l  his  official  and  private  statements  about  the  successes  of  the
expedition.  In the radio shack  we  tape-recorded for posterity that gloomy
exchange of questions and answers  from Copenhagen. We cut out all the noise
and laughter and remarks and left only the backbone of queries and replies.
     "Perhaps  the  Commander  will  first  start   out  with   an  official
statement."
     "It  will  be  brief. The expedition was  a  failure. We were unable to
bring  to successful completion  a single scientific  experiment. I was  not
able to  determine either the physical or chemical nature of the blue light,
nor was I able to find out anything beyond it. I refer to the space enclosed
by the protuberances."
     "Why?"
     "The force field  surrounding  the  region  of the luminescence  proved
impenetrable to our technical facilities."
     "You speak  of  the facilities  available to the expedition, but  is it
impenetrable to all the potentialities of terrestrial science?"
     "I do not know."
     "Reports  have  appeared   in  the  press,   however,   concerning  the
possibility of penetrating it."
     "What exactly do you mean?"
     "The 'violet spot'."
     "We saw several such 'spots'.  It's true that they are not protected by
a field of force."
     "Did you try to enter them?"
     "Yes,  we did. And  we couldn't  do  it. In the  first case, a directed
shock wave, in the second an ultra-high-speed water jet."
     "What were the results?"
     "No results at all."
     "How did one of the members of the expedition perish?"
     "That was  a  simple  case of negligence.  We  took  into  account  the
possibility of a reflected wave and warned Hanter. Unfortunately, he did not
take advantage of available covering."
     "We have heard that the pilot of the expedition was  able to get inside
the cupola. Is that true?"
     "Yes, it is."
     "Why does he refuse to speak? Open up the secret."
     "There is no secret.  It is simply that I have  not allowed any release
of  information  concerning  our  work."  "We  don't understand why.  Please
explain."
     "Until the expedition is  dismissed, I alone am responsible for all the
information."
     "Who,  besides Martin, was  able to get beyond the limits  of the  blue
light."
     "Two Russians, the cameraman and the meteorologist."
     "How did they do it?"
     "By parachute."
     "How did they get back."
     "The same way."
     "Parachutes are  for jumping  downwards,  not upwards.  Did they use  a
helicopter?"
     "No, they did not make use  of the helicopter.  The force field stopped
them, ejected them and landed them."
     "What did they see?"
     "Ask them  when the  expedition has been dismissed.  I am sure that all
that they saw was a hypnotic mirage."
     "For what purpose?"
     "To embarrass and  frighten mankind. To instil the idea  of the immense
capacity  of  their  technology  and science.  To  a certain  extent,  I was
convinced  by  Zernov's  speech  at   the  Paris  Congress.   All  of  their
superhypnosis is a  manner of contact, but the contact  of future colonizers
with future slaves."
     "Were the pilot and parachutists also embarrassed and frightened?"
     "I'm not so sure. Those boys are tough."
     "Do they concur in your opinion?"
     "I have not insisted that they do."
     "We've heard that  the pilot  saw New York  and the Russians saw Paris.
Some say that that is a true model, like Sand City."
     "You've already heard my opinion.  What is  more, the area  of the blue
light is, after all, not large enough to build two cities like  New York and
Paris in it."
     ZERNOV COMMENTS: "The Admiral has misrepresented the facts somewhat. It
is not a question of construction, but of reproduction of visual images that
the cosmic men were able to record. It's  like a montage photograph. Certain
things  are selected, reviewed  and fitted together. It was simply  that our
boys and Martin had the  luck  to get into  the laboratory  through the back
door, so to speak."
     That's the way we passed the time on the way to Umanak. It was the most
remarkable road in the world. We haven't got the machines that could produce
such a smooth  surface. Still, the tractor  vehicle came to halt because one
of  the treads needed  fixing and the engine  began  to act up. Vano did not
explain why. He only said:
     "That's what I told you, we'll  have some real trouble." An hour later,
after our partner Sno-Cat and its caravan of sleighs had long since vanished
in the distance, we were still  under repair. Incidentally, no one  paid any
attention to Vano and there were no complaints. I was the only one who paced
about,  lost  in  thought  and getting  into everyone's way.  Irene was busy
concocting an article for the "Soviet  Woman" magazine. Tolya was engaged in
drawing fanciful  charts of air currents caused by  the warm-up; Zernov was,
as he put it, getting together material for a scientific paper,  perhaps for
a new dissertation.
     "A second doctoral dissertation?" I asked in surprise. "What for?"
     "No, it's not for a PhD, a candidate's dissertation."
     I  was positive he was joking, but he looked  at me with pity:  a  good
mentor always pities his weak-minded pupils.
     "My  science,"  he  explained  patiently,  "has  been rejected  by  the
present, and it'll be  too long  to wait for the future.  I won't live  that
