. "We have a witness," he
said, pressing the button again.
This time Nikolai Potapkin entered the room. Opratin measured him with
an indifferent glance, then looked pointedly at his watch.
Nikolai confirmed that Opratin had talked with Bugrov on the trip back
from the island.
Opratin shrugged. "This whole business is absurd. Assuming, for a
moment, that we actually did talk, how could this young man have heard it,
in the middle of the Caspian?"
"This young man travelled from Ipaty Island to the mainland hanging
onto the prow of your motorboat," said the investigator. "That has been
verified and is absolutely true. Now I want to ask you another question," he
said, turning to Nikolai. "What did Opratin and Benedictov talk about in
their underground laboratory before the latter vanished?"
Nikolai repeated the conversation. Bugrov stared at him in
bewilderment, his mouth open.
"Do you admit that such a conversation took place?" the investigator
asked, turning to look squarely at Opratin. "Do you admit that you and
Benedictov had a bitter quarrel?"
Opratin did not reply at once. His fingers drummed nervously on his
attache case. It appeared those youngsters had been on the island. He had
never suspected it. He had been vaguely disturbed ever since Benedictov's
wife had screamed into the phone that he was lying. He had hung up at once.
He had thought she was simply upset. But now it turned out that- What else
could they have seen? But they could not possibly have entered the
laboratory- They did not have a shred of evidence. The laboratory had blown
up, and Benedictov together with it.
"Th-there was no such conversation," said Opratin in a hollow voice.
"Was there no ventilation shaft in your pillbox either?" Nikolai
shouted angrily.
The investigator pressed a button to summon Yura and Valery, who
confirmed Nikolai's words.
All eyes were now turned on Opratin. He slowly passed the palm of his
hand over his damp, thin hair.
"Very well," he said slowly, choosing his words. "Let us assume that I
did quarrel with Benedictov." (Be calm, get a grip on yourself.) "What of
that? We quarrelled, I left, and he remained to complete the work on hand.
On that very day the big crater erupted. The laboratory was destroyed,
Benedictov was killed."
"You killed him!" Yura cried.
"That's a lie!" Opratin turned a pale face to him. "That's a despicable
lie."
Yura strode to the table. "You switched on the installation and killed
him. Show him the photographs."
"Don't rush things, young man," said the investigator. Turning to
Opratin he said: "There was a setup in your laboratory that had nothing to
do with cloud condensation. I have pictures of the equipment and a statement
by your director. Take a look."
He spread several large photographs on the desk. Opratin said nothing.
He looked at them indifferently, one by one, until he came to the last
picture. He stared dumbfounded at the picture of the cage inside which could
be seen the dim contours of a folding chair and the outlines of a human body
photographed from directly above.
Opratin pressed the tips of his fingers to his eyes. Under his left eye
a vein throbbed. His cheeks paled.
With a nod to the witnesses the investigator indicated that he wanted
them to leave the room.
"Well?" he asked.
Opratin was sitting in a strange manner, knees drawn up so that his
feet were not touching the floor. He now had control of himself; his
expression was solemn. His fingers drummed nervously on the nickel-plated
clasp of the black attache case in his lap. The clasp gave a loud click.
"Well?" the investigator repeated.
Opratin said nothing. He sat tensely poised, his gaze fixed on the
distance. His lips moved almost imperceptibly, as though counting off the
seconds.
"Has he gone round the bend?" the investigator wondered. He pressed a
button.
"Lead the prisoner away," he said to the sergeant who had entered and
halted near the door.
Opratin rose in an odd manner, almost as if he had jumped up.
"You'll hear more about me," he said in a remote voice, moving towards
the door.
"You're under arrest. Detain him, sergeant."
The sergeant took up a position in front of the door and raised his
hand. Opratin halted for an instant, then moved to the side, walked straight
through the wall beside the door, and vanished.
The sergeant stared round-eyed at the investigator for an instant, then
rushed out into the corridor, followed by the investigator. They saw Opratin
walking down the corridor. He was moving like a robot, taking slow steps,
woodenly placing his feet flat on the ground, as though he were testing the
strength of the floor. In his right hand he still held the black attache
case.
The sergeant caught up with him and stretched out his hand to seize him
by the arm. But his hand went through Opratin's arm as though through air.
All the sergeant felt was a light puff of warm air.
"Follow him!" cried the investigator. "Hurry! Don't take your eyes off
him!"
Hearing the shouts on the floor above them, Nikolai, Yura and Valery
halted in the lobby. Opratin was descending the stairs and coming straight
towards them. They stood shoulder to shoulder to bar his way. Opratin did
not turn aside. He walked straight through them, then through the astounded
man on duty at the door, who tried to stop him, and out into the street.
His face white and tense, he walked without stepping aside for anyone.
He paid no attention to the shouts of the investigator and the sergeant who
were following him, or to the three young men who were on his heels.
For the first time in his life Opratin was displeased with his own
conduct. What in the world had he been thinking of? He had made one stupid
blunder after another. He should have told the whole story at once. He
should have admitted that although the laboratory was being used for
experiments that were not in the programme these experiments would lead to a
major breakthrough.
He should have told the truth, as he had wanted to at the beginning.
The whole truth about the apparatus, about Benedictov's carelessness, and
about the fire-ball. Who could have expected those damned youngsters to get
into the laboratory?
And in the first place, he shouldn't have gone to the investigator's
office when he received the summons. How could an investigator be expected
to understand all this? He would simply look on it as a crime. This case
should be examined by a committee of scientists. He should have gone higher
up at once. He should have said straight out: we've obtained a remarkable
scientific result.
It was not too late now, either. Within half an hour he would be in
touch with the right people. He would tell them he had kept quiet about
Benedictov's death simply because he had panicked. They would understand
that, and appoint a committee of inquiry. He would be allowed to carry his
experiments through to the end.
On reaching the intersection Opratin stepped out into the heavy traffic
without a glance either to the right or to the left. A bus bore down on him.
The driver, his face distorted with fear, tried in vain to brake in time.
Opratin felt a moment's terror but then-
The passengers saw a clean-shaven, well-dressed man cut off at the
knees by the floor of their bus, pass through them without touching a single
person, and disappear, leaving behind a faint odour of eau de Cologne. It
was all over before they had time to exclaim in fright or astonishment.
Meanwhile Opratin, quite unharmed, had reached the other side of the
street and was walking on, swinging his attache case in time to his wooden
steps. He paid no attention either to people or to cars. One more block and
he would be close-
He was slowly crossing the street when a heavy lorry turned the corner.
