We decided that it could penetrate. After all, man is a solution. Not a water solution (otherwise people would dissolve in water); there's not that much free water in a person. It's that damn quantitative analysis that confuses everything, the hypnosis of numbers that comes when you take apart human tissue and get these figures: water 75 percent, protein 20 percent, fat 2 percent, salt 1 percent, and so on. Man is a biological solution, and all his components coexist within him in unity and interrelation. The body contains “liquid liquids”: saliva, urine, blood plasma, lymph, stomach acids — they can be poured into a test tube. Other liquids fill the cell tissues — the muscles, nerves, brain — and here each cell is a test tube itself. Biological liquids even permeate the bones, as if they were sponges. Thus, despite a lack of proper vessels, man has much more reason to consider himself a liquid than, say, does a forty — percent solution of sodium hydrate.

To be even more precise, man is information recorded in a biological solution. Beginning with the moment of conception, transformations take place in this solution; the muscles, intestines, nerves, brain, and skin all form. The same thing — but faster and in a different way — takes place in the liquid of the computer — womb. So, however you look at it, the two liquids are closely related, and their mutual penetration is quite possible.

No matter how much we wanted to check every hypothesis as soon as possible in the computer — womb, we controlled ourselves and spent the whole day on theory. We've played enough with chance. This time we'll plan everything thoroughly.

So, the first thing is to plug in.

February!. Ah, those were good theories that we were tailoring to fit what had already been done! The building block game, the mathematics of “it — not it”… it's nice to look back on how smoothly it all went. Build a theory to help you achieve new results that are much more complex.

For now the theoretical liquid (the liquid circuit) in the tank is behaving like vulgar water. Just thicker.

Do I need to write how the very next day we ran to the lab bright and' early, and in trepidation and anticipation, stuck our fingers into the tank — “plugging in.” And nothing. The liquid wasn't warm or cool. We stood around like that for an hour: no sensation, no changes.

Do I need to describe how we bathed the last two rabbits in the liquid trying to plug them into the computer? The computer — womb didn't obey the order “No!” and didn't dissolve them. It ended with the rabbits drowning, and we couldn't save them by pumping them out.

Do I need to mention that we lowered conductors into the liquid and watched the movements of floating potentials on the oscillograph? The potentials vacillated and the plotted curve looked like a jagged electroencephalogram. And so what?

That's the way it always is. If I were a novice, I'd quit.

February 6. An experiment: I lowered my finger into the liquid, Kravets put on Monomakh's Crown and began touching various objects with his finger. J could feel what surfaces he was touching! There was something warm (the radiator), something cold and wet (he stuck his finger under the tap).

That meant my finger was plugged in!? The computer was giving me information about external sensations through my finger. Yes, but they're the wrong ones. I need signals (even in sensations) of the work of the liquid circuit in the tank.

February 10. A small, innocent, trifling result. In scope it's inferior even to making the rabbits. Simply, I cut the fleshy part of my palm today and healed the cut.

“You see,” Kravets said meditatively in the morning, “for the liquid circuit to have the sensation of working, it has to work. And what is it supposed to work on, I ask you? Why should it plug into you, or me, or the rabbits? We're all complete. Everything is in informational balance.”

I don't know if I really figured it out faster than he did (I flatter myself into thinking yes) or whether he just didn't want to hurt himself. But I began the experiment: I destroyed the informational equilibrium in my organism.

The scalpel was sharp and inexperienced. I sliced through my flesh all the way to the bone. Blood drenched my hand. I put my hand in the tank and the liquid turned crimson around it. The pain didn't disappear.

“The crown — put on the crown!” Kravets shouted.

“What crown? What for?” The pain and the sight of blood kept me from thinking straight.

He pushed Monomakh's Crown on my head, clicked the dials — and the pain disappeared instantly; in a few seconds the liquid was clear of blood. My hand was enveloped in a pleasant tingle — and the miracle began: my hand became transparent before my eyes!

First the red plaits of the muscles showed. A minute later they had dissolved, and the white bones of the fingers showed through the red jelly. A violet blood vessel, thickening and thinning, pushed blood near the sinews in my wrist.

I grew scared and I pulled my hand out of the tank. Immediate pain. The hand was whole, but it shone as if it had been oiled; heavy drops dripped off from the tips of my transparent fingers. I tried wriggling my fingers but they wouldn't obey. And then I noticed that my fingers were thickening into droplet — shaped forms. That was terrifying.

“Put it back or you'll lose your hand!” Kravets shouted.

I put it back and concentrated on the cut. There was a delicious ache there. “Yes, computer… that's it. That's it,” I repeated. The tingle weakened and the wrist was losing its transparency. Sighing in relief, I took out my hand: there was no more cut, just a big reddish blue scar. A few transparent drops of ichor oozed in the crack. The scar itched and buzzed unbearably. This probably wasn't the end, then. I put my hand in the liquid again. Again — transparency, tingling. “That's it, computer. That's it.” Finally the tingling stopped and the hand was no longer transparent.

The whole experiment lasted twenty minutes. Now I couldn't show you where I cut myself with the scalpel.

I have to figure this out. The most interesting aspect of this was that I didn't have to give the computer — womb any special information on how to heal a cut — as if I could. Probably my little encouraging that's it's were superfluous. The feeling of pain had given rise to rather eloquent biowaves in my brain as it was.

It looks like the computer — womb plugs into a person with a signal of imbalance in the system. But this signal wouldn't necessarily have to be pain: it could be a willed command to change something in yourself or a dissatisfaction (“not it”). And then it could be controlled with sensation.

A minor, ineffective experiment compared with everything that came before it. After all the cut could have been doused with iodine, bandaged, and it would have healed on its own.

But it's the most important experiment we've done in a year's work! Now our discovery can be used not only to synthesize and perfect artificial doubles but to transform complex informational systems that are contained in a highly complex biological solution, which we simply call man. The transformation of any person!

February 20. Yes, the liquid circuit plugs into a human organism on a willed command, too. Today I removed the hair from my arm up to my elbow this way. I put my hand in the tank, put on the crown. “Not it,” concentrating on the hair. The prickling and itching increased. The skin became transparent. A minute later the hair had dissolved.

Kravets used the method to grow nails on his pinky and index finger that were over an inch long. He dipped both plams into the liquid and changed his usual fingerprint sworls into something resembling the tread on a winter tire. Then he tried to restore the original pattern, but he didn't remember what it looked like.