E.Voiskunsky, I.Lukodyanov. The Crew Of The Mekong

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     Translated from the Russian by Leonard Stoklitsky
     First published 1974
     (c) English translation, Mir Publishers, 1974
     OCR: http://home.freeuk.com/russica2 ? http://home.freeuk.com/russica2
     Original title: üËÉÐÁÖ "íÅËÏÎÇÁ" ? mekong.txt
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     Being an account
     of the latest fantastic
     discoveries, happenings of the
     eighteenth century,
     mysteries of Matter,
     and adventures
     on land and at sea




        CONTENTS

     THE MERCURY HEART
     NAVAL LIEUTENANT FEDOR MATVEYEV
     A HALF-TWIST SPIRAL
     IPATY ISLAND


     I'll die if I don't see the Caspian.
     ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT


        1
     THE MERCURY HEART

     If you wish to subject an unknown substance
     to the action of an unknown force you must
     first study this substance.
     Honore de Balzac -LA PEAU DE CHAGRIN

        CHAPTER ONE

        IN WHICH A STRANGE OCCURRENCE TAKES PLACE ON BOARD THE M.S. UZBEKISTAN

     There  is a  great  temptation  to  start a novel of adventure  with  a
shipwreck. Something like this:
     "With  a  sickening crunch the three-masted bark  Aretusa, sailing from
the New Hebrides with  a cargo  of copra,  listed heavily to  starboard. The
raging sea swept over-"
     But we  did not yield to the temptation. This true story  of ours  will
open without a shipwreck.  Since  we wish, however, to conform throughout to
the dictates of good style, we solemnly promise to arrange one later on.
     So much for that.
     One fine summer day the m.s. Uzbekistan was approaching a large Caspian
town. The time was shortly  after lunch, and the promenade deck was deserted
except for a man in a green check suit. He was  taking  his  ease  in a deck
chair, sheltered from the broiling sun by an awning.
     Nikolai Opratin, a person destined to play no small role in this story,
was a lean,  dapper man in his late thirties. He had an energetic face, with
a bony chin, thin lips and a high brow ending  in a carefully concealed bald
patch. His close-shaven  cheeks  and  the  aroma  of his  aftershave  lotion
created the impression that he had just stepped out of a barber's chair.
     Postprandial naps were a pernicious habit  in which Nikolai Opratin did
not  indulge.  He reclined  in  his deck chair, gazing at the  ship's broad,
foamy wake. On his right he could see the grayish-yellow strip  of coastline
rising out of the blue sea. The long hilly island at the entrance to the bay
was already in sight.
     The island  had been much  smaller twenty years ago, Opratin reflected.
Through the centuries the level of the  ancient Caspian had often  risen and
fallen, sometimes  by  as  much as eighty metres.  In recent  years  it  had
dropped greatly.  Man, no longer willing to be just a passive observer,  had
now set himself the difficult task  of raising the level of the Caspian. One
of  the  ideas  suggested  was   to  seal  off,  with  a  dam,  the  Bay  of
Kara-Bogaz-Gol,  where  the  hot   desert  sun  evaporates  fourteen   cubic
kilometres  of Caspian water annually. Another was to divert northern rivers
into the  Caspian. Under this bold scheme,  the Kama,  Vychegda and  Pechora
rivers  were to be pumped across the watersheds  and made to flow southwards
into the Volga, which empties into the Caspian Sea.
     Even  if  Kara-Bogaz-Gol Bay were cut off from the sea, northern rivers
diverted, and water from  Central Asia's  great  Amu Darya river  added, the
level  of the Caspian would not  rise by the desired three metres before the
year 2000.
     That was  far too long  to  wait. Actually,  the addition of  only  one
thousand cubic kilometres of water to the Caspian in the course  of one year
would do the trick.
     But this was easier said than done. Several thousand giant pumps and  a
power station with a  capacity of scores  of millions of kilowatts  would be
required to  shift  that amount of water  from  the Black  Sea, say, to  the
Caspian in one year.
     Nikolai Opratin, Candidate of Science (Tech.), had all these figures at
his  fingertips because he  was the man in  charge of  the  key aspect  of a
Caspian-level scheme at the Research Institute of Marine Physics.
     Although the  level of the  Caspian had dropped, the sea was still more
than deep enough for the Uzbekistan. The town came into view, rising  slowly
out of  the blue  bay. Smokestacks  and the delicate  tracery of  TV aerials
could be seen with the naked eye.
     The  decks  now  swarmed  with  passengers.  Many  were  holiday-makers
returning home from a cruise along the Volga.
     A trio of sailing enthusiasts leaned on the rail as they discussed  the
merits of a white sailboat that was overtaking the ship.
     Young men and women in blue  jerseys with white  numbers on their backs
tirelessly took snapshots of one another.
     A  husky, well-built man  in a  striped  shirt worn  over  his trousers
strolled along the deck with his plump wife on his arm. From time to time he
paused  to give  a young photographer some pointers about  which aperture to
set and which shutter speed to use.
     "What  a  pity  our  holiday is  coming  to an  end, Anatole," a  woman
somewhere behind Opratin remarked in a high-pitched voice.
     "Thank goodness it's over-that's  what I say,"  a  man's voice replied.
"Just think of all the time lost." The  voice struck Opratin as familiar. He
turned  round  to see  a  slender  young blonde  in  a red sun-dress, and  a
middle-aged  man  in  a  crumpled  pongee   suit.  The  man  had  a   broad,
large-featured face, puffy eyelids and an unruly shock of brown hair.
     The couple, deep  in conversation,  stopped  by  the rail  not far from
Opratin's deck chair.
     Opratin  rose, straightened his jacket, and walked over to  them. "Good
afternoon, Benedictov," he said in a low voice.
     The man in the pongee suit stared at  him coldly. "Ah, the  expert  who
writes reviews," he remarked. He reeked of brandy.
     "I saw you in  the restaurant during lunch but didn't venture to impose
on  you," said Opratin. He  turned to Benedictov's companion  with  a slight
bow. "My name is Nikolai Opratin."
     "How do you do," she replied.  "I'm  Rita  Benedictov. I've heard about
you."
     Opratin lifted  the corners of his mouth in a smile. "I don't doubt it.
Nothing  very  flattering,  I'll  wager."  His  tone  was  half-questioning,
half-affirmative. The young woman merely shrugged. With the sun on her face,
her  brown eyes  were  warm and clear, but there was a hint of melancholy in
them.
     "Were you on the Volga cruise too?" she asked.
     "No,  I  came aboard last  night  at  Derbent.  Business. By the way, a
curious thing happened to me in Derbent-"
     A glance at Benedictov's  face told Opratin that he  couldn't care less
about anything that had happened at Derbent.
     "Tut-tut, he still holds a grudge against me," Opratin thought.
     That  spring a scientific journal  had asked Nikolai Opratin to write a
review  of  an  article submitted for  publication by  a biophysicist  named
Anatole  Benedictov.  The  article had impressed  him.  Benedictov  began by
analysing,  in the light of modern physics,  the phenomenon of ionophoresis,
known since 1807 when Professor Reiss of Moscow discovered that drops of one
liquid are capable  of  moving through another  liquid.  Further, Benedictov
gave an account of his observations of fish having electric organs and cited
interesting information about them.  The  electric  ray,  Torpedinidae,  for
example, generates  300  volts  at  eight  amperes,  and the  electric  eel,
Electrophorus Electricus, as much as 600 volts.
     Benedictov  maintained  that  such  fish, Nature's largest living power
generators, created an electric field the action of  which makes  water pass
through their scales into their bodies. He had  planted  contacts in fish to
measure differences in  the action  potential  of the skin and  the internal
organs,  and  had   concluded  that  under  certain  definite  electrostatic
conditions liquids penetrate through  living tissue.  Benedictov put forward
the  hypothesis that it would  soon be possible to subject  fish to  special
irradiation that  would make them  both  penetrable  and  able to  penetrate
through solid matter  when required. For example, fish would be able to pass
freely through concrete dams on rivers.
     In his review Opratin had spoken highly of the fish experiments but had
politely ridiculed the  penetrability hypothesis.  The editor of the journal
had  introduced  him to Benedictov. Benedictov had  disagreed with Opratin's
conclusions, called  the  review  "narrow-minded", and  refused  to let  his
article be published.
     All this had taken place about three and a half months earlier. Now the
author and the reviewer were meeting for a second time.
     "There  was no need to  take offence, Benedictov," Opratin said mildly.
"Your article had a lot of interesting points, as I noted in my review-"
     "I didn't take offence," Benedictov interrupted.
     "It's just that I  don't think you-  hm, well, that you know much about
bioelectricity."
     Opratin  took out his handkerchief and wiped  his forehead. "Let's  not
argue about it," he  said quietly.  "You know more about  some  things and I
know more about others. Isn't that so?"
     "In that case, stick to what you know and don't go poking your nose-"
     "Anatole, please," the woman  said, putting her hand on  her  husband's
arm.
     "I shouldn't have spoken to him," Opratin thought. "He's all keyed up."
Aloud he said: "I have no intention of interfering in your  affairs.  I hope
you'll  finally realize  your  hypothesis  is  groundless.  Ionophoresis and
reciprocal penetrability of bodies are immeasurably far apart. Goodbye."
     Opratin  made  a  dignified  turn but  before he  had taken  two  steps
Benedictov  called to him.  "Look  here", he said.  "Want a demonstration of
penetrability?"
     "Stop it, Anatole," said the woman. "Don't, I beg you."
     Benedictov waved her aside. "Look!" He thrust his hand inside his shirt
and drew out a knife.
     Opratin took an involuntary step backwards.
     The husky man in the striped  shirt  strode  over to Benedictov.  "Hey,
none of that! Put that knife away."
     Benedictov ignored him. "Here's penetrability for  you!"  he exclaimed.
He pushed up his left sleeve and slashed his forearm with the knife.
     Someone gave a stifled scream. A crowd started to gather.
     "See that?" Now Benedictov plunged  the knife into his arm.  The narrow
blade, on which a wavy pattern was engraved, passed straight through his arm
without even leaving a scratch on it.
     The crowd was struck dumb. Benedictov laughed.  As he  was putting  the
knife away the husky man stepped towards him again.
     "Give it here," he said. "I'll teach you to frighten people." He made a
grab for the knife but his hand closed over emptiness.
     "Keep   out  of  this!"  Benedictov   shouted.  But  the   man  twisted
Benedictov's arm, and the knife  dropped to  the deck, dangerously near  the
edge. Several hands reached for it.
     The next instant a slim figure in a sleeveless red dress pushed forward
through the  crowd,  ducked  under the railing  and  dived down  towards the
water, six metres below.
     "Man overboard!" someone shouted.
     Life  preservers plopped  into the  sea and lifeboat  tackle  began  to
creak.  The ship started  on  a circle that would  bring it back to the spot
where  the  passenger  had  fallen  overboard.  But  this turned out  to  be
unnecessary. The white sailboat, then about a hundred metres  from the ship,
made a wild turn into the wind.  Listing heavily, the boat raced towards the
head bobbing among the waves.
     As the crowd looked on, a tall, bronzed young man dived into the sea. A
few minutes later the  red sun-dress  was  to  be  seen  on the deck of  the
sailboat.
     The Uzbekistan approached the sailboat from the lee side.
     "Any help needed?" the officer of the watch called out.
     A woman's voice floated up. "No, thanks. They'll take me ashore."
     The passengers excitedly discussed the rescue. Cameras were focussed on
the sailboat. Anatole  Benedictov, his face white  as  a sheet, stood  apart
from the crowd. He gripped the railing and stared down fixedly at the sea.
     When Nikolai  Opratin  raised his  head after  looking  in vain for the
knife on deck his eyes met the intent gaze of the husky man.
     "A tricky little knife," the man remarked. "A pity the  fishes will get
it."
     Opratin turned away.