Opratin did not even glance at it.
There was a piercing shriek. Tires squealed. Its engine giving a sharp
bang, the lorry came to such a sudden stop that the driver's chest was
pressed against the steering wheel and he lost consciousness.
A crowd instantly gathered.
The body of the ghost-man hung in an unnatural, twisted position on the
front of the lorry, his right arm plunged into the bonnet up to the
shoulder.
The black attache case had been thrown some two metres away from the
lorry. It lay half buried in the roadway.
Penetrability had suddenly ceased, and Opratin's body had regained its
normal properties at the very moment when his right arm had moved into the
space occupied by the running engine. The particles of Opratin's arm and of
the lorry engine had intermingled into an unbelievable mixture. The engine
had immediately gone dead.
Nikolai and Yura pushed their way through the crowd to the lorry and
stopped short, overwhelmed by what they saw.
A siren sounded. The crowd parted to make way for an ambulance.
IN WHICH OPRATIN'S INNOCENCE IS ESTABLISHED IN A SOMEWHAT UNUSUAL
MANNER
On that particular Saturday evening Boris Privalov lay on the sofa,
reading and smoking, enjoying the peace and quiet.
But there is no such thing as perfect peace and quiet, not even for a
short interval.
"Do you intend to lie there all evening, Boris?" asked Olga from the
kitchen.
Boris turned a page. "What if I do?"
"Let's go to the pictures. Everyone's seen-"
"I can't, my dear. I'm expecting Pavel Koltukhov."
"Tonight again?"
"We have things to talk over, Olga."
News had arrived from Moscow that the experiment at the Institute of
Surfaces had been successful. A stream of oil had flowed through the water
of a pool three metres long. In October operations were to be shifted to the
Caspian Sea, where a full-scale experiment would be mounted. The Oil
Transport Research Institute was busy assembling the necessary equipment,
and the power engineers had an especially large amount of work to do, under
the stern, faultfinding eye of Professor Bagbanly.
Pavel Koltukhov, whose electret scheme was being applied, had now
become just about the most enthusiastic champion of a pipeless oil pipeline.
He spent days on end testing new samples of powerfully charged electrets.
Besides all this, a suitable area in the sea had to be found. It had to
be remote enough to conceal the experiment from curious eyes. At the same
time, it had to have a convenient power supply. Nikolai and Yura had been
searching for just the right place along the neighbouring shore of the
Caspian for more than a week now.
The doorbell rang. Her lips pressed tight, Olga went to open it.
Pavel Koltukhov entered, unbuttoning his collar and yanking off his tie
on the go. As he sat down he put a cigarette into his mouth and launched
into an account of the furious argument he had just had with the head of the
pipeline building organization.
"Would you like a cup of tea?" Olga asked coldly.
"With pleasure," Pavel Koltukhov replied from behind a thick cloud of
tobacco smoke. "Did you hear that, Boris? 'Don't try to confuse me with all
those figures,' I told him. 'I can penetrate right into your thoughts.'
Well, you should have seen the look he gave me. He asked in a frightened
voice: 'Can you really?'" Pavel Koltukhov laughed boisterously.
"After what happened to Opratin no one can talk of anything except
penetrability," said Privalov.
"I should think not," Olga chimed in as she poured the tea. "The whole
town's talking about the ghost-man. Put aside that book, Boris, and come to
the table." Then, turning to Pavel Koltukhov, she went on: "I can't
understand how he made himself incorporeal. Boris says Opratin built some
kind of a machine on the island. That's all very well but he didn't have any
machine in the investigator's office. Or did Opratin come from the island in
that-that incorporeal state?"
"He carried an attache case," Pavel explained, looking at the cake
appreciatively. "A portable machine, evidently. It's a pity the machine was
smashed when it went into the asphalt."
"He must have dropped the attache case when the lorry hit him," said
Boris. "That's why the penetrability process stopped. How is Opratin, by the
way? Still unconscious?"
"Yes. He's still in a state of severe shock," said Pavel Koltukhov.
"They had to amputate his whole arm, and several ribs are broken."
"It's all so frightful," exclaimed Olga. "The way Benedictov died, too.
How could a photograph show his body if the body was buried in concrete?"
"That's still a mystery," said her husband. "Professor Bagbanly thinks
that the matter restructured according to their method produced hard
radiation, which acted on the film."
"It's just frightful," Olga repeated. "I can't believe that Opratin
would kill anybody. Besides, in such a brutal, cold-blooded manner." "I
don't believe it either," said Pavel Koltukhov, drawing his beetling
eyebrows into a frown. "I don't believe murder was committed. I know
Opratin. He's a reserved man, and extremely ambitious. Not easy to get along
with, perhaps, but commit a murder? No, I don't believe he did it."
"Then how do you explain Anatole Benedictov's death?" asked Boris.
"It's been proved, after all, that he died before the island blew up." "I
don't know. It must have been some sort of accident. A complicated machine,
restructured matter, and high voltage- With a combination like that anything
could happen. Take Valery's little finger, for example."
"Benedictov couldn't have turned on the installation himself."
Pavel Koltukhov said nothing. He took another puff at his cigarette.
"Besides, look at the way Opratin behaved when the investigator was
questioning him. If he were innocent why did he lie?"
"I'd like very much to go over to the hospital and have a talk with
Opratin," Koltukhov said after a pause.
"You wouldn't be permitted to see him." "No, we wouldn't be allowed to
see Opratin, of course. But I know a doctor at that hospital. We were in the
same regiment during the war. I could talk to him about Opratin. Let's pay
him a visit tomorrow, shall we?"
Boris Privalov and Pavel Koltukhov were not allowed to see Opratin for
two reasons. First, because Opratin was in deep shock and recognized no one.
Second, he was a murder suspect.
They were told all this by Pavel Koltukhov's old doctor acquaintance,
an elderly, good-natured man. His hands clasped behind his back, he strode
up and down his office and talked, punctuating his words with thoughtful
pauses.
"It's a unique case," he said. "I haven't the faintest idea of what
changes occurred in the body when the bonds of matter were altered. It's a
physiological mystery, my friends. We're studying it, of course. Clinically,
the picture is very involved. There have been drastic changes in the blood
formula. There are other curious points. On Opratin's back, for instance,
there is a dark pigmentation of a most curious geometrical pattern. We can't
say whether Opratin will come out of this alive. We have managed to maintain
his heart activity so far, but as to the future-" The doctor spread his arms
wide. "I just don't know. He's had a fantastic shock."