long."
     I still didn't understand.
     "Why?"  In  a  couple  of winters there'll  be ice  again in  the Polar
regions."
     "The process of ice formation," he interrupted me, "is a familiar thing
to  every school child. What  I am  interested  in is  the thousand-year-old
continental ice. You say it'll get cold again and there'll be ice. Of course
there will. During  the past half a million years there  were at least three
ice invasions, the last one about twenty thousand years ago. Do  you  expect
me to wait for the next  one? And even if I could, where would it come from?
There is  no more hope from the deviation of the earth's axis. No, old  boy,
there are no two ways about it, I'll have to change my speciality."
     "To what?"
     He laughed.
     "It won't be far away  from the 'horsemen'.  You may say that  there is
more  that's  hypothetical  than  experimental. Well,  there  is. But as the
cybernetics  people say,  it is possible  to find an almost optimal solution
for nearly all problems."  He  was becoming bored, even the best of teachers
give up  after too much questioning. "You ought to get out there and do some
photographing, your profession is still in demand."
     I picked up  my camera  but couldn't find anything to  shoot except the
last ice on the earth.  Vano was welding the broken  tread. A sheaf of while
sparks was  flying  out  of  his  work.  I  looked around  and  suddenly saw
something big, a bright red chunk like an elephant standing at a distance of
about a kilometre in the middle of the perfect leeway. It had beautiful fur,
whatever it was. Maybe the reddish light in the distance further illuminated
by the sun hanging just over the horizon, produced that colour. On the other
hand, it might  simply be a very large bright-red deer. I screwed up courage
and went up to Vano. "Listen, be a nice guy, take a look down the road."
     He looked.
     "What am I supposed to look at, that rusty rock?"
     "It's not rusty, it's red." "All the rocks round here are red." "Why is
it in the  middle of  the road?" "It's not in the middle,  it's on the side.
When they  cut the ice,  they left the rock  there." "When  we came here  it
wasn't there." Vano took another and more attentive look. "Maybe it  wasn't.
When we get this thing going we'll see."
     From a distance the  stone appeared to  be stationary,  but  the more I
looked at it, the  more it looked like a real stone and not a beast. Even at
school I had  learned that there were no  large animals  in Greenland. Deer?
But what would a dear find to eat on  glacial ice,  particularly when it was
half cut away?
     Vano went back to his welding and  paid no more attention  either to me
or the rock.  I decided to get closer.  I had  a hunch, I  can't say exactly
what kind, but something  told me to go and find out, that it would  well be
worth it. And so I went.  At first the stone, or the lurking beast, did  not
bring  forth any associations.  But  I  tried hard  to recall something.  It
happens occasionally, you  try to  recall something very  familiar, but  all
efforts are in vain. I kept  on walking toward it and peering  at it. Will I
recognize  or  recall something? And finally when the red beast  grew big in
front of me and had ceased to be a stone, I realized that it was not a beast
at all. Then I recognized it.
     In front of me,  across the  leeway,  stood our  famous  old  Antarctic
"Kharkovchanka" tractor, all  purple. The most  amazing and even frightening
thing about it all was the fact that it was precisely  our machine, the  one
with the  bent-in front windshield and a fresh tracked snow-catcher. It  was
our old "Kharkovchanka" vehicle, all right. The  one we went out to seek the
rose clouds in, the one that plunged into a crevice and
     later doubled before my eyes.
     I  was really afraid for the first time. Was this a hypno-trick or that
accursed reality?  Cautiously,  apprehensively, I  went around the  machine:
everything had been reproduced with ultimate exactitude. The metal was metal
to the touch, the cracks in the Plexiglas were real and fresh, and the inner
insulating padding on the door stuck out just a bit down below: the door was
not  closed.  Was  this  another  trap, was  I  again  in  the  role  of  an
experimental guinea pig? What was going to happen?  Of course,  I  could run
back and that would most likely have been the wisest and safest thing to do.
But curiosity overcame my fright. I wanted to open that door myself and feel
the handle, press and hear the  familiar clanking of metal and enter. I even
began to guess what  I  would see  inside. My fur jacket on a  hanger,  skis
clamped in place and a  wet floor, because the boys had tracked in snow. The
half-open inner  door  would, as usual,  creak, and  the  cold  air from the
platform would rush into the cabin with a swish.
     That's exactly what happened,  repeating  what  I had recalled a moment
before. It was even funny how  the details were repeated-the sewn  sleeve of
the jacket, the patched up rug with traces of snow that had  not yet melted,
even scratches on  the floor  caused by sleigh  runners: sleighs were hauled
into  the  cabin and then out the top hatch, because all that happened after
the machine took its downward plunge. I saw the tracks when going out, and I