        CHAPTER TWO

        IN WHICH THE READER IS INVITED
     TO GO SAILING TOGETHER WITH
     THE MAIN CHARACTERS

     Now let us  turn back the clock a  few hours and shift the scene to the
bazaar in that large town on the Caspian Sea.
     It was Sunday, and the bazaar was so thickly packed with people that it
could have been described as a dense substance, all the constituent elements
of which were in constant motion. Motivated by the law of supply and demand,
buyers and  sellers  were  attracted to one  another like bodies  possessing
different electric charges. They moved towards  one another,  overcoming  an
opposing force, namely, different ideas about prices.
     Two tall young men strode quickly  towards the bazaar.  The tow-headed,
blue-eyed  man,  whose  name was Yura  Kostyukov  and  who wore a bright red
short-sleeved shirt and sand-coloured trousers, glanced at his watch.
     "It's a quarter to nine already. Val is probably waiting for  us at the
yacht club."
     "Let her wait,"  his  friend Nikolai Potapkin said. "The worst that can
happen is  she'll give you a tongue-lashing." Nikolai had a  high  forehead,
prominent cheekbones  and a shock of dark hair. His grey eyes were calm  and
somewhat quizzical. The rolled-up sleeves of his white shirt revealed a pair
of hairy muscular forearms.
     The  two friends passed through an arched  gateway and came out  near a
display of  paintings, some of them executed  on cardboard, some on oilcloth
and  some  on polythene film.  They were the kind of  paintings you will see
only at bazaars. Most of them were  crude copies of well-known canvases. The
two young  men stopped in front of one  of them which  depicted a plump nude
with  pinkish-purple skin  reclining on the bright  blue  surface  of a pond
beside a dazzlingly white swan.
     "Just look at that," Yura remarked. "What a wealth of colour!"
     "It's Leda and the swan, from Greek mythology," said Nikolai.
     Yura laughed. "You mean  that fat lady is Leda, the Spartan beauty? The
mother of Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra? The mother-in-law of King Menelaus
and King Agamemnon?"
     "But look at how she's lying on the water," Nikolai said.
     At  that  moment  a  man  in  his  forties, wearing  large, horn-rimmed
eyeglasses, with greying hair,  plump tanned cheeks  and a small  pot-belly,
came up to them.
     "Fie," he said in a low voice. "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves."
     The two young men turned round. "Why, it's Boris!" Yura exclaimed.
     "Fie,"  the  plump  man  repeated.  Boris  Privalov  was  head  of  the
department in which  the two young men  were employed as research engineers.
"Staring at a nude!"
     "No-  I'm  intrigued by the  way she's  floating  on top of the water,"
Nikolai said. "You might think she was lying on a sofa."
     Boris  Privalov examined the  pinkish-purple lady  more closely.  "H'm,
yes, indeed. An extraordinary  case of surface tension. But you  didn't come
here to buy a painting, did you?"
     "Of  course  not. We're looking  for  a  pulley-block for our stay-sail
halyard,"  Yura  explained.  "We  were  at the  marina,  giving  the  boat a
onceover,  and we saw  a block had to be replaced. We couldn't find anything
suitable  in the store-room there. Dockmaster Mehti said we  were getting to
be as finicky as pampered lap dogs. He said that if we didn't like the block
he offered us we could trot down to the bazaar for one. So that's  that. Are
you looking for anything in particular?"
     Before replying, Privalov  glanced about.  "No,  just browsing,  so  to
speak."
     "Do  you suppose it would  be  possible  to build  up  surface  tension
artificially?" Nikolai asked.
     "Build it up, you say?"
     "Yes."  Nikolai put a finger on  the  blue surface of the  water in the
painting.  "So  that a person could stretch out on the water, the way  she's
doing."
     "But what for?"
     Nikolai lifted his shoulders. "I don't know. It simply occurred to me."
     "An  interesting  point," Privalov said after a pause,  during which he
glanced about again. "But first you  would  have  to examine the question of
just what  a  surface is in general." He looked first at  Nikolai,  then  at
Yura,  then began to talk. He loved to discuss scientific problems, and when
some point caught his fancy he could talk about it for hours.
     A cluster of people formed around  them as  first one passer-by stopped
to listen, then a second, then a third.
     "Boris! Where've you disappeared to?" a woman's voice called.
     Privalov stopped short. "I'm  here. Olga," he  said  to  a round-faced,
thick-set  woman who was pushing her way  towards him  through the crowd. "I
ran into a couple of my men-"
     "So I see." The woman glanced with distaste at the painting. "How could
you stand here looking at that abomination?"
     "Good morning," said Yura, an earnest smile on his face. "You see, it's
really our fault-"
     "How  do you  do,"  the  woman  replied.  "Come, Boris.  I've  found  a
hand-chased copper  jug for your collection-if someone hasn't snatched it up
already."
     Privalov nodded to the two young men and followed his wife. But after a
few steps he halted and squatted to examine a pile of metal junk.
     "Here's the block you're looking for, boys," he called.
     Nikolai came over to him,  picked up the  block and examined it. "It'll
do," he said.
     "Boris!" Privalov's wife called.
     "Just a moment."  Still squatting on his  haunches, Privalov pushed his
glasses up onto his forehead  and studied a  small bar of rusty iron that he
had picked up. He tapped it with a forefinger.
     Nikolai paid for the  block. With  a wave of his hand the  owner of the
pile  of junk  threw in the bar of rusty iron for the same  price.  Privalov
wrapped it in a page from a newspaper and put it in his pocket.
     "What do you want the piece of iron for?" Yura asked.
     "Oh, it just caught my eye. Well, so long, Siamese twins."
     "We're thinking of going out in the boat  to take a  look at the site,"
said Nikolai, lowering his voice.
     Privalov's face brightened. "That's  a good idea, a wonderful idea,  in
fact. I was just- Wait a moment-"
     Ho stepped over to his wife and whispered something to her.
     "Of  course not!"  she  exclaimed.  "What talk  can there  be about the
pipeline? Today's Sunday and everybody's off."
     "Sunday is  a  working  day on the project because the power supply  is
better than on weekdays."
     "But you wanted to look for some old copper wares, Boris."
     "I'll get  along meanwhile," Privalov  said  firmly.  "Now  don't fret,
Olga. I'm sorry but I must go. I'll be back for dinner."
     With a sigh, Olga gazed reproachfully at her husband's back.
     Privalov and his young companions  left the  bazaar, took a  trolleybus
and in fifteen minutes reached the marina.
     A dark-haired girl in a white blouse and gay-coloured skirt was sitting
on the edge of the pier dangling her tanned legs above the water and reading
a  book. When Yura caught sight of the  girl he hastened out along  the pier
towards her. .
     "Hallo there, Val!" he called.
     The girl slammed her book shut and sprang to her feet.
     "You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" She snatched  off her sunglasses
to glare at Yura. "We  made a date for eight o'clock  and now  it's going on
for ten."
     "We had  an urgent job to  do for Mehti,"  Yura explained. "Val, I want
you to meet Boris Privalov."
     Privalov held  out his  hand. "It's a pleasure," he said. "I've  spoken
with you on the phone. You're the girl who rings up Yura, aren't you?"
     Val smiled. "Why, yes. But maybe I'm not the only one."
     "Of course you're not," Nikolai put in. "Half of the girls in town ring
him up."
     "Can I help it if I'm popular?" Yura asked plaintively.
     Val gave a giggle and pinched his arm.
     They went  aboard a sailboat  that was tied up  at the pier. It had the
name Mekong on its bows.
     Why  was  this  Caspian  boat  named  after  that  great  river,  4,500
kilometres long, which flows through China, Burma, Laos, Thailand,  Cambodia
and Vietnam?
     Well, sailing enthusiasts prefer lyrical  names like Orion and  Sputnik
to the old-fashioned Swift or Hurricane. The man formerly  in charge of this
white sailboat had taken a liking to the Greek word meconium, which conjured
up some sort of mythological picture in  his mind. But as soon as he painted
this  name  on the bows  he  found  himself  the  butt of  curious jokes and
innuendoes. Looking  up  the word, he learned that  it was indeed Greek, but
had nothing to  do  with mythology at all. He never  showed up at the marina
again.
     The boat was turned over to  Nikolai and Yura. Instead of racking their
brains for a totally new name they simply changed Meconium into Mekong.
     The stay-sail  halyard block  was quickly replaced by the new one. Soon
after, the Mekong, heeling to starboard, was sweeping across the bay towards
the sea.
     "Haul  the  sheets  home!"  commanded  Nikolai,  who  was the  skipper.
Privalov had  crewed for them  for more than a year but he much preferred to
spend his weekends at home on  the sofa  with a book. He did not turn up  at
the marina very often, although he liked sailing.
     After making fast the stay-sail sheet Privalov stretched out on the hot
boards of  the deck. How wonderful  it was to  lie  there not thinking about
anything, feeling the sun warm your bare back,  watching the  city with  its
hustle and  bustle  recede into the distance,  and listen to the chatter and
laughter of the two young men and the girl!
     How wonderful it would be not to think about anything! But the pipeline
kept intruding.
     Quite  some  time had already passed since a bold project for laying an
underwater pipeline between the mainland and the  Neftianiye Reefs, a famous
oilfield   in  the  Caspian  Sea,  had  been  developed  at  Privalov's  Oil
Transportation Research Institute. It was an ingenious scheme  that involved
winding forty kilometres of pipes  onto a gigantic wheel lying  in the water
just  off the shore and then  gradually unwinding the line  and towing it to
the Neftianiye Reefs. Meanwhile the  oil extracted there  was  being shipped
out in tankers.
     Privalov's plan had  been approved, although many people thought it too
risky.
     During the past week  the  pressure  of affairs  at  the Institute  had
prevented  Privalov from  visiting the pipeline site.  Running into Yura and
Nikolai at the bazaar had been a piece of luck for him.
     A gentle northerly breeze carried the boat smoothly seawards. As he lay
on his chest at the edge of the deck, Privalov reflectively observed the two
resilient bow-waves  formed by the boat. The Mekong seemed to be folding the
water apart rather than cutting through it.
     The water was resisting. Surface  tension. Privalov  raised  himself on
his elbows and looked at Nikolai seated at the tiller.
     "Now listen,"  he said.  "If  strong enough, the  surface  tension of a
liquid could replace a pipe." "I don't get it, Boris,"  said Nikolai.  Yura,
sitting  on  the other side with Val, moved his head, tightly bound in a red
kerchief, from under the stay-sail and stared inquisitively at Privalov.
     "You don't get it?" Privalov reached over to his  trousers, brought out
his cigarette case and  lit  up. "Take  an underwater  pipeline. The  oil is
separated from the sea by the wall of the pipe. If we could make its surface
tension strong enough, oil would flow  in a separate stream, its own surface
tension acting as a sort  of film, or casing, and then  you  wouldn't need a
pipe. See?"
     "That's fabulous!" Nikolai  exclaimed.  "A pipe-less pipeline! But  how
could you increase the tension?"
     Privalov lay back.  "It's all out  of this world," he said, screwing up
his eyes against the sun.
     "Out of this world?"
     "Well, yes. Surfaces have specific properties that no one  is  able  to
control. Forget it. The whole thing's just a daydream."
     Privalov  fell silent.  He  did  not  utter  another  word until  their
destination came into sight.
     The  sailboat  rounded the  yellow  tongue of the cape  and headed  for
shore. They had to drop anchor about a hundred metres from the beach because
the bay was too shallow for them to proceed any further. Privalov shaded his
eyes with  his  hand  and studied the structures  on  the beach.  They  were
surrounded by barbed wire.
     "Might  think  we  were  in a  desert,"  he muttered.  "I had a feeling
there's something wrong. Well, let's take a swim and go back home."
     It  was mid-afternoon by the time they lifted anchor and set out on the
return  trip. Nikolai  lay  on  the  deck beside Privalov,  his hand on  the
stay-sail sheet, watching a big white passenger ship overtake them. Yura was
now at the tiller. Val was perched beside him.
     "Yura," she whispered. "Do you know if Nick has a girl friend?"
     "Why don't you ask him yourself?"
     Val laughed.  "Oh, I couldn't. I'm afraid of  him." After a  pause  she
said, "You know my friend Zina, don't you? Let's introduce her to him."
     "Better riot," said Yura. "He's very choosy."
     Val frowned. "Humph!" she said with a pout.
     Yura struck up a song and Nikolai joined in.  Sometimes they thought up
their own words to popular songs, and sometimes they set poems to well-known
tunes.
     Meanwhile,  the ship had drawn  abreast of the sailboat.  "Look  at the
crowd on deck," Nikolai remarked. "Some sort  of a brawl, judging by the way
they're milling about."
     At that instant a slim figure in red plunged over the side of the ship.
     "Veer!" Nikolai shouted.
     Yura  leaned  on  the  tiller. The  blocks  creaked  and  the  mainsail
described a wide arc as  it swung over to the other side. The boat,  listing
heavily to starboard, sped towards the ship.
     "Take it, Val!  Brace yourself  with your feet!" Nikolai gave the  girl
the stay-sail sheet and dived into the water.