When he returned home Boris Privalov sat down to work on the design of
underwater radiators. Nothing seemed to be going right with his
calculations. Probably because his mind was really elsewhere.
He could not stop thinking and wondering about that strange geometrical
pattern on Opratin's back.
He stepped out onto the balcony into the hot, midday sunshine. Then,
making up his mind, he went inside, strode over to the telephone, looked up
the number of the hospital, and asked for Pavel Koltukhov's doctor friend.
When the doctor came to the phone Boris asked him to describe the design on
Opratin's back in the greatest possible detail.
"Well, it consists of spots about as dark as a good suntan," the doctor
said, somewhat puzzled at this request. "There are lines and zigzags against
a background that looks, as a matter of fact, something like a drawing of
the rising sun."
"Thank you," said Privalov. He put down the receiver and began to pace
the room excitedly. Then he ran his eye across the books on his shelves. He
pulled several down one after another and leafed through them. Next he rang
up his wife at the library where she worked. "Are you coming home soon? When
you do, please bring whatever books you have there about lightning. Yes,
that's right, ordinary lightning."
Early in the evening he ran up the stairs of the house in which Pavel
Koltukhov lived. Breathing heavily from the climb, he pressed the doorbell.
Koltukhov was watering the flowers on his balcony. When he finally came to
the door and opened it he looked at his friend in surprise.
"What's happened?" he asked with concern.
"Did you ever hear, Pavel, about marks left by lightning on the body of
a person who's been struck by it?"
In rare cases lightning does leave characteristic marks on the wall of
a house or the body of the person it strikes. Usually the marks are a
star-shaped figure with many rays; sometimes they look like a photograph of
the surrounding place, or are the imprint of an object in the person's
pocket, such as a key or a coin.
It is thought that the stream of electrons and negative ions
accompanying the lightning reflects objects in the vicinity in the shape of
shadows.
Koltukhov listened with a doubtful expression on his face. "As far as I
know," he remarked, "there has not been a single thunderstorm on the Caspian
this summer. Where'd the lightning come from?"
"Remember Yura Kostyukov's photographs?" said Privalov. "Remember his
description of that laboratory? It had a Van de Graaff generator, spark
gaps, and a battery of electrets. The setup had an extremely high voltage,
Pavel. The generator itself produced lightning-globe lightning."
"Now that's really too much, Boris. I've never heard of man-made globe
lightning."
"Well, Pavel, we must see that pattern on Opratin's back for ourselves.
We must obtain permission, one way or another, to visit him. Let's see
whether Professor Bagbanly can help us."
The "geometrical pattern" on Opratin's back was carefully examined in
the presence of the investigator in charge of the case and experts. The dark
patches and lines were compared with the photographs and description of the
installation. The following facts emerged.
The strange imprint on Opratin's back proved to be an outline of the
cage with a human figure inside it, half buried in concrete. Moreover, a
faint shadow of the coil of the "inductor of transformations" was detected,
as was the clear-cut silhouette, in profile, of the control panel.
The imprint was made by globe lightning created, probably, by a
powerful self-discharge of the generator.
Just before the accident Anatole Benedictov was sitting in a chair
inside the cage. The cage was not switched on. Opratin was at the hatchway
with his back to the control panel, evidently about to leave the premises.
In the time between the moment when the cage was switched on and the moment
when Benedictov sank halfway into the concrete Opratin could not possibly
have moved from the control panel to the hatchway, since penetrability
occurred instantaneously.
The conclusion, confirmed by the position of .the shadow of the rotary
switch on the profile of the control panel, was that the magnetic starter
had been activated by the approach of the fire-ball, which at that moment
was between the panel and Opratin.
On the evening of the following day Pavel Koltukhov again sat drinking
tea at the Privalovs. He was telling Olga what the committee of experts had
found.
"If it had not been for the lucid mind of this old visionary," he said,
nodding towards Boris Privalov, "Nikolai Opratin would still be facing the
charge of a horrible murder."
"Opratin lied to the investigator only because-"
"He was afraid he wouldn't be believed," said Koltukhov. "He had no
idea he was carrying the proof of his innocence on his own back."
"Have you shown Professor Bagbanly the latest calculations?" asked
Boris, switching the conversation to current matters.
"Yes. It's a pity you didn't go along with me today to see him. He
called a team of experts together to throw light on that horoscope."
"What for?"
"That's just what I said too. 'Why are you going in for all that
mumbo-jumbo?' I asked him. 'It's interesting,' he said. 'We had a historian
here, and he gave an ingenious interpretation of the horoscope.'"
"Indeed?"
"Yes, and it turns out the horoscope was drawn up for a very specific
reason."
The End of the Story of the Three Boxes
As the sound of horse's hooves died away Count Joseph de Maistre fell
back into his armchair. His lean fingers dug so deeply into the arm rests
that his hands began to ache. He felt a sharp pain in his chest and, with a
groan, he closed his eyes. When the pain subsided he summoned his servant
and ordered him to trim the candles and bring coffee.
Should he send someone in pursuit? No, there was no sense in that. The
arrogant Russian was by now far away. The Lord would punish him.
He would write to faithful servants of the Society of Jesus in Bussia.
They would keep an eye on Arseny Matveyev; that freethinker would not escape
retribution.
The key to the mystery was the main thing, and it was in his hands. The
Count picked up the parchment from the table and glanced at the drawing
showing the relative positions of the planets and the signs of the zodiac.
The fruit of the astrologist's labours aroused his deepest respect. Exactly
one hundred years after the magic knife fell into his, Joseph de Maistre's,
hands, a man would be born who would learn the secret of the knife and bring
new glory to the Jesuits. The power of the Society would become truly
boundless and this, as God knew, was the Count's sole desire.
The old Count slowly folded the parchment and hid it in the flat iron
box with the letters A M D G engraved on the lid.
Count de Maistre's last will and testament was not forgotten. One
hundred years later Jesuit priests chose a new-born child according to the
signs in the horoscope, and persuaded its parents to entrust the child's
education to a Jesuit college.
Vittorio da Castiglione developed into a clever but reserved boy. His
eyes gazed out on the turbulent world beyond the college walls with a cold
weariness that had nothing childish about it.