saw  my double a second time in the entrance way. Now I was seeing it for  a
third time.  The door  to  the cabin  creaked,  and once  again I  hesitated
whether to enter  or  not, my knees were knocking,  my mouth was dry  and my
fingers were cold.
     "Come on, come on," I heard a voice from behind the  door,  "this isn't
the dentist, there's not going to be any drilling."
     An awfully  familiar voice, so familiar that  it was impossible not  to
recognize it. It was my own voice.
     I  pushed the door and  entered the cabin where Tolya always worked and
where I regained consciousness  on the floor after the accident that time on
the Antarctic plateau.  At  the table  was  my  double, all smiles.  He  was
positively merry, something  that I  was definitely not.  If I had  given it
some thought and had been more observant, I would straightway have said that
this was another person, not the  one I found that  time unconscious  in the
cabin  of a tractor that had been duplicated by beings from space. This  was
my modern model that had probably been replicated during the short minutes I
dropped by  parachute into the  blue  cupola through the violet  (or was  it
crimson)  gaseous  trap-door.  The  overalls  I had  on  at  the  time  were
carelessly thrown on the couch. That was what I noticed a bit later, after I
had overcome my fright and amazement. At first I  simply thought  this was a
repetition- for  what purpose I  couldn't make out-of the performance in the
Antarctic.
     "Have a seat, buddy," he said pointing to a vacant place opposite him.
     I  sat down. For a moment it seemed to me a mirror in front of me,  and
behind the mirror my counterpart of the fairy world, my Anti-I. "What has he
come to life again for," I thought. "And with the 'Kharkovchanka' vehicle as
well?"
     "Where do you expect me to live?" he said. "There's ice all  around and
nobody has yet given me a flat with central heating."
     I was no longer afraid, but I was mad as hell.
     "What's the  idea  of living at all?" I said. "What storehouse did they
keep you in before resurrection?"
     He gave a cunning smile,  just  like I do when I'm sure of  my physical
and intellectual superiority.
     "Resurrect whom? A frightened  little fool that almost goes  out of his
mind when he comes across his copy?"
     "So he was afraid, after all," I replied with irony.
     "I was a replication of you. 'Was' is  what I want to stress. Now I am,
I exist, get it?" "No, I don't."
     "At that time I did not know how you lived all these  months,  what you
ate, what you read, what illnesses you had and what you thought about. Now I
know. And even more than that." "More than what?"
     "I know more  and I know it  better.  You  know only yourself, and even
that  rather poorly. I know both myself and you too. I  am a perfected model
of you, more refined  than your  movie camera  compared  with the  camera of
Lumier."
     He put a  hand on the table. I  touched it to find out whether he was a
person or not.
     "Convinced? Only more cleverly constructed." I still had one trump card
in reserve. I was now going to play it.
     "Huh, some superman!" I said deprecatingly. "You were devised during my
parachute jump. You know everything that happened to  me prior to that time.
But what about afterwards?"
     "And afterwards too. I  know everything. If you like, I can repeat your
conversation  with Thompson after landing. Also about the jigsaw  puzzle, or
the talk with Zernov about  ice and  profession. Perhaps with Vano about the
red stone?" he guffawed.
     I was silent racking my brains for some kind of reply.
     "You won't find anything," he said.
     "What's that, you reading my thoughts?"
     "Precisely. In  the Antarctic we could only guess about the thoughts of
one another, or to put it more exactly, about plans. Remember how you wanted
to  kill  me?  But now I know everything  you  are thinking about. My neuron
antennas  are  simply  more sensitive  than yours. That is  how I know  what
happened  to  you after you landed.  Remember that  I  am  you  plus  a  few
corrections to nature. Something in the way of supplementary elements."
     I did not experience either fright or wonderment-only the excitement of
a losing player. But I still had one more trump, that is, I hoped I had it.
     "Still and all, I am the real one, and you are the artificial  one. I'm
a human being and you're a robot. I live, while you will be disassembled."
     He replied without any braggadocio, as if he  knew something that I did
not.
     "Whether they do or they don't is yet to be seen," he added with my own
mocking intonation. "It  is still quite debatable about  which one  of us is
real and which is artificial. Let's ask our friends, okay? I bet I win."
     "It's a bet," I said, "but what are the conditions?"
     "If I lose, I'll tell  you something of interest. To you  alone. Nobody
present. If you lose, I'll give you the story of Irene."
     "Where?" I asked.
     "Here if you like. In my headquarters on this sinful earth."
     I did not answer.
     "Afraid?"
     "I simply recalled Martin's car that vanished in Sand City, remember?"
     "But Martin himself did not vanish."
     "You are a more refined model than his counterparts," I replied.
     He squinted his left eye the way I do and snickered.
     "All right," he said, "let's see how events develop."