        CHAPTER THREE

        IN  WHICH  OPRATIN  TELLS  PRIVALOV  SOMETHING AND LEARNS SOMETHING  IN
PASSING

     Towards the end of  the day Privalov's old friend  Pavel Koltukhov, the
Institute's chief engineer, dropped in to see him.
     "Looks  like smooth  sailing at last, Boris," he said, sitting down and
stretching out his legs. "Work will be resumed at the site tomorrow."
     "Thank  goodness!"  Privalov  flung  himself back in his  chair. "Those
self-styled efficiency experts! To  claim that it's cheaper to transport oil
by tanker than by pipeline!  But they forgot that tankers return empty. They
close their eyes to the cost of taking on ballast water and then discharging
it. To say nothing of the number of stormy days on the Caspian."
     Koltukhov nodded his bald head in  agreement. Then he stuck a cigarette
between  his lips  and gave Privalov a  sharp  glance from beneath  beetling
eyebrows.
     "You  don't  have to persuade  me a pipeline is  better,"  he said.  He
walked over to a big map of the Caspian hanging on the wall.
     "Forty kilometres of pipeline," he said. "Three more parallel pipelines
will  make it a total of 160 kilometres.  A pipeline across the whole of the
Caspian will  add another 300 kilometres. We'll be paving  the floor of  the
Caspian with steel."
     "We'll be  paving  it with millions of  roubles  too," Privalov  added,
joining Koltukhov in front of the map. "Here we are in the twentieth century
and the only way we know of transporting liquids is through pipes, just like
in the first century."
     Koltukhov chewed his lip. "Have you read Arshavin's latest article?" he
asked.
     "About towing oil across  the sea  in containers made of thin polythene
film? Yes, I've read it."
     "Not  a bad idea," Koltukhov remarked. "It's been picked up  abroad. So
don't say we don't know how to transport liquid goods."
     "There's an  idea that  keeps preying on my mind."  said  Privalov. "It
concerns the physics of surfaces. All surfaces possess  energy, don't  they?
Suppose  we  found  a way of  using this energy to  alter  the properties of
surface tension. I mean, building up surface tension to such a degree that a
stream of oil would be contained in a 'skin' of its own surface."
     "Where'd you get that idea?"
     "At the bazaar." Privalov told Koltukhov the gist of his talk  with the
two young engineers.
     "Why,  I see  you're just an  old day-dreamer."  Koltukhov gave a short
laugh.  "You'll lead  those young men of yours astray. I'd advise you not to
read Jules Verne the last thing before going to sleep."
     "Oh, all right, all right."
     "You're too long in the tooth for that sort of thing, Boris."
     "What's age got to do  with  it? I read what  I  like, and I like Jules
Verne. He's refreshing."
     The  telephone rang. Privalov lifted the receiver. "Yes? How do you do.
Certainly you may." He  put down the receiver. "Opratin from Marine  Physics
is dropping in."
     "Oh, our old acquaintance. Do you see much of him?"
     "No, not really.  I'm  better  acquainted with the surveyors from  that
outfit. They're helping us to lay out the route."
     Koltukhov glanced  out  of the window at  the  building of  the  Marine
Physics Institute on the other side of the street. He watched  a lean man in
a straw hat step out of the front door and stride quickly across the street.
     "Our  neighbour's in a  hurry," he remarked. "They  say he's efficient.
I'll wager he hasn't read Jules Verne since he was a boy."
     A few minutes later there was a knock on the door. "Come  in," Privalov
said.
     Opratin opened the door and, removing his hat, stepped into the room.
     He  smoothed down his  thinning hair.  "How have you  been keeping?" he
asked Koltukhov. "Haven't seen you for some time. How are things?"
     "Not so  bad." When  talking with  visitors Koltukhov liked to give the
impression that he was just a "plain, down-to-earth Voronezh peasant", as he
put it. And he really did come from Voronezh peasant stock. "I spend my time
making the rounds and giving advice."
     "Still dabbling in resins and plastics"?
     "We executives don't have much time  for anything except organizational
matters," Koltukhov said with an apologetic note. "But I do have a cubbyhole
of my own, with mixers, thermostats and a press. Whenever  I see a couple of
young  men  engaged in idle  conversation in  the  corridor I punish them by
recruiting  them to help me make a  couple of  plastic models.  Besides, you
know, those resins have an  awful smell." After  a slight pause he said,  "I
hear you had quite an adventure."
     Opratin chose to be noncommittal. "Really?"
     "Your director told  me  you  fell  into a pit in  Derbent while  on  a
business trip and had to prolong your stay there."
     A shadow flitted across Opratin's face. "Yes," he said, "I did run into
a bit of unpleasantness."
     Koltukhov glanced at his watch. "Well, I'll leave you two together now.
It's time I was off."
     He nodded to the two men and walked unhurriedly to the door.