When Vittorio reached the age of twenty-one he was told, in the course
of a solemn ceremony arranged in sombre surroundings, about the lofty
mission planned for him more than a century before. The young Jesuit learned
how the illustrious Count de Maistre had concerned himself about the future
greatness of the Society, how a free-thinking Russian had stolen a secret
manuscript and a magic knife from him. Now he, Vittorio, must find and
return to the Society the source and evidence of the great mystery, so that
they could be passed on to the finest minds of the Catholic world, ad
majorem Dei gloriam, for the greater glory of God.
Vittorio was told all about the Matveyev family, all the details which
the Society had so painstakingly collected and recorded on the other side of
the horoscope. He hung the small flat box, with the parchment inside it,
round his neck, along with his tiny gold crucifix, knelt, and vowed solemnly
that he would carry |out his mission.
Vittorio da Castiglione trained for it diligently. He learned Russian
and studied navigation at a school for submarine officers in Livorno. When
Hitler's divisions, followed by those of Mussolini, moved against Russia the
young submarine officer set out for the Russian battlefront in the Tenth
Flotilla.
At the end of August 1942, after spending some time in Sevastopol and
Mariupol, Vittorio parachuted from a Junkers plane into the misty night of a
mountainous area near Derbent. There, on the shore of the Caspian Sea, he
was to select a base for his flotilla. Afterwards he was to make his way
south, to a large coastal town, with an important subversive assignment.
According to his information, the descendants of Fedor Matveyev lived there.
Their names were firmly fixed in his memory.
His hour of greatness was approaching.
In the deserted stone quarries near Derbent, the ancient city of the
Iron Gates, Vittorio sought a secluded spot where he could conceal his radio
transmitter, aqualung and other paraphernalia for the time being. Suddenly
the earth gave way beneath his feet and he fell into a pit and was crushed,
and killed, by a heavy rock.
And so Vittorio da Castiglione, twenty-seven years old, a minion of the
Jesuits, perished, to the greater glory of God.
It was very early in the morning when Nikolai and Yura returned to town
by bus from their latest trip. They agreed to meet at the Institute an hour
later, after a shower and breakfast.
Cooper Lane was still asleep. The morning breeze whispered shyly in the
dusty branches of the acacias. The ringing of an alarm clock came through an
open window.
Nikolai walked under the archway leading into the courtyard. Inside the
yard he saw Bugrov at his morning exercises. Holding large dumbbells, he was
doing slow knee-bends. When he saw Nikolai he winked at him, then gestured
for him to come closer.
"There was a meeting at the Institute day before yesterday," he said in
a loud whisper. "The Institute is going to vouch for me. See?"
"No, I don't."
"You don't think quick, do you? I suppose you didn't get enough sleep
last night. Anyway, remember that small piece of iron I pinched from a
museum in Moscow?"
Nikolai nodded.
"Well, they wanted to put me on trial for it. But would that be fair? I
didn't take it for myself. I need it like a turkey needs a walking stick.
Anyway, a general meeting at the Institute said it would help me out by
vouching for me. The vote in favour was unanimous."
"Congratulations," said Nikolai.
"Thanks." Bugrov tossed the dumb-bells into the air and caught them.
"Did you hear about Opratin? He's been cleared of the murder charge."
"Is that so?"
"That's right. You know who killed Anatole Benedictov? A fire-ball."
"A fire-ball?"
"That's what I'm telling you. A scientific phenomenon, see?"
Nikolai waved his hand impatiently and ran up the steps to his flat.
After he had showered his mother told him the current domestic news while
she prepared his breakfast.
All of a sudden she stopped short. "Oh, I quite forgot to tell you.
Rita dropped in last night."
"Did she say why?" he asked quietly.
"No, but she asked me to tell you to ring her up as soon as you
returned."
Nikolai hurriedly finished dressing and dashed to the telephone.
Although the term had not yet begun-it was only the middle of
August-Rita went to school every day. She was re-equipping the biology lab
and planned to enlarge the experiment plot on which the children gardened.
All this activity was her salvation.
Val often dropped in to see her in the evening. Nikolai and Yura had
visited her several times. Once the entire crew of the Mekong gathered at
her flat in the evening. Valery Gorbachevsky was the hero of the occasion.
He had brought a copy of a scientific journal in which Professor Bagbanly
described the restructuring of the internal bonds of matter. The article
spoke of the "Gorbachevsky effect", as the professor called the memorable
accident involving Valery's little finger.
His face glowing, Valery showed the article to Rita. She did not
understand anything, naturally, since the article consisted mostly of
formulas and charts, but she congratulated Valery, who did not understand
the article either. Yura insisted that a mould of Valery's finger, if not
the finger itself, would soon be on display at the Economic Achievements
Exhibition in Moscow.
But when Rita was all by herself her grief prevented her from settling
down to anything. She would wander through the rooms of the flat, touching
and moving objects to no purpose. She would stand for a long time in front
of the bookcases, leafing through Anatole's books. When she came across
marginal notes in his hand she studied them intently, trying to guess the
meaning of the underlined words and symbols.
One day Rita came upon a notebook with a blue oilcloth cover that stood
between two thick volumes. She looked through it. Scattered among memoranda
were notes on how experiments were going, formulas and diagrams. There were
other entries, too, the kind that are made only in diaries.
Lying curled up in a corner of the sofa, Rita read and reread the
notebook. At last she could no longer contain herself and burst into tears.
In the morning she telephoned Yura and was told that he had left town
on an assignment. She went to school and worked on the experiment plot until
evening. Then, in the hot, thronged streets, she suddenly realized that she
simply could not go back to her empty flat.
Rita went to Cooper Lane. She stopped in the familiar courtyard and
stared at it, her soul a tumult of anguished feeling. How small and old it
was, this courtyard of her childhood.
Slowly, as though in a dream, Rita climbed the stairs to the second
floor. A middle-aged woman with a kind, familiar face opened the door.
"How do you do?" said Rita. "Don't you remember me? I used to live in
this house. My name is Rita."
"My goodness, little Rita. I would never have recognized you. Do come
in. What a pity Nikolai has left town for several days."
"Has he left town too?"
Nikolai's mother insisted that Rita stay for a cup of tea. As Rita
drank her tea she kept glancing at a big photograph on the wall, of an
unsmiling lad with a forelock, in a white shirt with sleeves rolled high.
This was the Nikolai she had known when they were children.
Rita stayed at Nikolai's house until late in the evening. It was
soothing to listen to his mother talk.
"Thank you," she said in a low voice as she took her leave.
"For what?" Nikolai's mother asked in surprise.
The bell. Who could it be so early in the morning? Rita hurried out of
the bathroom to the telephone.