        Chapter XXXI. SUPERMEMORY OR SUBKNOWLEDGE



     Leaving  our  jackets  on  the  hanger,  we  entered the  cabin of  our
Greenland tracked vehicle, just as alike as the twins in the "Iron Mask". It
was just dinner time when Irene, all in white, was dishing out soup.
     "Where did you vanish  to?" she asked without looking, then  she raised
her head-and dropped everything.
     There was a long silence with a  streak of ominous austerity. My Anti-I
was not in the least disturbed however.
     "That was  not a stone at  all, Vano, you know what it was?" he said in
my own voice-so much  my own that I shuddered as if hearing it for the first
time. "Our 'Kharkovchanka' from Mirny. The very same replicated machine that
you saw and I photoed. Take a good look, it's out there right now. And  this
claimant-he pointed to me- was sitting there calm as can be waiting for us."
     I  was  numb from  such  insolence. The  scene was  Dostoyevskian.  Mr.
Golyadkin and  his  nimble double. I  didn't even have time to  object while
four  pairs of friendly eyes  peered at me  hostilely.  They were  not  even
surprised. That is the way one looks at a robber not at a ghost.
     The first one to come to was Zernov.
     "Since you've come to dinner,  be our  guest," he said looking me over.
"The situation is not new but rather interesting."
     "Boris  Arkadievich," I  implored, "why  the official  tone?  He's  the
double,  not me. We  simply bet to find  out whether  you would  be able  to
distinguish us or not."
     Zernov went over us both again, somewhat longer this time, and he said:
     "A real puzzle,  they're  as like  as  two  matchsticks. Come on, admit
which is the real one?"
     "What a pity," I said.
     "Don't get excited," said my reflection, "we're both real."
     It seemed to me that a  spark of understanding flashed in Zernov's eyes
when he turned to the speaker and then again to me.
     "Let's  begin, comrades,"  he invited  everyone  to the table and  said
softly to Irene, "add another place, please."
     "I've even lost my appetite," I said. "Again codfish?"
     That was the wrong thing to say. The Anti-I attacked immediately.
     "There  you are, Irene, now  which one of us is Yuri Anokhin? Which one
of us ordered pea salad this morning?"
     I  had actually spoken to her about it, and had forgotten.  Skipped  my
memory  completely.  I  only  noticed  how  gratefully  Irene looked  at  my
counterpart. The game was going in his favour.
     "We'll make a check on this through the use of a familiar method," said
Zernov, looking again and again from one of us to the other.
     "It won't work," I said  exasperated,  "he  knows everything I did  and
thought during that  accursed interval between  creation  and appearance. He
himself said that his neuron antennas are far more sensitive than mine."
     "That's what you said," my Anti-I put in.
     I felt like throwing into his face the  cold soup that I didn't want to
eat anyway. Too bad I didn't because he added like a pistol-shot:
     "Incidentally, doubles do not eat, because they do not have a digestive
tract."
     "You're lying, Anokhin," said Zernov. He was now on an official footing
with both of us.
     "But we haven't  verified  it, Boris Arkadievich,''  my Anti-I  put  in
without  losing  any  time,  "there  are a lot  of things  we have  not  yet
verified.  For example, the  memory.  So  you say  your  antennas  are  more
sensitive,"  my tormenter said turning round to  me. "Let's  check and  see.
Remember the contest in Russian literature in the ninth grade?"
     "In the days of the Tsar Kosar?" I wisecracked.
     "That's  where  I failed,  on  that Tsar.  Remember on what? The  third
quote."
     I did not remember  either the first  or the second or the third.  What
Tsar? Peter? From the "Copper Horseman"?
     "Your antennas are malfunctioning. Its from 'Poltava', Mr. Golyadkin."
     The bastard was reading my thoughts, and I was losing. Could it be that
I had forgotten so much?
     "I  don't  know  whether you've forgotten everything-  or not,  but you
certainly don't remember the epigraph to 'Fiesta', right?"
     I didn't remember it.
     "I insisted that that was your favourite book.
     "From Gertrude Stein," I recalled.
     "And the text?"
     I was silent.
     "So  you're  going  to  wait  until  I  mentally  repeat it?  You don't
recollect anything, you  simply remove my own  recollections from my  memory
cells." Anti-I turned to Tolya and said, "Ask him,  Tolya, ask him something
easier. Let him try
     to work his memory." Tolya thought a moment and then asked:
     "Remember our talk about the monsoons?"
     "Where?"
     "In Umanak."
     "Did we talk about monsoons? I haven t the  slightest  idea about them.