     The name  of  the  old Caspian town of  Derbent means "Iron Gates". The
town once guarded the narrowest place on a caravan route running between the
mountains and  the sea. Nikolai  Opratin had been sent there to  examine the
ruins of fortress  walls  in order to obtain more precise information  about
the level of the Caspian in ancient times.
     On his last day in Derbent Opratin wandered into an old stone quarry on
the deserted shore.  While clambering about the quarry he caught his foot in
a fissure. Suddenly the rocks gave way. His heart missed a heat as  lie felt
himself falling into  nothingness. He landed with a splash  in a pool of mud
about a dozen feet below.
     He picked himself up and paused to catch his breath. Just a moment ago,
a  hot blue  sky  had stretched  above him;  now  he was surrounded by musty
semi-darkness. He took out  his flashlight and  swept its beam  to right and
left. He saw damp, moss-covered walls.
     This  prompted  the  thought  that he  had  probably  fallen  into  the
underground passage that had once connected the Naryn Kale Fortress with the
sea. The passage was mentioned in legends but so far no one had been able to
find it.
     The flashlight beam moved downwards. Opratin  was a self-possessed man,
but the sight of a human skeleton filled him with horror. He turned  to flee
and  stumbled  into  a pool of cold  water. This  brought him to his senses.
Besides, whom was he fleeing from?
     He  returned to the  skeleton, to which the remnants of clothing  still
clung. The poor devil must have fallen into the  passage and been crushed by
rocks. Opratin's flashlight picked out a  half-rotten sack. He gave the sack
a push with his shoe. A gun fell out of it.
     "It's a German pistol, a Luger," Opratin said to himself. "How odd!"
     Poking through  the  contents of  the sack  he found a  portable  radio
transmitter, several  sticks of dynamite and  some cartridges  covered  with
green mould.
     He  turned  his flashlight back on the skeleton.  Something sparkled in
the neck of the torn  shirt.  Bending down to take  a closer look, he saw  a
shiny metal chain on  which  hung a small  crucifix and a flat  rectangle of
iron  with letters  on it. Opratin wiped the iron rectangle with a corner of
the sack and read:
     A M D G
     Below these were smaller letters.
     Only  a  Catholic  would  wear  a  crucifix  round  his  neck,  Opratin
reflected. How long had the man lain there? Then suddenly he came out of his
reverie. He certainly had no intention of  becoming  a  corpse  to keep  the
skeleton company. He picked up the pistol, saw that it was in working order,
and fired at the spot  of blue sky above his  head. Minutes passed,  minutes
that seemed hours  to Opratin.  He fired  again. The passage rumbled like an
active volcano, but no sound came from above.
     Opratin  fired  again  and  again until all  the  cartridges were gone.
Breathing heavily, he leaned against the damp wall. Despair swept over him.
     Suddenly he heard alarmed voices overhead. He shouted. Choking from the
stench of the passage  and the smell of gunpowder,  he shouted until he  was
hoarse. The faint light from above was blotted out  by a head that  appeared
in the opening.
     "Who fired those shots?" a voice demanded from above.
     A few minutes later a rope was lowered through the hole and Opratin was
hauled out.
     Opratin had  to postpone  his departure while he answered questions put
by the local authorities and set forth the whole matter in writing. That was
a nuisance, for Opratin hated to waste time.
     Nikolai  and Yura sat side by side at a  desk, bent over a blueprint of
the pipeline route. They were checking the figures indicating the depths.
     Valery Gorbachevsky, a young lab technician, glanced at his watch, then
walked  over  to  the mirror  and  smoothed  down  his  black sideburns  and
moustache,  meanwhile singing  a song  about a lad named Chico who came from
Puerto Rico.
     "My dear Valery," said Yura, "do you know where Puerto Rico is?"
     The lab technician shrugged a shoulder. "Of course. You don't doubt it,
do you?"
     "Not very far from Madagascar, isn't it?"
     "Well, yes, you could put it like that," Valery said hesitatingly.
     "Now you see, my friend, how disastrous it is-" Just then the telephone
rang, and Yura broke off to pick up the receiver.
     "The chief wants you, Nikolai. With the route plan."
     Nikolai went up to the next floor, taking  the steps two at a time, and
entered Privalov's office.  Privalov had a visitor, a  man  in a green suit,
whom Nikolai had never seen before. The visitor  gave Nikolai a keen glance,
nodded and said, "My name's Nikolai Opratin."
     Nikolai introduced himself and sat down.
     "Nikolai  Opratin comes from the Institute of Marine Physics across the
street,"  Privalov  said to  Nikolai.  "He has  given  me  some  interesting
information  which  we will  have to take  into account. Yes, indeed."  Here
Privalov pushed his glasses up onto his forehead and  bent over the  plan of
the pipeline route. "Now take this shoal that's to be deepened by blasting."
     Opratin crossed his  legs. "That won't  be necessary,"  he said with  a
glance at Nikolai. "I've just told your  chief the level of the Caspian will
rise in three years'  time. That means there  isn't any  need to  deepen the
route."
     "Is your information reliable?"
     Opratin smiled. "The most reliable there is."
     Privalov leaned back in his chair. His glasses slid down to  the tip of
his hose.
     "Well, we'll just have to  revise  our calculations," he  said, rubbing
his forehead. "I'd like  you to step over to the Institute of Marine Physics
tomorrow, Nikolai. Will that be all right?" he asked, turning to Opratin.
     "Certainly. After lunch, preferably."
     "Fine.  You  can't imagine how much worry this pipeline is causing  us.
Doubting Thomases  are  holding up the work. We visited the site last Sunday
and-oh, well, you understand."
     Opratin nodded sympathetically. "Yes, I do.  By the way, I  didn't know
you went in for sailing."
     '"Indeed?"
     "I saw you in a sailboat last Sunday."
     "Where were you?"
     "Aboard the Uzbekistan."
     "Well, well. Why did you drop a lady overboard?"
     Opratin's thin lips spread in a faint smile.
     "It wasn't me who dropped her," he said. "There was some sort of row on
deck.  I don't know  whether she was pushed  overboard  or just  fell in. It
seemed to me she was holding some metal object in her hand."
     "A metal  object?" Privalov  glanced at  Nikolai. "Did you see anything
like that when you fished her out of the sea?"
     "The only metal I saw was the buckles of her sandals."
     Opratin rose.  "Anyway,  there was something else about that particular
spot  besides the rescue  of the  lady. I saw bubbles rising to the surface.
Could have been natural gas, couldn't it?"
     "It could. You ought to inform the gas experts."
     "How can  I  if I don't  know  the exact spot? It's not like on  shore,
where you have landmarks."
     "If  I remember rightly, the  TV tower was straight ahead of us at that
moment," said Nikolai. "The refrigeration plant was at  right angles  to it.
The No. 18  buoy in the channel  was about a  hundred metres to  the  north.
Those points should be enough to find it, I think."
     "Thank you,"  said Opratin. "I'll  be expecting you tomorrow." He  said
goodbye and left.