"Excuse me for ringing so early," said a familiar voice, "I just
arrived back in town and Mother told me-"
"That's quite all right, Nikolai. I'm an early riser. I must see you."
They met at the bus stop near Rita's school.
"Has anything happened?" Nikolai asked anxiously, with a searching look
at Rita's face.
"I found a notebook of Anatole's. His notes on what he was doing.
There's much of it I don't understand. May be you could use the notes." She
drew the notebook in the blue cover out of her bag. "Take it, please, and
read it. You may pass it on to Privalov, or to the Moscow Academician to
whom you sent the knife."
"Very well, Rita. I'll read it today."
"There's something else." Rita lowered her voice and closed her eyes
for a second. "Nasty rumours are being spread about Anatole. Nikolai, you
must help me to clear his name. Help me to make the truth known."
"If only you had allowed me to do that before," Nikolai thought. "If
only you had not made me promise, in the train-"
"Very well, Rita, I'll do everything I can," he said.
She pressed his hand. "Now go. But don't disappear for long. Ring me
up."
That afternoon Yura and Nikolai stepped aboard an Institute launch and
set out for Bird Rock, a small island seven kilometres from shore.
The island was as flat and round as a dinner plate. A black rock washed
smooth by the tide rose on the weather side. Seagulls nested on this rock,
and it was after them that the island had been named.
Our friends measured off an area for future structures, a job which
took them until evening. The launch was due to return for them only the
following day. They pitched their tent, lighted their primus stove, and
prepared a meal. Then Nikolai pulled the notebook in the blue oilcloth cover
out of his knapsack, and he and Yura lay down side by side on the sand to
read it.
IN WHICH THE BOOK ENDS, BUT WITH THE PROMISE OF NEW THINGS TO COME
The full-scale experiment in pipeless oil delivery was to be mounted
between the shore and Bird Rock, seven kilometres away. The seabed at both
terminals of the route had been deepened. Steel pylons had been set up in
the water for the transmission and reception radiators.
A conventional pipeline along the coast ran to the dispatching station.
Here, making a sharp dip, it dropped straight down into the sea along the
pylon. At a depth of twenty metres it ended in a plastic elbow bend with a
wide funnel facing seawards. Two large, well-insulated Mobius bands had been
mounted, one in front of the other, inside the funnel. Behind the elbow
bend, in a pressurized chamber stood a generator of original design
connected with a circular screen aerial surrounding the funnel. Thick cables
ran from the Mobius bands and the generator to panels of the shore station,
which had a complex array of electronic control equipment.
Similar equipment had been set up on Bird Rock. The shore funnel and
the Bird Rock funnel were situated exactly on the same axis. Setting up the
two pipes directly in line with each other across a stretch of seven
kilometres of sea had called for the greatest precision. Geodesists and
divers had had to work hard to attain the desired precision.
The idea of the project was as follows: the coastal pipeline would
carry the oil into the sea, to a depth of twenty metres. As it came out of
the funnel the stream of oil would flow through the field of the first
Mobius band and acquire penetrability. The field of the second Mobius band
would compress the surface of the stream and give it an exact shape. The
underwater circular aerial would create an energy beam between the shore and
Bird Rock. The static field would force the stream of oil to flow through
the water-along this beam. As it passed through the field of the receiving
Mobius band at Bird Rock the stream of oil would regain its normal
properties. After entering the reception funnel it would be pumped to a
storage tank.
In the last stage of the preparations Yura and Nikolai, who had been
put in charge of the reception station, with Valery Gorbachevsky as their
assistant, spent several days and nights at Bird Rock.
Finally the apparatus was assembled and the assemblymen departed from
Bird Rock for the mainland, leaving behind only an engineer and a radio
operator.
The cars sped along the coastal highway, ran through a small community
buried in the greenery of vineyards, then turned off onto a dirt road that
took them to the beach. They came to a stop beside a board fence in the
shade of a cluster of old mulberry trees.
The members of the experiment team were gathered there, as well as
quite a crowd of people from the Oil Transport Research Institute and other
research institutions. Academician Georgi Markov was there; he had flown in
from Moscow the day before especially for the occasion.
Several launches were tying up at the pier. One of them discharged a
thickset man with a head of curly greying hair. He was followed by a solemn,
dignified Vova Bugrov carrying a small suitcase.
Academician Markov shook hands warmly -with the grey-haired man and led
him over to Boris Privalov.
"Do you know each other?" he asked. "Jafar Rustamov is director of the
Marine Physics Institute."
"We've met before," smiled Boris Privalov. "Jafar's institute is across
the street from ours."
"You two can look forward to a great deal of joint work," said
Academician Markov.
Privalov gave him a questioning glance, but the Academician had turned
to Professor Bagbanly. Rustamov smiled to himself; he already knew what the
Academician from Moscow had in mind.
Bugrov nodded loftily to Nikolai and Yura.
"Hullo there, boys," he said. "I'm surprised to see you here."
"We're surprised to see you here," said Nikolai.
"I was invited," Bugrov replied, squinting against the sun. "I was
asked to come together with our director. I'm in charge of underwater
affairs."
Everyone went into the building that housed the chief control desk. The
desk was composed of three panels: one for the generator of penetrability,
which was connected with the Mobius bands at the underwater funnel; one for
the pumps that drove the oil into the funnel, and one for the energy beam.
Electricians were working at the third panel, ironing out a hitch.
Although the generators hummed, the needle on the field-intensity meter
stood at zero. Boris Privalov impatiently tapped the glass of the meter.
"What's the matter?" Academician Markov asked sharply.
"I can't understand it," Privalov muttered. "Everything was all right
yesterday."
"Get in touch with Bird Rock."
A few minutes later the radio operator told them: "Bird Rock reports
that the indicating light is out."
"Evidently the funnel was not attached tightly enough, and the current
pushed it out of line," said Pavel Koltukhov. "The beam doesn't reach the
aerial on Bird Rock because the axis of the underwater funnels has shifted."
"You should have done a line-up from the surface," Academician Markov
said. "Use your divers."
"I have a suggestion, Professor," said Jafar Rustamov. "I have a man
who can do the job. I should also like him to film the start of the
operation, if you don't mind."
"Where's your diver?" asked Academician Markov.
Bugrov stepped forward, coughing modestly behind his hand. The
Academician looked him up and down.
"He'll smash the installation," said Professor Bagbanly. "Just look at
those huge fists."
