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. CHAPTER NINE 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, turni