Some kind of winds is all I know."
     "What did you say at that time?
     What  did  I  say?  Christ, I  couldn't remember  a  thing, even  under
torture.
     "You ask me," said the other Mr.  Golyadkin triumphantly, "I  said that
since childhood I have confused monsoons with trade winds."
     I  recalled the  way  Agatha Christie finishes her novels, when Hercule
Poirot  unmasks the criminal, who sits crumpled  up under the cross fire  of
interrogation. That was the way I felt at this damned dinner.
     And then  suddenly  at the  height of triumph  of  my  tormenter, Irene
looked  at  me thoughtfully and  said: "You know, Yura, you're terribly like
him. So much so that it's awful."
     That's  the  way  things  go.  There  are   football  games  when  some
insignificant little player that nobody ever  pays any attention to all of a
sudden shoots in  a terrific goal that wins the game,  and there isn't  even
any yelling in the stands. They only look in amazement at the "wonder". That
was exactly the way four pairs of eyes, again friendly, turned on me.
     This time Anti-I did not parry the blow, he waited. Very calmly, and it
seemed  to me  even indifferently to what  was going to  follow. Could it be
that I too had such cold and empty eyes?
     "Personally,  I guessed  these  two  apart quite some  time ago,  and I
figured out which  was Yura," said Zernov turning to  Irene. "But what is it
that convinced you?"
     "Memory,"  exclaimed  Irene.  "It's  the  memory,"  she  repeated  with
conviction. "A human person  cannot remember everything. Inessential  things
are  nearly always forgotten, blurred  in one's memory, all the more so that
Yura is  on the absent-minded side. But this one remembers everything: crazy
contests, conversations, quotations. An inhuman memory."
     Anti-I remained silent. He looked at Zernov as if he knew that that one
would deal him the last irresistible blow.
     And Boris Arkadievich did.
     "I was convinced  by one sentence."  He motioned  with his  elbow to my
counterpart.  " 'We  are both real.' Remember? Our Yuri  and in fact  anyone
else would  never  have  said a thing like that. Each of us  would have been
confident  that  he  was  the real  one, and the duplication, the  model-the
synthetic entity.  Our  Antarctic  doubles  that  were modelled  with  great
exactitude would have reasoned  in the very same way, for  they did not know
that they were simply copies  of  human beings. But  one of these  two  knew
that.  Both that he  was the duplicate and that  the model was  in actuality
indistinguishable from a human. He alone could have said 'We are both real'.
He alone." Applause broke out and Anti-I applauded as well.
     "Bravo, Boris Arkadievich! That was an analysis worthy of a  scientist.
There is nothing to  counter it. I  am indeed the model, but  a more refined
entity than you, who are nature-made. I have already mentioned that to Yuri.
I freely perceive the impulses of his brain cells. To put it more  simply, I
know all  of his thoughts and in the same fashion I  can transmit to him  my
own  thoughts.  Likewise,  my memory is  not human, not yours. Irene grasped
that at once. That was my next  mistake,  I could not keep it a secret. True
enough, I  remember perfectly what Anokhin has done, said and thought during
all the years of his life, in early childhood, yesterday  and today. That is
not all.  I remember everything  that he has read and  heard  in  the recent
past-in other words I remember the  entire body  of  information that he has
received  and  processed concerning  the  rose  clouds  and the  attitude of
humanity towards  their appearance and  conduct.  I know  by  heart all  the
newspaper  clippings  that  Anokhin  has  read  and studied about the  Paris
Congress.  I can recite word  for word  any  speech,  remark or conversation
behind the scenes that has  in some  way reached Anokhin. I remember  all of
his conversations with you, Boris Arkadievich, both in actuality and  in the
synthesized  world.  And what  is  most  important,  I  know  why  all  this
supermemory of  mine was needed  and  why it  is associated with the  second
synthesization of Anokhin."
     Now  I looked  upon him with gratitude.  My tormenter  had vanished and
this was friend and companion on the way into the unknown.
     "So  you knew  from  the very start that you  were synthesized?" Zernov
asked.
     "Of course."
     "And you knew when and how?"
     "Not exactly. The very first instant that I came to in the cabin of the
'Kharkovchanka' vehicle  I was  already Anokhin, but I  also knew that there
exists  another  one  besides me  and  I  also knew that the difference  was
between  us.  I  was  programmed  in  a  different  manner  and  with  other