        CHAPTER FOUR

        ABOUT A DROP THAT WAS DROP-SHAPED

     They left the  Institute  together  and  walked down the  street in the
bright sunshine.
     "Why do you think she fell overboard, Yura?" Nikolai asked.
     Yura grinned. "Beware of women who  fall overboard. I shouldn't  rescue
them if I were you."
     "Oh, shut up," Nikolai growled, and quickened his steps.
     The woman in the red sun-dress was not exactly preying on his mind, but
there was something  about her  narrow, dark-eyed face, framed in fair hair,
that vaguely disturbed him. He had a feeling he had seen that face somewhere
before.
     She was, of course, an unusual woman. She had not shown a trace of fear
in the  sea. When he swam over  to her she  had said, "No need to rescue me.
I'm  a good swimmer." By that time the sailboat  was beside  them.  Yura had
heeled  into the wind  so sharply that the starboard side was level with the
water and Nikolai did not even  have  to help the woman climb into the boat.
She thanked them politely, her gaze  on a point  somewhere  between Privalov
and the mast, wrung out her dripping hair and then went down into the cabin.
Val came out of the cabin with the red sun-dress and hung  it up  to dry  in
the sun.
     When the boat reached the marina the woman  sprang gracefully onto  the
pier. "Please don't trouble  yourselves," she said. "I'll get home all right
without  any help." Her  red dress flashed among  the  trees  on the seaside
promenade and vanished. That was the last they saw of her.
     The two men turned oft the bustling avenue into quiet Cooper Lane.
     "Will you  come  in  for  a  while?"  Nikolai asked, stopping under  an
archway that led into a courtyard.
     "Can you lend me something to read?"
     "Of course I can."
     They crossed the  yard diagonally. It  was a yard  they  had known from
childhood, with  a glassed-in gallery running the length  of the  two-storey
house. An outside  stairway supported by iron posts, down which  it had been
so convenient and pleasant to  slide, led up to the top floor. In the cellar
the children used to hunt for buried treasure and hide from pursuit, sending
arrows flying through the air.
     Yura  and Nikolai had grown up in this  wonderful courtyard which could
be turned,  in the twinkling  of an  eye,  into a prairie  or the deck  of a
frigate. Here they  had invented  their earliest games and read their  first
books. They had raced about the  yard, shooting  arrows  from their bows and
lassoing the rubber plants set out for watering.
     One  of the ground-floor tenants  in  those days was a sailor. The boys
used to gaze respectfully at his black cap with its gold emblem and the gold
stripes on his sleeve. The sailor would be away for weeks at a lime, leaving
behind,  at home,  a  live turtle and a daughter  with freckles  and  yellow
braids.
     Although girls were  not invited to play Red  Indians, Yura and Nikolai
made an exception in the case of the sailor's daughter. Yellow Lynx, as they
named her, could run like the wind and slide down the stairway posts  like a
cat.  She did  not cry  when they  pulled  her by  her braids.  She  plunged
courageously into courtyard battles, using her fingernails  and screaming in
a high, piercing voice.
     Besides the  live  turtle there were  other  interesting things in  the
sailor's flat. A  real dirk hung on one wall  and a barometer on another. On
the desk, beside  a bronze inkwell,  lay two pieces of iron  with mysterious
letters carved on them. Yellow Lynx and the boys resolved that some day they
would discover the meaning of those mysterious letters.
     The sailor and his daughter  left for Leningrad  early in the spring of
1941.  Nikolai copied a picture  from  a volume of Pushkin's Tales showing a
ship with a huge taut sail decorated  with a drawing of the sun, approaching
a wharf  on which men in  old-fashioned long robes  were firing cannons.  He
presented it to Yellow Lynx  as a  farewell  gift. They were both about nine
years old at the time.
     Soon after, a  husky young man by  the name  of  Bugrov,  whom the boys
addressed  as Uncle  Vova, moved into the  sailor's  flat.  He  had  a  blue
motorcycle on  which he  sometimes  took the  boys riding. What  is more, he
taught them the Greco-Roman style of wrestling. A circus poster on the  wall
of  the  new tenant's  room  showed  him among the  other  performers,  very
handsome and muscular in black tights, his chest bulging.
     When the war broke out Uncle Vova locked up his flat and went into  the
army. Nikolai's  father,  who worked at a railway-carriage  repair shop, was
also drafted. Yura's  father, an  oil refinery engineer,  was  given a draft
deferment.
     Now  the  boys  played  army  scouts  and guerrillas.  Life  was  hard,
especially  for Nikolai and  his mother, who was a nurse and worked day  and
night at an army hospital.
     Nikolai's father was killed in a battle on the Dnieper River.
     After  seven years  of schooling Nikolai told his mother that he wanted
to go to work. She tried to persuade him to stay in school but  he would not
be  moved. Yura's father found a job for  Nikolai as an apprentice fitter in
the oil  refinery's  maintenance  shop and persuaded  him  to  attend  night
school.
     Soon after, Yura's family moved to another part of town and Nikolai was
left without  a playmate. But this did not matter because he had no time for
play.
     Yura felt that fate had  been unkind to him for making him sit over his
books  all through the war  instead of letting him fight the Nazis. Besides,
he  envied Nikolai's hands,  with  their traces of grease and metallic dust.
And so, after finishing the eighth grade at school Yura went to work in  the
maintenance shop, side by side with Nikolai. They went through  night school
together and then entered the evening department of a college. Shortly after
graduating with degrees  in  engineering the two young men were  assigned to
jobs  in the Oil  Transportation Research Institute, where they worked under
Boris Privalov.
     They  crossed  the  courtyard, climbed  the  stairs,  walked  down  the
glassed-in  gallery and  entered  Nikolai's  room. There,  it was pleasantly
cool.  Bookshelves  lined the  wall  above  Nikolai's  desk.  A photographic
enlarger stood on the  floor in  a corner of the  room, like a  stork on one
leg.
     Yura picked up the  underwater gun Nikolai was  making and examined it.
"The spring's a bit tight."
     "No, it's just right," said Nikolai. "Can't have it any looser."
     "If you finish it by Sunday we can do some shooting."
     "We're racing on Sunday."
     "Why, so we are. I forgot." Yura stretched out luxuriously on the sofa.
     "I want you to look at this," said Nikolai, producing several sheets of
paper covered with sketches and figures  from a drawer of the desk. "What do
you think of it?"
     Yura glanced at the sketches. "They  look like pears." He yawned. "Take
these drawings away. I'm too lazy to think."
     "But first listen. Remember that conversation about surface tension and
the interesting idea Privalov suggested?" "He told us to forget it."
     Nikolai  lost his temper.  "You're an  idiot! I can't  discuss anything
with you nowadays. All you can think of is Val."
     "You're  the  idiot," Yura replied cheerfully. "All  right, let's  have
it."
     Nikolai turned on the fan. "What shape does  a liquid  have?" he asked,
lighting a cigarette.
     Yura lifted his eyebrows. "It takes the shape of the vessel  into which
it's poured. Primitive man guessed that much."
     "Very well. Now  take a  drop of  liquid. What  keeps  the liquid  in a
droplet? Surface tension. No vessel is  needed. A sphere is the ideal  shape
of  a minimum surface. But a droplet is not spherical. The  earth's  gravity
gives it a bulge, making it pear-shaped."
     "In short, a drop-like shape." "Exactly."
     There was a knock on the door. A tall, husky man in a white singlet and
blue  jeans entered. He had a broad, heavy-jawed face, and there was a  tuft
of red hair on top of his head.
     "Caught you  in at  last, Nikolai," he  said in  a deep, hoarse  voice.
"Where've you been hiding?"
     "What can  I do for you,  Uncle Vova?" Nikolai asked. "I want to borrow
your aqualung for a couple of days."
     "My diving gear?"
     "Don't worry,  you'll  get it  back  in  perfect  condition,"  he  said
reassuringly, 'I'll refill the cylinders too."
     "All right, take it,"
     Uncle Vova picked up the aqualung and inspected it.
     "Fine workmanship," he remarked. "Thanks."
     "When did you return?" asked Nikolai.
     "Sunday. By the way,  I saw you pull that girl out of the sea. You made
a neat job of it."
     "Why, it looks as though the whole town saw it."
     "Really?" Uncle Vova pricked up his ears. "Who else?"
     "The whole ship. You were on the Uzbekistan too, weren't you?"
     "Oh,  I don't give a damn  about  the  Uzbekistan"  Uncle Vova  replied
vaguely. "Well, I'm off." He nodded and went out.
     "Now Yura, listen  to  what-" At this point Nikolai noticed  that Yura,
his long legs hanging over the  edge of the sofa,  was sound asleep. Nikolai
shook him  by  the shoulder.  Yura jerked  a leg and  pushed his friend away
without opening his eyes.
     "Wake  up this  instant or  I'll shake  the  life  out of you!" Nikolai
shouted.
     Yura  opened his  eyes. "I  must  have dozed for a moment," he remarked
with a conciliatory smile.
     "You certainly did. Get off the sofa."
     "I'm more comfortable  on it. You can  continue talking.  We stopped on
droplets being droplet-shaped. It sounds fascinating."
     "Are you trying to be funny?"
     "Not 'for the world."
     "Then listen. The size  of a  droplet depends on  the  magnitude of the
surface  tension. In the  case of water"-Nikolai glanced at his notes-  "the
surface  tension is 72.8 ergs per square centimetre. The surface tension  of
alcohol is a little more than 22 ergs."
     "What is it for mercury?"
     "Mercury? Just a minute." Nikolai took down a thick reference book from
a shelf and leafed through it. "Just listen to  this! The surface tension of
mercury is 470 ergs. That's terrific!"
     "You  can increase the tension  by passing an  electric current through
the  mercury. Don't  you  remember reading about  that  old  'mercury heart'
experiment?"
     "Why, that's right. Thanks for recalling it, Yura."
     Yura made a regal gesture. "Think nothing of it."
     "We'll set  mercury aside  for the  time  being,"  said  Nikolai.  "Now
consider  the following. Have you noticed the way water runs along telegraph
wires in the rain?"
     "An intriguing sight, isn't it?"
     "The flow has a droplet-like cross-section," Nikolai went  on. "Suppose
we use an electric ray instead of a wire. The ray creates a field. The field
increases the surface tension, and the cross-section builds up."
     "Better not tangle with  fields,  old man. You and  I  don't  know much
about them."
     "We  won't  really tangle with  them. All we need is  a  high-frequency
generator."
     "Let's have a look  at  those papers," said Yura after  a pause.  "What
does this diagram represent?"
     Nikolai sat down on the sofa beside him.
     "Look here," he said. "We'll string up an inclined wire  and send water
down it to a vessel at the bottom.  Since we know the time and the amount of
water we'll be  able to calculate the speed at which it moves. We'll measure
the cross-section of the droplets and calculate their  surface tension. Then
we'll put a spiral round the wire-"
     "I get the point-a  resonance circuit  and  superimposed  frequencies."
Yura sprang to his feet. "Give me some wire!"
     Nikolai's grey eyes wrinkled in a  smile.  Once  Yura was hooked on  an
idea his energy knew no bounds.
     Yura pulled off his shirt, tossed  his hair back  off his  forehead and
produced a screwdriver from  his pocket. It  was his  favourite screwdriver,
for which he had made  a hollow plastic  handle, with  a neon indicator lamp
inside  it, in his student days. He  carried the  screwdriver  everywhere he
went. Like Roland's sword, it had a name of its own. It was called Durandal.
     "We'll disembowel your radio set  for a start," Yura  said.  "But don't
worry,  we'll only remove the input circuit. And the heterodyne." He  turned
the set  Over on its side and went at it  with  his screwdriver. "We'll take
out the giblets. Don't just stand there, Nick. Go out on the gallery and put
the wire up."
     Working away busily,  Yura  went on.  "A great  man once  said the true
experimenter can set up any kind of experiment with three sticks, a piece of
rubber, a glass tube, and some of his own saliva."


