May 17. But Harry Haritonovich bent the truth when he said he didn't have time to write his dissertation! He lied. Yesterday, it turns out, he had his preliminary defense of his doctoral at a closed session of our scientific council. We do what so many organizations do: before letting one of our people out into the world, we listen to him in our private circle. His official defense will take place in a few days at Lena's construction project bureau.

Oh, Harry isn't lying for nothing! There's something going on.

May 18. Today I knocked at the window next to which a local institute poet, who wished to remain anonymous, had written in pencil:

Be worthy of the first form.

The enemy does not sleep!

Major Pronin.

I was worthy. That's why Joahann Johannovich let me into the closed reading room and gave me a copy of the dissertation of technical sciences candidate H. H. Hilobok to attain the degree of doctor of technical sciences on the top of… well, I can't write about that.

Well, brother…. First of all, the topic deals totally with the development of the blocks of memory that Valery and I had done long ago, and it looks like Hilobok was at least the inventor and director of the project; it doesn't come out and say so, but you can read it between the lines. Secondly, he allowed himself free improvisation in part of the explanation and interpretation of the results, and made major mistakes. Thirdly, he has long — proven facts, determined by foreign systemologists and electronics people, introduced by “It has been determined by experiments that….” How could the scientific council let that get by? It's May, and half the people are on business trips or vacation.

No, he won't get away with this.

May 19. “Do you know math?” Kravets asked when I told him about it and my plans for it.

“Yes, why?”

“Then add it up: two days to prepare for participation in the defense, plus a day for the defense, plus a month of hassles afterward. You're not a baby. You know you won't get by with a joke like this. What's more important: you'll be squandering a month of our work, the results of which will influence the world more than all the technology extant today, or some lousy dissertation, which won't affect anything? One more or less in the world, no difference.”

“Hmm… and now I'll show you a different math. You and I are identical people with identical ability, and in some ways you've surpassed me. But if I were to go over to that Harry Hilobok and, without delving into particulars, tell him that student Kravets is stupid, hasn't the slightest understanding of computers (even is weak in math), breaks equipment, and secretly drinks alcohol, what do you think would happen to Kravets? Kicked out of the institute and out of the dorms. And he's gone. He won't be able to prove anything to anyone, because he's only a student. And that's the comparative power that Hilobok will have over us when he becomes a doctor of sciences. Have I convinced you?”

I convinced him so well that he set off immediately for the library to take notes from open sources.

I have another justification: we have to think not only about our research but also about defending the correct application of our discovery some day. And we don't yet know how to do that. We have to learn.

The hell with careful justification! I mean am I alive in this world or is it only my imagination?

May 22. It all began normally enough. A small but impressive audience gathered in the hall of the construction bureau. Harry Haritonovich put up several sheets of oaktag with graphs and charts on the board, struck a picturesque pose next to them and delivered the usual twenty — minute talk. The audience listened with the usual discomfort. Some had no idea what he was talking about; others understood some of it; and still others understood it all: just what this Hilobok was, and what his dissertation was on, and why he kept it secret. But all those present thought glumly that it was none of their business, and really, that they could not cast the first stone — the usual sleepy thoughts that permit thousands of inept and sneaky louts into science.

Harry finished. The chairman read critical response to the work. The response was good (but who would submit unfavorable ones to his dissertation defense?). The only serious unexpected thing was that Arkady Arkadievich had written a response to the work, too. Then the official opponent took the stage. Everyone knows what an official opponent does: in order to earn his name, he notes several inconsistencies, several incomplete thoughts, and “yet in sum total the work corresponds… the author is deserving of….” Well, I won't lie about this one: the opponent from Moscow was a highly qualified man and he mocked all the propositions of the dissertation and made it clear that he could expose the whole thing, but he did it so carefully and subtly that probably even Harry didn't see it. “Yet in sum total the work deserves….”

And finally: “Who would like to speak?” Usually by this time everyone is disgusted by the proceedings; no one wants anything; the candidate thanks everyone — and it's over.

Laboratory head V. Krivoshein breathed in and out deeply (by then I realized how much trouble this would cause) and raised his hand. Harry Haritonovich was unpleasantly surprised. I spoke twenty minutes, as he had, and in unfolding my point of view I handed the council members journals, magazines, monographs, brochures, and so on that contained the results Hilobok was defending without any mention of him. Then I re — created his circuit for… never mind for what, particularly since its only redeeming feature was its “originality,” and proved that the circuit would not work in the frequencies of the required range. There was a hubbub in the hall.

Then appeared candidate of sciences V. Ivanov, who had specially made the trip from Leningrad (not without a phone call from me). He clarified the borrowed data and took apart the “original” part of the dissertation; Valery's speech was full of erudition and subtle humor. The audience grew noisier — and then it began!

My old friend Zhalbek Balbekovich Pshembakov tried to find out from Harry how was it that in circuit number two… it's not worth writing about either. Hilobok didn't know how it was, but he tried to get away with some bull and babble. Then the other colleagues of the construction bureau entered the fray. The last speaker was the chief engineer, a professor and Nobel Prize winner (I won't mention his name in this context). “I had the feeling from the first that there was something wrong here,” he began.

So the first form didn't help Hilobok; they squashed his dissertation like God can squash a turtle! Harry was a pitiful sight. Everyone was going off to his office and he was taking down his magnificent displays, and the stiff oaktag rolled up and hit him in the mustache. I went over to help.

“No, thank you,” Hilobok muttered. “Are you satisfied? You don't write anything and you don't let anyone else do it, either. It's an easy life. Valentin Vasilyevich, nature has endowed you with certain gifts….”

“Sure, it's easy! My salary is half of yours, and my vacation time, too. And I'm swamped with work and responsibilities.”

“You add to your worries unnecessarily. Why did you have to get involved in this?” Harry, rolling up his displays, gave me a threatening and angry look. “You have to think about the institute, not just about yourself and me. Well, this isn't the place to talk about it.”

So that's the ticket. Well, it doesn't matter. I feel wonderful now. As though I had done something that was infinitely more valuable and meaningful than even our discovery: I squashed a viper. That means it's possible. And not as terrible as I had expected.

Now I'm not so worried about our work's future. Problems like this can be surmounted, too.