functions."
     "What kind?"
     "First of all, to make my appearance and tell you."
     "About what?"
     "That the  second  synthesization  of  Anokhin  is  connected with  the
information that  he  obtained  and  processed  concerning the  attitude  of
humanity towards the phenomenon of the rose clouds."
     "Why was Anokhin chosen for this purpose?"
     "It may be because he was  the first one to undergo  a psychic study by
the cosmic beings."
     "You say 'may be'. Is that your conjecture?"
     "No, a slip of the tongue. I know it."
     "From whom?"
     "From no one. I simply know it."
     "What does 'simply' mean? From what sources?"
     "They are within me myself. Like  hereditary  memory. There is  a great
deal  that I know, simply know  from nowhere at  all. The fact  that I  am a
model, about my supermemory, about two Anokhins. And  about  the fact that I
must retain and convey all the information that he has accumulated."
     "In order to transmit it to whom?"
     "I do not know."
     "To the space beings?"
     "I do not know."
     "I can't figure  out your  'know' and 'do not know'." Zernov was  quite
obviously irritated, which  was  not typical of  him. "How about  the  facts
without the mystic background?"
     "Nothing mystic here," sneered my Anti-I condescendingly. "Knowledge is
the quality and quantity of information obtained and processed. My knowledge
has been programmed, that is all. I would call it subknowledge."
     "Perhaps also subconsciousness as well?" added Zernov.
     But the double declined the correction.
     "Who knows about the processes that occur in  the subconscious? Nobody.
My knowledge is incomplete for the reason that  is excludes the source,  but
it is knowledge nevertheless.  What is suboptical speed? Nearly that of  the
speed of  light. So  also  my  subknowledge,  it  is  something contrary  to
supermemory."
     "What  do  you know besides  the fact  that  you  are a  model?"  Irene
suddenly asked.
     It was as if I had looked into  a mirror at my own impertinent mug. But
it was he, of course. And his reply was in the same manner.
     "For example that I am in love with you no less than Yuri Anokhin."
     Everyone laughed except me.  I  got red in the face.  For some reason I
was the one, not Irene.
     She continued:
     "Suppose Yuri is in love.  Suppose he  is even thinking of  marrying me
and taking me away. How about you?"
     "Me too, of course."
     I couldn't have said it with more alacrity.
     "And where to?"
     Silence.
     "What are  you worth when matched with Yuri," she said with a good deal
of pity in her voice. "You are empty. They need only puff and you vanish."
     "Yet I have a hunch ... I fell I know something more."
     "About what?"
     "About my life beyond the psychic state of Yuri Anokhin."
     "Is there such a thing, such a life."
     For the first time my double mused and sadly gave thought to something.
     "There are times when I think that there is. Or, of a sudden, something
or someone within me says that there will be."
     "What does 'something' or 'someone' mean?" asked Zernov.
     "That which has 'been programmed. For example,  the confidence that the
person closest to the truth was not a scientist but a science-fiction writer
who spoke  at  the  Paris Congress.  Or, for  instance, the conviction  that
Zernov's conjecture about contacts is true. And the  feeling that we are not
quite understood-I say 'we' as  a human being, do  not be offended, for I am
no rose cloud-the feeling  that much  in our life and in our psychic make-up
is still obscure and demands study and that investigations will continue. Do
not ask me where and how for I do not know. Do not ask me what goes on under
the cupola for I  have not seen. To put it  more precisely, I have only seen
with the eyes of Anokhin.
     1 know  one thing for  certain: as soon as I have told  you everything,
the  programmed functions will be switched off. Excuse my  terminology, I am
not a cybernetics specialist. And then I will be recalled." He smiled. "They
are calling already. Farewell."
     "I'll see you off," I said.
     "Me too," Vano put in, "I'd like a glimpse of the 'Kharkovchanka'."
     "It isn't there any longer," Yuri Anokhin No.2 opened the door into the
hallway.  "Do not accompany me. You know  what  will happen  to me: Yuri has
shot that scene  already." He smiled sadly. "I am still a human being, and I
probably wouldn't like such curiosity."
     He stepped out and from beyond the doorway waved to me.
     "Don't  be angry at  the mystification,  Yuri. Or at the  way  I played
things.  As for  the  bet  we made, I  will keep  it  and  carry out  what I
promised. To-you alone, as we agreed."