"Let me go down together with him," said Nikolai, coming forward. "I'll
show him the spot and help him to-"
"What an idea-after a bout of pneumonia!" Yura exclaimed. "I'll do the
diving."
"Very well. Only be quick about it."
Bugrov clapped Yura on the shoulder. "Let's go," he said.
They changed into their swimming trunks and went out to the little
steel bridge connecting the shore with the pylon down which the pipeline ran
into the sea.
Nikolai helped them to put on the aqualungs. A wrench was tied to
Yura's wrist, and a signal rope was looped round his waist. He and Nikolai
agreed on the signals they would use.
After pulling on his mask and switching on the cylinder, Yura slid into
the sea. Bugrov plopped into the water in his wake.
They descended slowly through the cold green semi-darkness alongside
the steel sections of the pylon.
When the pressure-gauge showed they were at a depth of twenty metres
Yura saw an elbow with a wide funnel at its end. It held the Mobius bands
and the aerial of the radiator.
Yura waved to Bugrov and crawled inside the pylon. He loosened the
elbow with his wrench, and then Bugrov cautiously turned the funnel in the
stiff joint. This was by no means easy to do. The current pressed Bugrov up
against the pylon; he moved his flippers, seeking a support for his feet.
Yura gestured to indicate that he should turn the funnel a little more to
the left, but less energetically.
Suddenly there were two vigorous tugs on the signal rope. Nikolai was
telling Yura that the beam had reached Bird Rock, which meant the axes of
the funnels were in line. Yura immediately gestured to Bugrov, then started
locking the nuts one after another. After he finished Bugrov took the wrench
and gave the nuts a final twist. Watching Bugrov's shoulder muscles bulge
Yura was certain no current would ever move the funnels out of line again.
He tugged on his rope three times to say that everything was all right.
The Mobius bands could be fed and the pumps switched on. Then he wrapped his
arms and legs round the steel crossbars of the pylon and waited. Bugrov did
the same nearby. He untied the cine camera from around his waist and trained
it on the funnel.
A long minute passed before the pylon began to vibrate. There was a
vague rumble overhead as the pump was switched on and it started to force
oil down the pipe, driving out the water.
All of a sudden a dark stream the thickness of a human body poured out
of the funnel, as though an invisible man were slowly pulling a big log out
of the elbow of the pipe. The log grew longer and longer.
A stream of oil fourteen inches in diameter was flowing through the
water. It flowed evenly and compactly with a clearly defined surface that
was surrounded by a faint violet glow.
A stream of oil flowing through the sea was no longer a dream, no
longer a remote vision! It was a man-made miracle!
Yura felt like shouting, turning somersaults, laughing. He waved to
Bugrov, but Bugrov was busy filming the stream.
With four tugs on the signal rope Yura let Nikolai know that the stream
of oil was flowing. An answer came at once; his signal was understood. Yura
untied the rope round his waist and pushed off from the pylon and began to
swim alongside the stream of oil.
It was easy to keep up with the stream, for the installation was not
functioning at full capacity. The stream of oil was moving at a speed of no
more than one metre per second. When the transcaspian pipeline went into
operation the speed could be greatly increased, for the stream cut through
the water easily, without meeting resistance.
Yura, eager to rejoin the others on shore, gestured to Bugrov. Working
their flippers slowly, the two men swam to the surface.
Nikolai waved to them from the bridge and shouted something, his face
shining with excitement.
The committee that was to approve the pipeline travelled out to Bird
Rock on a big white launch. There was plenty of time; the stream of oil
would reach the island only two and a half hours later.
Alarmed seagulls circled above the black rock, human beings had given
them no peace for the past few weeks.
The committee members stepped out of the launch onto the sandy shore of
the island and unhurriedly inspected the open steel tank. They did not all
believe the tank would be rilled with oil that had flowed, without a pipe to
contain it, through seven kilometres of sea. They listened closely to
engineer Yura Kostyukov, who told them again and again how he had seen a
stream of oil emerging from the funnel.
When only a few minutes were left to the scheduled time Academician
Markov ordered the pump switched on. A stream of foaming water rushed into
the tank. There was no oil as yet. The pump had to be turned off.
Yura could not hold back his impatience. Ho silently stripped to his
swimming trunks, heaved the aqualung cylinders on his back, pulled on his
mask, and dived into the water. Bugrov also put on an aqualung and dived in.
Yura saw the stream of oil almost at once. It was moving towards him,
with a dark, snub-nosed end that looked like a gun muzzle. As before, it was
surrounded by a faint violet glow.
The strange sight filled Yura with awe. He pushed himself upwards so
fast that his eardrums began to ache, and he slowed his rate of rise. He
broke the glassy surface of the sea to return to a world of bright sunshine.
Yanking out his mouthpiece, Yura shouted to the people on the shore:
"It's here! Switch on the pump!"
Hastily gripping the mouthpiece between his teeth again he dived and
swam over to the pylon, where Bugrov sat with his camera.
They saw the stream of oil pass through the Mobius band, after which it
was neatly drawn into the broad funnel.
Members of the experiment team crowded about the platform at the top of
the tank. So far, the pump was bringing up foamy water. Suddenly the water
darkened. Scattering an iridescent spray, a dark-brown stream of oil
splashed into the bottom of the tank.
Pavel Koltukhov, who stood closest to the stream, put a finger into it.
Yes, it was oil, oil that had been sent across seven kilometres of sea
without a pipe, in an "incorporeal", restructured state, easily piercing the
water. Now it was passing through the field of the receiving Mobius band and
again becoming tangible and "normal".
Professor Bagbanly drew Boris Privalov to him and embraced him. "My
heartiest congratulations, Boris," he said.
"I congratulate you too," said Boris Privalov, his voice hoarse from
excitement and happiness.
The committee went down to the launch and returned to the mainland. Now
the experiment was repeated in reverse. This time the stream of oil flowed
just as obediently from Bird Bock to the tank on shore.
"The experiment has been very satisfactory," said Academician Markov.
"Be sure to collect the tapes from all the recording instruments. This will
be enough for today."
"Is that all he could tell us-that this is enough for today?" Privalov
thought. "As though it weren't a day of a miracle? But I suppose big
scientists think along different lines than the rest of us do. To them
today's experiment is just one among a great many others."
Meanwhile the group was beginning to disperse. Jafar Bustamov was about
lo leave too, but Academician Markov detained him. "Please don't hurry away,
Jafar," he said. "I want to talk to you."
