When he and I walk around Academic Town or along the institute grounds, girls who never nodded to me before greet me loudly and joyously: “Hello, Valentin Vasilyevich!” — with an eye on the handsome stranger next to me.

And he's so good on skis! The three of us went out of town yesterday, and he and Lena left me far behind.

And how he danced at the New Year's ball!

Even Ninochka, the secretary, who didn't know the way to the lodge before, always seems to be dropping by with a paper from the office for me.

“Hello, Valentin Vasilyevich! Hello, Vitya… oh, it's so interesting here, all these tubes!”

In a word, I now can observe myself every day the way I am and myself the way I would be if only… if only what? If only it weren't for the hunger during and after the war, the strong resemblance to my father who — alas! — was not too handsome (“Pudgy — faced, just like his father!” the relatives used to say, cooing over me), the bumps and potholes in the road of life. If only it weren't for my rather unhealthy life — style: the lab, the library, my room, conversations, thinking, the miasmas from the reagents — and no physical recreation. Really, I didn't try to become an ugly, fat, stooped egghead — it just happened.

In principle, I should be proud: I beat Mother Nature! But something gets in the way….

No, there's something damaging about this idea. Let's say we perfect the method of controlled synthesis. And we create marvelous people — strong, beautiful, talented, energetic, knowledgeable — you know, masters of life from advertising posters like “We saved at the bank and bought this refrigerator!” But what about the people that were used as a basis for them — does that mean that they were nothing more than rought drafts sketched by life? Why should they be demeaned? That's a fine reward for their lives: regret for your imperfections, the thought that you will never be perfect because you were made by a regular mama and not a marvelous contraption? It turns out that with our system people will still be pitted against people. And not only against bad ones — against everyone, since we all have some imperfections. Does that mean that good but ordinary people (not artificial) will have to be crowded out of life?

(There! That's just like you, Krivoshein — you're so thick — skinned. Until it affects you personally you don't think about it. “Whup him with a two — by — four,” as your daddy used to say. But all right, I got it now. That's the important thing.)

There's plenty to think about here. I guess all human flaws have a common nature — they're exaggerations. Take a quality that's pleasant to have in people around you: simplicity. We're inculcated with it from childhood. But if nature flubs it, or your upbringing spoils it, or if life goes the wrong way — you end up with sleepy stupidity instead of simplicity. You can also get cowardice instead of reasonable caution, false conceit instead of a necessary confidence, cynicism instead of sober daring, or sneakiness instead of brains.

We use a lot of words to hide our impotence in the face of human imperfections: jokes (“A bear stepped on his ear,” “He was dropped as a baby”), scientific terms (“anemia,” “personality breakdown/ “inferiority complex”), and homilies (“That's not for him,” or “He has a gift for that….”). We used to say “God's gift.” Now in our materialistic age we say “nature's gift,” but basically, it's the same thing: man has no control. Some have it and some don't.

And you can guess why some don't. In primitive societies and later social formations man's perfection was not compulsory. If you knew how to live, work, multiply, and be a little crafty — fine, it was enough! Only now, when we have a constructive idea of communism, and not just a Utopian one, we are developing real demands to be made on man. We are taking man's measure for this marvelous idea — and it's painful to see the things we hadn't noticed before.

January 8. I shared my thoughts with Kravets.

“You want to employ the synthesis method on ordinary people?” double number 3 quickly deduced.

“Yes. But how?” I looked at him hopefully. Maybe he knew?

He understood my look and laughed.

“Don't forget that I'm you. On the level of knowledge, anyway.”

“But maybe you have a better idea of what that liquid is?” I pointed at the tank. “You came out of it after all… like Aphrodite from the sea spray. You know, its composition and so on.”

“In two words?”

“You can use three.”

“All right. That liquid is man. Its composition is the composition of the human body. Besides that, the liquid is a quantal — molecular biochemical computer that can teach itself and has a huge memory, and each molecule of the liquid has some unique bit of information. In other words, do what you will, the liquid of the computer — womb is merely man in a liquid state. You can draw scientific, practical, and organizational conclusions based on that fact.”

I had the feeling that this new problem hadn't captured him the way it had me. I tried to stir up his imagination.

“Vitya, what if this method is really 'it? It's for ordinary people, after all, and not — “

“You go to — (tsk, tsk, and an artificial man at that!). I absolutely refuse to look at our work from the 'it — not it' point of view and in keeping with a vow I never made. Nowadays you should have a much cooler view of vows! (Well, if you call that a cooler view….) You want to use the discovery to transform people?”

“Into angels.” I threw fat on the fire.

“The hell with angels! An informational transformation of homo sapiens — and that's it! You have to look at the problem from the academic point of view!”

It was my first opportunity to see him lose control and turn into… me. No matter how you try to hide it, the Krivoshein personality surfaces. But at least he was churned up. That's the most important thing when you begin a new research project — to get churned up and hate the work.

As a result of a six — hour conversation with a dinner break we made four steps in the realization of the new problem.

Step 1: Artificial and natural people, judging by everything (well, even by the fact that ordinary food wasn't poison for the double) are biologically identical. Therefore, everything that the computer — womb does with the doubles, can in principle (if you forget about the difficulties of technical realization, as they say in articles) be extended to ordinary people.

Step 2: The computer — womb obeys commands on alternations in the tank without any mechanical apparatus or control equipment. Therefore, the liquid in the control circuit is the executive biochemical mechanism; it performs controlled metabolism, as the biologist would say, in the tank —

— “Damn it!” the student muttered and smoked nervously.

— or more accurately, transforms external information into structured encoding in matter: organic molecules, cells, corpuscles, tissue….

Step 3: In principle, how can a person be transformed in the computer — womb? An artificial double is born in it as an extension and development of the machine's circuitry. In the transparent stage he already senses and feels like a person, but cannot function actively (the experience with Adam and Kravets's confirmation). Then the double continues to the nontransparent stage, detaches himself from the liquid circuit of the computer — womb (or it from him), takes control of himself, and climbs out — no, no, this must be academic sounding — and unplugs from the computer. With an ordinary person, apparently, we would have to operate in reverse, that is, plugging the person into the machine first. Technically: immersing the man in the liquid.

Step 4: But can a person be plugged into the computer — womb? After all, what's needed here is no more and no less that — I do know something about neurophysiology; I've read Ashby — total contact of the entire nervous system with the liquid. Our conductor — nerves are isolated from the external environment by skin, tissue, and the skull. In order to get to them the liquid circuit would have to penetrate the person.