        CHAPTER FIVE

        IN WHICH THE READER GETS TO KNOW ANATOLE BENEDICTOV BETTER

     Anatole  Benedictov  switched  on  the  motor.  The belt  drive made  a
rustling sound and  the  glass  disc of the electrostatic machine  began  to
revolve. Blue sparks crackled.
     A round aquarium  on the  table  had wire wound around it,  with  thick
copper tubing  on top of the wire.  A  copper disc  hung above  the aquarium
parallel  with the surface of  the water.  Small fish  darted  about  in the
greenish water.
     Benedictov turned the  levers  of  the  valve oscillator. Then,  slowly
tightening a screw, he brought the copper disc close to the water.
     The fish  stopped  darting about. They seemed to fall asleep instantly.
Benedictov looked at his watch, dropped heavily into an armchair and  closed
his eyes.
     The room was  shrouded in semi-darkness. Rita sat on the  sofa. A black
cat lay at her feet.
     "You   ought  to  give  up  these   experiments,  Anatole,"   she  said
thoughtfully. "You're biting off more than you can chew."
     "It's too late, Rita. I can't give up now."
     There was a silence. The electricity crackled. The fish in the aquarium
slept.
     "Why  do you keep  experimenting with living creatures, Anatole?"  Rita
asked, leaning forward. "Your old-time predecessors used inorganic matter."
     "You know why. Living matter  gives  me something a piece of wood  or a
chunk of metal never could. It gives me action potentials."
     "But the knife is lost. How can you continue experimenting without it?"
     "I don't know. I need that knife all the time." Benedictov paused, then
added,  "Did you  actually see it fall overboard? Could someone in the crowd
have grabbed it?"
     "No, it went overboard. I dived after it at once, but the knife sank to
the bottom."
     "What  a  thing  to have happened!"  Benedictov rubbed his  shaggy head
furiously.
     The doorbell  rang. When Rita opened  the door she found a husky man in
blue overalls and a cap pulled down over his eyes standing there.
     "I'm from the municipal  electricity board,"  he said.  "I've  come  to
inspect the wiring."
     "Step in," said Rita. "The meter's over there."
     The electrician removed the fuses and inspected them.
     "These have to be replaced," he said. "They're defective."
     "Rita!" Benedictov called from his  room. "Why  did you switch  off the
electricity?"
     "Hurry up and put those fuses back," Rita told the electrician.
     "Are you in a hurry to be fined?" said the electrician, but he put back
the  fuses. "Where's  the  èkitchen?" He went  through  the  rooms, his head
tipped  back, looking at the  wiring. Suddenly he stopped short. "Is  that a
motor running?" he asked. "Got a license for it?"
     "Rita!" Benedictov called impatiently.
     "Excuse  me  a moment,"  Rita  said to  the  electrician  as she turned
towards Benedictov's study.
     The electrician heard her explaining what the matter was. A man's voice
said, "To hell with him! Let him look. Here, hold this fish."
     "Ouch!" Rita exclaimed.
     The electrician glanced into the room in time to see the woman drop the
fish and a big black cat spring to seize it.
     "Shoo!" cried Benedictov.
     The electrician jumped back from  the doorway as the  cat, covered with
blue sparks and screeching piteously, dashed into the passage. Its fur stood
on  end,  the  sparks   crackling.  The  cat  ran   frenziedly  between  the
electrician's legs, received a kick, and bounded down the passage.
     "The cat thought I tossed the fish to her," Rita said with a  laugh  as
she came out of the study. "Have you finished looking things over?"
     Benedictov followed his wife into the passage.
     "Who are you?" he asked the electrician in alarm. "What do you want?"
     "I  ought to  fine  you for such  goings-on,"  the  electrician growled
hoarsely, tugging  his cap down over his forehead. He  strode to  the  door,
pulled it open and went out, slamming the door behind him.


     After the war Bugrov returned home to  his  flat in Cooper Lane where a
circus poster, now yellowed, still hung on the wall beside his bed.
     Soon  afterwards he married  a stately,  imperious woman named Claudia.
She hid the poster in the lower drawer of the bureau, placed little rugs and
embroidered cushions here, there and everywhere.
     Bugrov  did not return to the circus. He obtained a medical certificate
stating that he was a disabled veteran and began to make spring dynamometers
at home for a small producers' co-operative of disabled war veterans.
     When  Bugrov  saw Benedictov's strange knife on board the Uzbekistan on
his way home from a holiday on the Volga he immediately realized that such a
knife could  be a  gold mine in a  circus act. He carefully noted  the place
where the  woman  in red had dived overboard. When  the passengers from  the
Uzbekistan went ashore he took a taxi and followed Benedictov to his home.
     Bugrov hesitated for several  days  before finally  deciding  on direct
action to learn whether  the man still had the knife or whether it  had sunk
to the bottom of the Caspian.
     "It was a  waste of time," Bugrov thought gloomily  as he walked to the
trolleybus stop. "I didn't learn anything about  the  knife.  All  I did was
tangle with a cat."  Recalling the black cat  covered with sparks he spat on
the ground in fury.
     Vova  Bugrov  did  not  know  that cats  possess  excellent  electrical
properties, although they could hardly be a source of electric power. It has
been estimated that if 1,500  million cats were stroked simultaneously  they
would generate a mere 15 watts.
     "But maybe  it wasn't a complete loss,  after all," Bugrov reflected in
the trolleybus. "The cat's owner  was out of sorts. He swore  and shouted at
his wife. He might have  been upset because the knife sank into the sea. Why
didn't I grab it?  I should have kept my eye on the handle. Well, I'll  have
to search the sea bottom."
     Bugrov fell into a daydream about a wonderful  circus  act.  The day he
arrived in  a small town posters would be pasted  on all  the fences showing
Bugrov in a red robe-no, a green robe would perhaps  be better-and a turban,
with a knife piercing his  throat. "Famous Fakir so-and-so" the poster would
read. He'd  have  to  think up a  good  name for himself. The hall  would be
jammed to the rafters as he, Vova, emerged on the stage in a green  robe, or
maybe a black robe.
     He'd have to  borrow  his neighbour's scuba  gear  and do some  diving.
There was no  silt in that place. Just  sand. He was sure he  would find the
knife.
     Bugrov pushed  his  cap  to  the back  of his  head  and  winked at his
reflection in the trolleybus window.


        CHAPTER SIX

        IN WHICH NIKOLAI OPRATIN TAKES THE BULL BY THE HORNS

     Nikolai Opratin  saw Benedictov as soon  as he opened the door into the
laboratory. Corpulent and dishevelled, the biophysicist stood beside a table
around which ran  a  thick  copper  coil. He was unfastening  the harness in
which a brown and white dog hung. When he set the dog on the  floor it shook
itself and began to sniff angrily at the experimenter's feet.
     "Good morning," Opratin said.
     "What do you want?" Benedictov asked coldly.
     "Your advice about fish."
     Benedictov turned away. "Ask someone else."
     "I'm sorry about that argument we had on board the ship," Opratin  said
softly. "I'm ready to take back my words."
     The biophysicist was silent. Then  he  nodded  in the direction of  the
glass partition  at  the  end  of the  laboratory. "Come this  way," he said
jerkily.
     They  sat down opposite each other at a  table  covered with papers and
blocks of paraffin cut into cubes.
     "The problem we're working on is the level of the Caspian, that is, how
to raise  it," Opratin  explained. "We  plan a series of experiments  in the
course of which  ionized water  will appear in the sea. My question is:  how
will this affect the fish?"
     Benedictov gave a cough but said nothing.
     "Our  Institute  will of course  get in touch officially  with  yours,"
Opratin went on, his gaze fixed on Benedictov's face. "But I'd like to know,
ahead of time-"
     "What  are your ionization figures?" Benedictov asked,  moving closer a
spirit lamp on which stood a nickel-plated tray.
     The conversation  faltered. Benedictov answered  questions in unwilling
monosyllables. He coughed and squirmed in his chair. His bloodshot eyes were
evasive.
     Suddenly he rose, murmured an  excuse, and left  the room. Opratin  let
his eyes  roam over the table. He noticed an empty glass ampoule. As he read
the Latin inscription on it his thin lips twisted in an ironic smile.
     Benedictov returned  looking a completely  different man,  fresh-faced,
cheerful, with sparkling eyes.
     "Please continue," he said on his way to his desk.
     "Look  here,"  said  Opratin softly. "Did you  try  to  magnetize  that
knife?"
     Benedictov stopped  short. Opratin's pale  blue eyes stared steadily at
him without blinking. Benedictov felt acutely uncomfortable.
     "What's it to you?" he muttered.
     The ensuing silence lasted several seconds. Benedictov was the first to
lower his eyes.
     "Sit down,"  Opratin said.  "I'm not asking out of idle curiosity. I've
been thinking a lot about your  knife and  it seems to me I've guessed a few
things. Can it be magnetized?"
     "Suppose it can? So what?"
     "This is extremely important. Don't look at me as if you wanted to tear
me to pieces. I've come here to help you."
     "I don't need any help."
     Opratin  let  this remark pass. "Did  you  measure the knife's electric
resistance?"  he  asked.  "Did  you test  it  for  use  as  the  core  of an
electromagnet?"
     Benedictov had not done that either.
     "Did you try it on a voltaic arc?"
     Benedictov shook his head thoughtfully.
     "How does the knife react to chemical substances?"
     He  flung  question  after  question  at  Benedictov.  Benedictov  gave
reluctant replies. He had not performed  half of the tests about  which this
uninvited inspector was asking him.
     "Well, well,"  said  Opratin. He  smoothed  his thinning hair.  "To all
appearances, my dear man, you have followed the wrong path."
     "What path I follow is my own business," Benedictov growled.
     "Yes, to be sure." Opratin drummed his fingers on the table.  "You're a
biologist and I'm a  physicist. Don't you  think  that if we combined forces
we'd reach the goal faster?"
     Benedictov said nothing.
     "I won't lay claim to any of your laurels. I just want to help you. All
I'm interested in are the scientific results." Opratin looked searchingly at
Benedictov. "What do you say?"
     The biophysicist glanced out of the window. "Damn it!" he said flatly.