Academician Markov, Professor Bagbanly, Boris Privalov, Pavel
Koltukhov, Jafar Rustamov and Nikolai and Yura were now the only ones left
in the control-desk building. They sat in front of the white panels.
Outside, the leaves on the old mulberry trees rustled in the breeze.
Every once in a while a yellow leaf drifted into the room through an
open window and slowly sank to the floor.
"Let's sum up," said the Academician. "We've ripped off the surface of
matter and restructured the internal bonds of matter. The impenetrable has
become penetrable.
"The Mobius band, a generator built in Boris Privalov's laboratory, and
the field frequency characteristics found at the Institute of Surfaces all
contributed to the success of this experiment. A highly interesting question
still has to be investigated, and that is the interaction between
penetrability and the earth's field of gravitation. Our laboratory has
thoroughly analysed the band that was engulfed by the block of concrete.
From Benedictov's notebook we know that their concrete floor 'swallowed up'
restructured matter. There is also Benedictov's tragic death." The
Academician spread his hands.
No one said anything for a few moments. Boris Privalov broke the
silence. "How, Academician Markov, do you explain the fact that in some
cases the object which acquires penetrability remains above the surface of
the ground or the floor, and in other cases it drops through this surface?"
"So far, I think it goes something like this. Restructured matter, like
ordinary matter, possesses mass and hence gravitates towards the centre of
the earth. But if an obstacle of ordinary matter, say, a floor, the seat of
a chair, or the surface of the earth itself, appears in the gravitational
path, then the obstacle acts as a damper of gravity'. The property of
penetrability manifests itself in all directions except the strictly
vertical. But under certain conditions the 'field of transformation' and the
field of gravitation may interact in such a way that the 'damper effect'
shifts downwards vertically. Then we get the 'sinking'."
"We must co-ordinate the parameters of the installation with the force
of gravity in the given geographical area," said Professor Bagbanly.
"Preliminary gravimetric measurements are essential."
"I agree with you, Professor. Incidentally, allow me to congratulate
you on your energy scheme. It stood the test splendidly."
"I appreciate your kind words," Professor Bagbanly said, laying his
hand on his heart. "But a new scheme will be needed for a route across the
entire Caspian, and for long distances in general. Don't forget that we'll
have to bend the beam to make it conform to the curvature of the earth. I
couldn't do that by myself even if I were to lean all my weight on the other
end of the beam."
Academician Markov gave Professor Bagbanly a friendly pat on the
shoulder.
"We'll all lean on your beam together," he said with a laugh. "That way
we may succeed in bending it. Koltukhov's electrets are of fundamental
importance. They provided an inexhaustible source of current and thus
prevented the possibility of a power failure."
"Nikolai Opratin had a battery of electrets on his island," Yura put
in.
"There it was being used for a different purpose, to transfer the
properties of the knife to other objects," said Professor Bagbanly.
"You mentioned the notebook that belonged to the late Anatole
Benedictov, didn't you?" Privalov asked, turning to the Academician.
"Suppose we were to reproduce his 'transmission installation'? It seems to
me that would make the work easier."
"It certainly would," said the Academician. "Benedictov really did a
brilliant piece of research. Opratin apparently played a most significant
role too. Do you remember my saying last spring that I thought it might be
possible to transfer the properties of an object with restructured bonds to
other objects? Benedictov did just that. The unknown Indian scholar may have
worked along the same lines.
"But Benedictov failed to achieve stability. It's a great pity, a very
great pity, he did not work in contact with us. There are many interesting
points in his records. By the way, I am urging the Academy of Sciences to
publish his papers."
"That's splendid!" Nikolai exclaimed. "Now," said Academician Markov,
"I want to hear what our friend Jafar Rustamov has to say."
The director of the Institute of Marine Physics passed a hand over his
curly hair, coughed, and began:
"The problem of raising the level of the Caspian-"
"Look here, my son," said Professor Bagbanly. "I know how good you are
at making speeches. But don't make one now. Just give us the gist of it. We
know all about the problem."
"I should say we do." said Pavel Koltukhov. "We know all about water
heaters on the Black ;Sea, a cloud conductor across the Caucasian mountain
range and man-made cloudbursts-"
Bustamov nodded. "Very well, to put it briefly, Nature uses up millions
of kilowatthours of solar energy to produce a few average-sized clouds in
the second half of a summer day. You know that, of course." His eyes
crinkled in a sly smile.
"Yes, certainly," said Koltukhov in a voice that was not quite certain.
"Fine. Now we have nuclear power, a tremendous source of energy. The
only drawback, my friends, is its cost. A long man-made downpour is an
extremely expensive business. We have done preparatory research anyway,
because any expenditure would be justified if we succeeded in raising the
level of the Caspian. This summer we lost our experimental condenser
installation on Ipaty Island. But you all know that. Now Academician Markov
has suggested something else. Instead of shifting clouds from the Black Sea
to the Caspian he proposes building an underground sea-water line beneath
the Caucasian isthmus."
"A sea water line?" Privalov repeated, slowly rising from his chair.
The young engineers jumped to their feet and stared at Rustamov in
astonishment.
"Yes, a sea-water line," said Academician Markov. "At approximately the
42nd parallel, between Poti on the Black Sea and Derbent on the Caspian Sea.
Today we sent a stream of oil through the sea. Tomorrow a sea-water line
could carry a stream of Black Sea water through the ground into the
Caspian."
A stunned silence reigned in the room for a moment. The engineers were
struck dumb by the scope of the idea.
"I've already calculated that it would be much cheaper than anything
else," Rustamov went on briskly. "I was doubtful about it at the beginning,
but now I see how it can be done. It's a good idea."
"Good?" shouted Privalov. "You say it's a good idea? I call it
fabulous."
"Don't get excited, Boris," said the Academician. "The idea of a
sea-water line cannot be compared in scope with all the prospects which
penetrability holds out to us. The future will produce a great deal that is
amazing and surprising. I can tell you one thing. Our Institute is doing
highly promising experiments in releasing the energy of surfaces."
Nikolai and Yura, standing by the window, were excitedly discussing
something.
"They're already planning the details of the scheme," said Koltukhov,
nodding in their direction. "See that wild gleam in their eyes?"
Outside, twilight was falling; silvery stellar dust powdered the sky.
The launch sped along, cutting diagonally across the path of moonlight
on the water. The passengers sat in silence, weary after the long, fruitful,
and fascinating day.
They were racing ahead towards the lights of the big city. The channel
buoys cheerfully blinked their red and yellow lights.
