“But why that kind of punishment — standing on the parapet?”

“The temporary government had introduced it specially for those who were agitating for an end to the imperialist war. 'Oh, so they're your brother workers and brother peasants? Let's see how they'll shoot at you! And you stood there for two hours. And some for four.”

“Clever — you can't say anything about it. (Father, did you know that… I didn't believe you?)”

“I knew, son. It's all right. It was the times. I didn't always believe myself. What are you planning to do?”

“An experiment in controlling information in my own organism. Eventually I should develop a method of analyzing and synthesizing one's own body, soul, and memory. Understand?”

“You always spoke like a book, Val. I don't know all this science stuff. Once I was able to take apart and reassemble a machine gun blindfolded. But this I don't follow… what will it give you?”

“Well, you fought for equality, right? The first stage of this idea is coming true: the inequality between the rich and the poor, between the strong and the weak, is disappearing. Society offers equal opportunity for everyone. But besides the inequality built into society, there is the inequality built into people. A stupid person is no equal to a smart one, an ugly one to a handsome one, a sick or crippled one to a healthy one. But this method will let everyone make himself just the way he wants to be: smart, handsome, young, honest — “

“Young, smart and handsome — that's for sure. Everyone will want that. But as for honest — I don't know. That's harder than anything else, being honest.”

“But if a man definitely knows that this information will make him viler and sneakier and this will make him honest and direct, he wouldn't vacillate over which to pick, would he?”

“What can I say? There are people for whom it is important to appear honest in front of others, but they would steal or do anything else as long as they're not caught. And those would pick cleverness and sneakiness.”

“I know. Don't talk about them now. The experiment is tomorrow, father.”

“And you must go? Watch out for yourself, son.”

“Who else, if not for me? Listen, you could have jumped down from the parapet into the trench?”

“There were two officers guarding me. They would have shot me.”

“Couldn't you have gotten out of it?”

“Sure! I could have told them that I wouldn't agitate any more, that I was leaving the Bolsheviks — and they would have let me go at once.”

“Why didn't you tell them that?”

“I should tell them that? I never even thought about it. I was thinking that if I was killed, it would be the end of fraternization in our unit.”

“Why were you thinking that? You loved people so much, is that it? But you had killed people before — both before and after that.”

“I killed and they tried to kill me — it was the times.”

“Then why?”

“I was proud, I guess that's why. I was very proud in those days. I thought I was fighting the whole war.”

“And father, that's how proud I am now.”

“Of course, if you go on the parapet you have to stand proud. That's true. But don't you equate your work with the parapet, son. I didn't stand the whole two hours. The soldiers' committee raised the battalion; they bumped off the officers, and that was it. Do you have anyone to raise an alarm over you?”

I had no answer for that question — and the imagined conversation ended.

Well, enough of this — bedtime! Cuckoo, cuckoo, how long will I live?

Graduate student Krivoshein went up to the fifth floor and entered the apartment. Victor Kravets and Adam were smoking out on the balcony; when they saw him, they came inside. Krivoshein gave them a glum look.

“Three from one pea pod. And there used to be four….” He looked at the clock. There was still time. He sat down. “Tell me, Victor Kravets, what happened there?”

Kravets lit up another cigarette and began the story in a hollow voice.

The plan of the experiment was for Krivoshein the Original to immerse himself up to the neck in the liquid — control the sensations — put on Monomakh's Crown — control the sensations once more — give the command of dissatisfaction (“Not it!”) — come into mutual contact with the liquid circuit — reach the stage of controllable transparency — fix his broken ribs — use the “impulse of satisfaction” for the command “That's it” — return to nontransparency — break contact with the liquid circuit — and leave the tank.

They had gone over the methodology of the experiment dozens of times by immersing their extremities. The mutual permeation of the liquid and the body could be controlled and regulated easily.

“You see, friends, it turns out that inside our bodies there are always less healthy spots, tiny flaws, well, like your skin, no matter how healthy, always had a pimple or a scratch or chafing or a local irritation. I don't know what kind of inner 'scratches' there are, but after working in the liquid your arm or leg always feels better than it did before. The liquid circuit corrects these minor flaws. And you can recognize these corrections as they are going on: there is a tingling sensation that increases and then decreases. And if after the decrease you give the command 'That's it' the computer breaks contact and the arm or leg stops being transparent. I'm only telling you this to show you that we had no questions on the methodology of entering and breaking contact with the liquid circuit.”

“While you were immersing no more than ten or fifteen percent of the body,” Krivoshein added.

“Yes. We were also sure that the human body maintains muscle tone in the transparent stage in liquid. We used to 'struggle' in the liquid: his hand [transparent] and mine [not], or right against left when both were transparent. In other words, the liquid circuit fully supports the viability of the body.”

“Of parts of the body,” Krivoshein interrupted again. “Yes. Perhaps that was the whole problem,” Kravets sighed. Of course, it was frightening. It was one thing to dip your hand or foot into the liquid — you can pull it out if you sense danger. At worst, you'll lose an arm. But it's completely different to immerse yourself in the tank, giving yourself up to the whim of a complex and mysterious medium that you can't fight off or run away from.

They hid the fear from each other. Krivoshein, because he feared for himself. Kravets, because he didn't want to scare him unnecessarily.

But everything had been prepared assiduously, conscientiously. They regulated the level of liquid in the tank so that it would come up to Krivoshein's neck when he got in and stood in it. They placed a large mirror opposite the tank. (They had to shell out for it; there wasn't one at the warehouse.) Krivoshein could observe and control the changes he saw in the mirror.

In order to lessen the possibility of any fluctuations in current and electromagnetic field, they decided to run the experiment at night, after 2:00 A.M., when all the other labs were turned off and the buses and trolleys were in the depot.

Krivoshein stripped, climbed up the steps, and holding on to the edge with his left hand (his right was weak after the motorcycle accident), sank into the tank. The liquid gurgled. He stood up to his neck in it — his head looked separate from his body. Kravets was ready with Monomakh's Crown.