        CHAPTER SEVEN

        IN WHICH A REGATTA BRINGS THREE OF THE CHARACTERS STRAIGHT TO THE PLACE
WHERE THE AUTHORS WANTED THEM TO BE

     Early  Sunday morning Nikolai  Potapkin ran down the steps and out into
the courtyard, swinging his little suitcase. The  sleeves of his white shirt
were  rolled up above the  elbows, his open  collar exposed  a tanned chest.
Glancing up at the cloudless sky, he  shook his head. Not a breath of  wind!
Yet this was  the day of the big  regatta. He arrived at the  marina to find
preparations  in progress only on the centreboard and Star  class boats, for
which  even  a  slight breeze  would be enough. The crews  of the L-4 boats,
discouraged  by the absence of wind, were gathered in their  cabins in front
of TV sets watching a children's programme.
     Nikolai  found  Yura  sitting  on the edge of the  pier in  his bathing
trunks, his long arms wrapped round his knees, singing a song from an Indian
film in a mournful voice.  He sat down beside Yura  and took up the refrain.
They sang until dockmaster  Mehti stuck his  head out of the window  of  the
boathouse  and  begged  them  to  stop.  "This  isn't  an  opera-house,"  he
complained.
     "You shouldn't have lent uncle  Vova your scuba  gear,"  Yura  remarked
after a while. "We could have done some diving."
     "Why not come over to my place if the races are cancelled? We might try
to change the pitch of the spiral."
     "I don't want to."
     "Why not?" Nikolai  looked at his friend. "Ah, yes, of  course. A  date
with Val."
     "No, I-"
     "Then what the devil-"
     "Nothing  will come of it, Nick. The surfaces of substances are  a hazy
subject. If famous scientists don't know how to handle them, then what's the
use of us trying?"
     "You needn't if you don't want to. I'll get along without you."
     "You can't.  At  least  I know my  way about electronics, which is more
than you can say."
     "Anyway,  I won't  give up.  There  must be a  field in  which  surface
tension increases."
     "A field!"  Yura  repeated  derisively. "'Oh,  field,  broad field, who
strewed you with whitened bones?'"
     Boris Privalov came up to the young  men. "Good morning,  boys. Doesn't
look as though there'll be any racing today, does it?"
     "The  races haven't been officially called off yet," said Yura.  "We're
waiting. Take a seat."
     The three of them sat side by side on the pier,  dangling their feet in
the water, the sun warming their backs, waiting for the wind to come up.
     "Do you recall our talk about surface tension, Boris?" Nikolai asked in
a determined voice.
     The sun flashed  on Privalov's glasses as he turned to look at Nikolai.
"Yes, I do."
     "Well, it's  like  this."  Nikolai launched  into a description of  the
experiment with water and a wire, and  mentioned the spiral and the  desired
field.
     Privalov listened closely, frowning and screwing up his eyes.
     "It's amateurish," he said  finally.  "You can't go in for that sort of
thing  without thorough preparation. There's a  book by Adam  on the physics
and chemistry of surfaces. I'll lend it to you." He was silent for a  while.
"Besides, at the  moment  we  have  more than  enough work on our hands, and
later there will be a pipeline across the whole of the Caspian."
     "I've been hearing about a transcaspian pipeline for years," said Yura.
"We're beginning to wonder whether it will ever be built."
     "It will. I forgot to ask you yesterday, Nikolai,  if you went over  to
Opratin's."
     "Yes, I did."
     "See anything interesting?"
     "Not particularly.  I think  they're  setting  up  a big  electrostatic
installation."
     "Electrostatic, you say?" Privalov looked thoughtful.
     Yura sprang to his feet. "A wind! A wind's coming up!"
     A light southerly sea breeze ruffled the surface of the bay and rustled
in  the trees along Seaside Boulevard. The flag of the Chief Judge fluttered
tautly.
     A ship's bell tinkled. The class M flag was run up.
     "The  centreboard boats are getting ready," Yura said excitedly. "If it
blows a little stronger the keel boats can follow suit. Let's go."
     After  the centreboards the  Star  class  boats started off.  There was
enough wind for these small, light boats which carried a great deal of sail.
     The wind freshened, and half an hour later boats of the L-4  class were
announced. Soon the steady ringing of a ship's bell informed the competitors
that five minutes were left before the start.
     Ah, those last five  minutes! What a tricky business it was getting  as
close to  the starting line  as possible within those five  minutes, but not
crossing it ahead of time!
     Four rings of the bell  meant four minutes were left, then  three, two,
and one. Finally, a quick ringing of the bell gave the signal for the start.
Beating  against  the  wind,  the  boats  entered  the   first  lap  of  the
fifteen-mile course.
     Wind filled the sails as the sheet, held in strong hands, quivered; the
sea whispered to the boats sliding through it;  the sun bathed everything in
gold against the blue of the sea.
     The  Mekong  was  among  the first  to  round  the mark.  Following  an
advantageous course, it  approached its closest  rival on  a parallel course
windward, but  the other boat did not  let the  Mekong overtake it.  In  the
excitement  both crews forgot about the other competitors. When  the  Mekong
finally  forged ahead, the  crews discovered that almost all the other boats
had overtaken both of them, were rounding  the  second buoy and were raising
their spinnakers,  the  big triangular sails  used when  running  before the
wind.
     Yura, who  was  sitting  on  the  deck, raised  himself  on  one  knee.
"Obstacle ahead!" he shouted. "Two boats lying at anchor!"
     When  the  Mekong came closer they saw a man in a straw  hat sitting in
one of the boats. They  could hear  the motor running, but the  boat was not
moving.
     The second boat, some distance away, was empty.
     "Ahoy there!" Yura shouted, leaning over the side. "Watch out!"
     Just  then the  wind  died down,  prompting  the thought that Nature is
sometimes actively hostile to man. Why else should the wind die down at noon
on a Sunday just when a regatta is at its height?
     The  sails  flapped  several  times  and  then  hung limp.  The  Mekong
continued to move  forward a short  distance by inertia  before coming  to a
full stop about half a cable length from the motor-boat.
     "Well,  all we  can  do now  is  sunbathe.  What a  race!" said Yura in
disgust. Whistling  softly, he scratched the boom with his fingernails, then
threw a ten-kopek  coin overboard. But these century-old  remedies failed to
call up a wind.
     "I've done  everything I can," Yura announced. Then he stretched out on
the deck and began to sing in a doleful voice:

     The river flows but it doesn't flow;
     The day got off to a bad start.
     How can I tell you what's in my heart?
     But I think you probably know.