"Do you remember how it all began, Boris?" Nikolai suddenly asked.
"How what began?"
"Well, the experiments with surface tension and the rest of it."
Boris Privalov paused for a moment. "Actually, how did it all begin? I
recall there was some talk about it while we were out sailing one day."
"But before that, don't you remember the bazaar? We were standing in
front of that painting of Leda and the Swan, and you said-"
Boris Privalov laughed. "Ah, to be sure. You're right. That vulgar
painting was what gave us the idea-"
He turned to Academician Markov to tell him how it had all begun at the
bazaar. The Academician laughed, then said, his face serious, "That painting
was just an accidental factor. The important thing is-" He could have
carried on from there at length, but instead he limited himself to giving
Boris's arm a friendly squeeze.
A big white ship, all gleaming with lights, cut across the path of the
launch. Dance music came from the open portholes of the saloon.
Yura turned to read the name on the high bow of the ship.
"The Uzbekistan" he said. "Look, Nicky, it's the Uzbekistan!"
Nikolai did not answer. He stood there gazing after the ship for a long
time.
One evening in early winter when snowflakes were floating lazily
earthwards, only to melt at once on the wet black pavement, Rita sat curled
up in her favourite spot on the sofa, leafing through a thin paperback.
She studied the lines of familiar and unfamiliar formulas and carefully
read the description of experiments, for she well remembered some of the
early ones. Again she looked at the cover. At the top was the author's name:
Anatole Benedictov, and below it the title: Changing the Internal Bonds of
Matter.
The book had just arrived from Moscow that morning. It had not come out
in a large printing, for it was intended for a narrow circle of researchers.
Academician Markov was the editor and also the author of the introductory
essay and the commentaries.
The room was quiet. Rita lifted her head to look about her, at the
standing lamp, the fish in the aquarium, a solitary microscope on the desk.
Then she looked at the cover of the book again, and at the author's name:
Anatole Benedictov.
The doorbell rang. Rita sprang up and ran out into the entryway,
straightening her housecoat on the way. No one had rung her bell for a long
time.
Pronka, the black cat, was at her side as she opened the door. When she
saw it was Val and Yura her face lit up. Behind them Rex moved impatiently,
his paws tapping on the floor.
"How glad I am to see you!" Rita exclaimed, shaking hands with her
visitors. She was about to pat Rex on the head when he suddenly gave a jerk,
pulling the leash out of Yura's hand, and raced into the depths of the flat,
barking wildly. They could hear chairs being knocked over.
"That dog will be the death of me," Val complained.
Hurrying into the dining-room, they found Pronka on top of the
sideboard, her fur on end, hissing furiously. Rex kept leaping frantically
into the air in a vain attempt to get his teeth into his age-old enemy.
"Down, Rex, down!" Yura shouted sternly, seizing Rex by the collar.
"Where are your manners, sir?"
Rita picked up Pronka and carried her into the kitchen, the door of
which she carefully closed. Rex wagged his stub of a tail guiltily. Order
was restored.
"You look splendid, Val," Rita said. "Marriage certainly seems to agree
with you."
(The reader will forgive the authors for failing to describe the
wedding of Val and Yura. They will merely note that it was a very gay
wedding indeed, and that the crew of the Mekong was there in full force.
Valery drank a bit too much and then went on to give a display of the test
dance steps, followed by a moving rendition of an old Papuan song, to the
delight of all present at this most delightful wedding.)
"I'm surprised to hear you find me looking well," Val said. "It's
taking all my patience to get along with this brute."
"Why aren't you treating your wife properly, Yura?" Rita asked.
"Nobody is mistreating her," Yura replied from the armchair in which he
had settled himself. "You know, she gave me her thesis to read-"
"Just imagine," Val interrupted. "I'm going to present it soon, so I
wanted his opinion. Well, I gave it to him to read, and he-"
"Tore it up?" Rita asked in mock horror.
"Worse than that. He read it aloud, making snide remarks as he went
along. You know the sort of things Yura is capable of saying."
Rita laughed. "How glad I am to see you!" she said again, feeling a
surge of affection for the young couple. "I'm going to serve you tea now."
Yura was on his feet instantly. He took Rita by the arm. "Let's not
have any tea this time, really. We dropped in to pick you up and take you to
Nikolai's with us."
Rita gave Yura a long look. "What for?"
"No special purpose. Just a friendly call. Nikolai has always been a
stay-at-home, and now more so than ever before. He's permanently in low
spirits and sits at home all the time. He doesn't even want to go to the
pictures. I have to drag him out. Let's go over and cheer him up."
Rita said nothing for a moment. "Very well," she consented.
The snowflakes that were floating down to the wet pavement melted
immediately. But there was snow clinging to the garden fence in a thin,
fragile layer. Yura scooped some of it into a snowball and aimed it at Val.
"Don't you dare, you beast!" she cried, taking shelter behind Rita. She
was wearing a new coat.
Yura tossed the snowball at Rex. Rex was wearing his old coat of
beautiful striped fur and was not at all afraid of ruining it. He yelped
with joy.
They came to the house in Cooper Lane, entered the yard and climbed the
steps to the second floor. Yura pushed the bell. The door opened-
MIR PUBLISHERS would be grateful for your comments on the contents,
translation and design of this book. We would also be pleased to receive any
other suggestions you may wish to make.
Our address is:
USSR, 129820, Moscow 1-110, GSP
Pervy Rizhsky Pereulok, 2
MIR PUBLISHERS
Printed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
EVGENY VOISKUNSKY was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, in 1922. After
finishing secondary school he went to Leningrad to study the history of art.
The Second World War interrupted his studies. He served in the Baltic
Fleet, taking part in the defence of Hanko Island and Leningrad. For many
years after the war he worked for the newspaper published by the Navy. His
first novels were about men serving in the Soviet Navy. The Crew of the
Mekong is the first of the science-fiction novels written in collaboration
with I. Lukodyanov.
ISAI LUKODYANOV (born 1913) was an engineer at a machine-building works
and served in the Air Force during the Second World War. Then he returned to
Baku and became a design engineer. He is the author of several technical
books. In recent years he has written science-fiction stories and novels
together with E. Voiskunsky.
These two well-known writers of science fiction followed up The Crew of
the Mekong with the novel The Black Pillar, a collection of short stories
called At the Crossroads of Time, the novel - Very Distant Tartess and the
novel The Gentle Splash of Stellar Seas.
Last edited: December 22, 2001
Last-modified: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 07:03:14 GMT