        Chapter XXXII. FOR ALL TIME!



     After his departure, no one  could screw up  the courage  to speak. The
breath  of death somewhere out there on the icy road had somehow  penetrated
to us. No matter what you say about model-building and  synthesis, he  was a
human being after all!
     "What a pity," Tolya sighed, finally. "They must be flying already...."
     "Cut it out," Irene put in, "stop it."
     But I wanted to talk.
     "If  it  starts up again, you'll  go queasy  as before,"  sneered Vano,
probably recalling his antics in the Antarctic and added with embarrassment:
"You know, Yuri, I didn't recognize you at first. The other one seemed to be
smarter."
     "That's what  everybody thought," said Dyachuk  with a mix of irony and
admiration.  "With  a  memory  like a  library! That's  a memory I'd like to
have."
     "He probably wanted to live so much."
     * * *


     I thought, and he replied:
     "What do  you think I am, a log? Of course I wanted to, and right now I
want to live."
     Everything occurred in my consciousness. I did not concoct, contrive or
imagine, I heard.
     "Where are you now?" I asked him in thought.
     "Out on the ice highway. It's white all about me. But there is no snow.
But what difference does that make? No difference at all, right?"
     "'That's terrible, isn't it?"
     "Yes, a little. After all  I am  not plastic. But don't pity me, do not
think in high-flown terms  about 'the icy breath of death!' Firstly, because
that is a hackneyed phrase, secondly, it is not the truth."
     "But you are going to vanish."
     "That is not death but only a transition to another state."
     "A state in which you are no longer."
     "Why? You simply do  not  have  any sensations of  yourself, like  in a
dream."
     "A dream passes. But in your case?"
     "In mine too."
     "You think you'll return?"
     "Yes, sometime."
     "And if you do not leave?"
     "1 can't but leave."
     "Go on strike."
     "They're stronger than I am, old man."
     "What kind of a man are you then? No freedom of the will, no?"
     "Not yet."
     "Not yet? What does the 'yet' mean?"

        x x x


     "What are you whispering, Yuri, poetry?"
     I must have been moving my lips. That's why Irene asked.
     "He's  praying,"  said  Tolya.  "He's praying to  God  to wipe out  his
duplicate. We had a cleric in our dormitory once, he was like that. He'd get
drunk and whisper just like that."
     "Praying,  my  eye," Irene  said. "Let  the Admiral pray, Yuri  can get
along with it, he's a poet. Your verses, right?"
     I had to lie.
     "Blok's. 'I know you,  life, and  I accept  you and salute you with the
clash of shields...
     "Whose life?"
     "What difference does it make? Even if it is synthetic life."

        x x x


     "That's incorrect wording," he  interrupted. Orthodox thinkers can make
an issue of it. Say, a live dog is better than a dead lion. That's the motto
of  collaborationism.  You would be  calling for  cooperation with a hostile
civilization."
     "Thompson again. I'm fed up."
     "They are too. They've figured it out."
     "Are you conjecturing?"
     "I know."
     "What did you want to tell me?"
     ''That we'll meet again."
     "Why do you say so to me alone?"
     "Because that is  the way  the programme works. Think it over. There is
no need yet to spell out all the details."
     "You want to do it honestly?"
     "What?"
     "I don't admire it that way. Not in the least, I don't."
     "Let me tell you that you're not being polite, old man."
     "Listen, I'm fed up with all these miracles and tricks, right up to the
ears, get me?"


        x x x


     "What are you whispering about?" again Irene.
     "A bit off the  rocker. I'd be raving if I were in his boots." That was
Tolya.  Zernov was silent for some reason. And nobody had  noticed. No, they
had.
     "Why are you so quite, Boris Arkadievich? Tired of our talk?"
     "No,  just thinking." Zernov is always very tactful.  "Real interesting
experiment!  Amazingly   conceived:  just  imagine  reaching  for   all  the
information they  need via the person of  Anokhin. Create  a duplication  of
memory. Apparently, they are not  yet capable of  responding  to  linguistic
(semantic) information directly, either acoustically, or optically. Words do
not reach them, either when pronounced or written. The only information they
can  extract is  in the form  that is  processed by a  human brain-thoughts,
mental images."
     "But  why Anokhin? They could take any scientist."  That  was Tolya  of
course.
     "Is  it   really  simply  because  he   was   synthesized  first?  What
significance can there be in being first?"
     "The number  one is of course meaningless.  The importance  lies in the
first experiment. Yes, that's it.  Too, it might  be  because Anokhin  has a
highly developed  image  perception.  Every  person  has it but with varying
degrees  of expressive-ness.  The  mathematician sees the world  differently
from the painter  or the musician, and naturally, the poet has his own image
of things. Say, when I mention the  word 'pole', different people conjure up
widely  disparate   images,  consciously   or   subconsciously,  with  their
connotations. One thinks  of  the  North Pole,  another recalls hoisting the
flag, a  third pictures telephone poles and  erection crews.  What  comes to
your mind, Anokhin?"
     "Pole vaulting at college."
     Everyone laughed.

