"Probing the structure
of matter is not as simple as strumming a guitar."


        CHAPTER FIVE

        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."


        CHAPTER SIX

        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.


        CHAPTER SEVEN

     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 h