        x x x

     And he laughed as well, I heard it. Not  the acoustic part of laughter,
but the state of the nerve cells of the brain that generates laughter.
     "You laughing?" I asked.
     "Certainly. Pole vaulting?" He  laughed again. "The  trouble I had with
that pole!"
     "Why you?"
     "Don't  ask  silly   questions.  Incidentally,  Zernov  very  correctly
perceived the necessity of imagery in receiving information."
     "Did you listen into our conversation?"
     "Through you I did. I respond to all the information  that you process.
Invisibly I am present at all your conversations."
     "Actually, I myself am not listening to everything."
     "You're not  listening,  but you  hear.  And I store all that up in  my
memory. By the  way, listen  to what's  going on. Our Boris  Arkadievich  is
talking about that right now."

        x x x


     "... a lot is accumulated in a memory store of such kind. And a trained
memory can extract a great deal at a moment's notice. Generally  speaking, a
'supermemory'  is not a  miracle. Recall Arago, what a phenomenon! And chess
players? Fantastic  professional  memory. If we only  knew  its code and the
mechanism of storing facts. ..."
     "Do you think they know?"
     That was Irene again. Rather unbelieving for some reason, and even with
a touch  of irony. But Zernov did not  notice  the  sarcasm, he was in  dead
earnest.
     "I  am  convinced.  It  may  be  that Anokhin  is simply  a  successful
experiment. But they'll find out for sure. Somewhere among themselves."
     "You believe that hypothesis too?"
     "Why not?  Is it worse than any of the others? Just as  many points for
it as  against it.  What is more, it does  not degrade human  beings, rather
elevates them.  The  final  link  of  contact  and mutual  study and,  as  a
consequence,   of   an   exchange   of   information  between   two   cosmic
civilizations."

        x x x

     "Did you hear that? Our Boris Arkadievich is real smart. The last link.
True enough. The lacking link."
     "You believe that hypothesis too?"
     "I'm not saying yes or no."
     "Why?"
     "It's  too early.  I  do  not yet have  a free will. But  the time will
come...."
     I found that amusing.
     "Mysticism again. I'm  beginning to have  doubts about your other-world
existence."
     "Well, do you believe in saltations from the kingdom of  necessity into
the kingdom of freedom^ We could formulate it that way, if you like. Freedom
of one's  will. Freedom  of thought.  Freedom  of  creativity. Is there  any
reason why we should not repeat the path you have traversed?"
     "Then maybe the dreamer is right after all. A planet, some Earth Number
Two, will appear somewhere with our water, with our air and our cities?"
     "You can joke through  anything.  Nobody  knows what  will  appear  and
where.  Investigation  does  not  always  mean  repetition,  more  often  it
represents a search."
     "For what? Synthesized dreams? A super-memory?"
     "These  are all trials, my friend. Only trials.  We live in a world  of
constants. Nature  has long since  created optimal dimensions and forms  for
terrestrial conditions and protein life. So why change the constants?"

        x x x


     I must have said that aloud because Zernov smiled and replied:
     "Naturally, why should it?"
     I flushed.  How would I account for my "thinking aloud" and about what?
Vano saved me.
     "Perhaps  we ought to  get a move  on, Boris  Arkadievich, what  do you
think?" he  said. "The  engine's working and the road's smooth, a  racetrack
you might say."
     Zernov looked at me sharply:
     "What do you think, is it time to leave?"
     "What did he mean by 'time'? I wonder whether  he  understood  what was
going on."

        x x x


     "He's known for quite some time. And you know that he knows. Don't make
believe.  You  can tell them: It  is time'. Anokhin the Second  is  ready to
leave."
     "Don't torment me."
     "Well, it is time. I am far away, they are close."

        x x x


     I  suddenly felt  weary,  depressed, my  throat constricted, I found it
hard to  breathe. I  no longer  saw anyone  or  anything, except the distant
traveller in the white field.

        x x x


     "So this is the end."
     "Not the end. Only till our next meeting."
     "But will there be a next meeting?"
     "No doubt about it."
     "There or here?"
     "Don't know, Yuri. What I don't  know, I don't know. 'The point is that
it will be not only  you and me that will meet. We and they. Remember how he
finished  his speech at the  Congress? 'And if they return, they will return
with an understanding of us, they will be enriched  with a comprehension  of
what  to expect from us and with a knowledge of what to  proffer us  on this
mutual advance towards perfection.' That was well put, my friend!"
     Suddenly, there was a break. I perceived a freedom of thought in no way
hampered, total.
     "We can go,"  I said to Zernov, and I felt my  voice shake.  I hoped he
didn't notice.
     "How come Anokhin's giving orders now?" asked Dyachuk.
     Zernov answered, for I was helplessly weak.
     "Out of the  three thousand  million human beings  on the  Earth,  only
Anokhin   is   now   linked   with   this  extraterrestrial,  perhaps   even
extragalactic, civilization. So what will we say to humanity at large, Yuri?
Is there contact, and for how long?"
     "For all time," I replied.

     ___________________________