     Nikolai  glanced  at  the  distant  shore  and  the refrigeration plant
outlined against the blue sky.
     "Why,"  he said wonderingly,  "I  believe  this is  the spot  where  we
rescued that young woman in the red dress."
     All  of a sudden silence  descended as the motor  of the boat ahead was
switched off. They heard an angry voice say:
     "I came here first. Everything I find here is mine."
     "Don't be silly," another  voice  said. "The sea doesn't belong to you.
It belongs to everyone."
     "I'll show you who it belongs to!"
     The motorboat rocked as the man in the straw hat waved his arms.
     "I  wonder  who he's talking  to?"  Nikolai looked more closely at  the
motorboat. Then he fetched his binoculars from the cabin and trained them on
the  straw hat.  "Just what I  thought. The voice sounded  familiar.  That's
Opratin."
     "Give him my regards," Privalov said.
     "Damn it!"  Nikolai  exclaimed. "You  spoke of wanting  the scuba gear,
Yura. Well, there it is."
     Taking the  binoculars, Yura clearly saw Bugrov's big head in the water
beside  the  motorboat. The mask was pushed up on Vova's forehead and he was
clinging to the boat with one hand.
     Yura  lowered the  binoculars.  "You're right. The  diving  gear is  in
danger. It looks as though they want to drown each other."
     "I'd like to know what they're doing here," said Nikolai. "Do you mind,
Boris, if I take a short swim?"
     "Don't be too long. The wind may come up any minute."
     "I'll be back soon." With  these words Nikolai plunged into the sea and
swam towards the motorboat.
     "Come, Yura," said Privalov, lighting a cigarette and letting the smoke
out through his nostrils, "tell me about your experiments once again."
     That morning Nikolai Opratin had spent more than an hour on  the  small
wharf belonging  to the Institute of Marine Physics. He had attached a cable
drum to the side of an Institute motor-boat and had wound on it a thin cable
with a strong electromagnet at its end.
     Anatole Benedictov had said the knife could be magnetized.  If this was
so, then he, Opratin,  would find  it. How stupid that the knife should have
fallen overboard!  And  what  a scene Benedictov  had made  on deck! Opratin
recalled the glass ampoule on the biophysicist's desk. A drug addict.
     Yet without that scene  on  deck he, Opratin, would not have learned of
the existence of the mysterious knife. A drop of common sense in a barrel of
nonsense.
     Opratin finished equipping  the boat, started up the motor, and chugged
out of the bay.
     The  sea heaved lazily beneath the hot August sun. The red cone of  the
fairway buoy with a big white "18" painted  on it rocked on the surface. The
TV mast was at  Opratin's stern and the refrigeration plant on the left.  He
turned the boat a few degrees to starboard.
     Now this must be the place. This was where Benedictov's wife had fallen
overboard after the knife had dropped into the sea. An interesting woman, no
doubt about that. Had she fallen or had she jumped?
     An empty boat bobbed in  the water about  twenty metres away. Where was
the owner?  Had  he drowned? Or had  the boat torn free  of its moorings and
drifted out of the bay? Opratin was not in the least interested. He pushed a
lever which  switched the motor's drive from the propeller to a generator to
which the cable with the electromagnet was attached. The cable wound off the
drum  into the  water. Opratin wondered  how soon his particular  fish would
bite.
     At  the  end  of  the  cable  was  an electromagnetic  underwater probe
connected with an ultrasonic range-finder. The zigzagging green  line on the
oscillograph screen would  show  the  shape of metallic objects  on the  sea
floor.  If Opratin wanted  some  object he could switch on the electromagnet
and pick it up.
     Using the oars,  Opratin  slowly moved the boat back and forth, combing
the place.  Suddenly the cable  jerked. Bubbles rose  to the surface, then a
huge hand was thrust out of  the water, followed by a head, the face covered
by a mask. The mask was connected by a hose to a cylinder on the man's back.
     The diver closed the valve of the aqualung and pushed the mask up  onto
his  forehead, revealing a  broad  face with a heavy jaw. Opratin recognized
him at once. He  was the man who had tried to take the knife from Benedictov
aboard the Uzbekistan. It  was obvious why he was at this particular spot in
the sea. An unpleasant situation.
     While the diver coughed and spat  out water Opratin decided to take the
offensive.
     "Hey you, there!" he shouted. "Why the devil did you pull my cable?"
     "You'll soon find out!" came the  answer in a threatening tone. The man
swam over to Opratin's motorboat, reached up to grip its side, and let loose
a stream  of obscenities that set Opratin's teeth on edge. The  substance of
Bugrov's  monologue  was  that  law-abiding citizens could  not  go  in  for
skin-diving on  their day off because "others"-a word which Bugrov proceeded
to define-played all kinds of dirty tricks on them.
     Bugrov had been combing the area in circles. He would  anchor his boat,
dive down and swim around  in a circle,  studying  the  firmly-packed  sandy
bottom.  His supply  of  air was almost  half  used up when  he saw  a black
cylinder suspended from a cable slowly moving over the bottom. He swam up to
the cylinder and  tugged at it, gripping the place where it was  attached to
the cable. An electric shock galvanized him, and he tore his hand away  with
difficulty. Dazed and angered, he headed for the surface.
     Bugrov had been having bad luck with electricity lately.
     "Get going, quick-before I turn your tub upside down!" he roared.
     Opratin  did  not want any  trouble,  the more so that  a  sailboat was
approaching.  He moved  over to the stern  and  said  in a  placative  tone,
"Listen, how was I to know you were swimming here?"
     "Couldn't you see my boat? Stop acting innocent, you scum!"
     They wrangled  for another  few  minutes, until Opratin realized he was
being foolish  and  would have  to get  rid of the man  some  other  way. He
switched off the motor,  gave  the becalmed sailboat a fleeting  glance, and
said,  "I know what  you're  looking for, but  you'll never find it with  an
aqualung."
     Bugrov blinked in disbelief.
     "D'you take me for a  fool?" he asked  hoarsely. "Get out! I  came here
first. Everything I find here is mine."
     "Don't  be  silly!  The  sea  doesn't belong  to  you.  It  belongs  to
everyone."
     "I'll show you  who it belongs to!" Bugrov began to rock the motorboat.
Opratin had to throw out his arms to keep his balance.
     "All right, I'm leaving," Opratin said, strongly tempted to hit the man
over the head with  his anchor. "But you'll  never  see that knife.  You can
take my word for it as a scientist."
     This  made  an impression  on Bugrov,  who  had  a  deep  faith in  the
omnipotence of science.
     "Are you  looking for the knife too?"  he  asked in  what was almost  a
civil tone.
     "There, that's the  way  to talk," said Opratin. "Yes, I am. If I don't
find it I'll make one just like it."
     Bugrov gave the face under the straw hat a thoughtful glance.
     "I'm apt  to be quick-tempered," he said.  "Maybe  I said some things I
shouldn't have."
     Opratin gave a wry grin.


     Nikolai quickly covered the hundred metres or  so to the motorboat in a
noiseless breast stroke. As  he  approached it he  heard Bugrov say,  "All I
want is the knife. I'm willing to make sacrifices for science."
     "I'm glad to hear it," said Opratin.
     "I am what  I am," Bugrov said modestly. "Will I be going to the island
often?"
     "No, not very."
     "There's  a  fishery nearby.  I can get caviar  cheap  there."  He fell
silent, his head filled with visions of future profits.
     At that  moment  Opratin caught  sight of  Nikolai  beside the boat. He
removed his dark glasses to take a better look.
     "Is that you?"  he  asked  with  a pleasant smile. "What  an unexpected
encounter!"
     "Hi, there," called  Bugrov,  recognizing his neighbour. "Where" d  you
drop from?"
     "That  sailboat,"  Nikolai  caught hold of  the motorboat's  life line.
"We're becalmed, so I decided to take a swim."
     An awkward silence followed.
     "I'll  be on my way," said Bugrov,  pushing off from the motorboat. "Do
you want your scuba gear now?"
     "No," said Nikolai. "Bring it to me at home."
     Bugrov swam back to his rowboat.
     "I see you know him," remarked Opratin.
     "Yes, we live in the same house." Nikolai stared  at the generator, the
face plate of the cathode-ray tube of the oscillograph and the drum with the
cable running into the sea.
     Opratin smiled. "How I envy you. Sailing is a wonderful  sport. But  I,
as you can see, have to carry out investigations on Sundays too."
     "Yes, I  see," said Nikolai, trying feverishly to make out what sort of
cable it was. "Well, good luck."
     He pushed off from the motorboat and swam back to the sailboat. If only
he had known the circumstances under which he would cling to the  life  line
of that motorboat a second time!


        CHAPTER EIGHT

        IN WHICH PRIVALOV ACQUIRES A NEW ALLY

     The  wheel now worked well. Unwinding the "spool", a tug  had laid  the
first  pipeline  to Neftianiye Reefs.  The pressure trials  completed,  they
returned  home towards  evening. At this  time of day  there  was  not  much
traffic on the road, which ran between  vineyards, with  oil derricks beyond
them, and their sleek grey car made good time.
     Privalov  relaxed  in the  back  seat,  satisfied  after  two  days  of
intensive  work.  Pavel  Koltukhov, who  sat beside him,  dozed  and  smoked
simultaneously; he  woke every  now  and then to take  a  puff or two on his
cigarette and then closed his eyes again.
     Nikolai was at the wheel. Beside him Yura  was going through his  notes
on the pressure trials.
     "That's a load off  my mind," Privalov said with  a sigh.  "I hope  the
builders will be able to handle the parallel pipelines without us."
     "You can gird your loins for another job," said Koltukhov.
     "You mean  the  transcaspian  pipeline? But  the  project  hasn't  been
approved yet."
     "Approval was wired yesterday. Is your survey programme ready?"
     "It's been ready a long time."
     "That's fine. We'll discuss it tomorrow."
     Nikolai slowed down as they passed through a small town and then put on
speed when they came out into open country again.
     "How are things going, boys?" Privalov asked  in a low voice. "Have you
read that book by Adam?"
     "It  isn't  what you'd  call light reading,"  Nikolai  replied.  "We're
stuck, Boris. We're thinking of experimenting with mercury."
     The remainder of the drive into town passed in silence. After the young
men got out  on the corner of Toilers  of the Sea Street,  Privalov took the
wheel and drove to the Institute.
     "Look here, Boris," said Koltukhov. "Do you think it's fair to let your
imagination run  wild and  make  those two young men pay for it  by  wasting
their time and energy?"
     "I'm  not  making them do anything. They  started experimenting without
sufficient  theoretical grounding. I  told them what  to read  and gave them
some advice. That's all."
     "Then why  does  Nikolai spend  every  free  minute  of his time in the
automation department, showering everyone there with questions?"
     Privalov  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "Aren't  you   letting   your  own
imagination  run wild?  Dabbling in resins  like  an  alchemist,  in between
conferences?"
     "I'm  doing  something  useful.   I'm  improving  pipeline   insulation
materials."
     "But  you've  done  that already. Now  you're  making  some  smelly new
compounds. People have to hold their noses when they go past  your den under
the stairway."
     Koltukhov merely grinned.
     "All right," he said,  lighting another cigarette. "I'll  let you in on
my secret.  My idea is a much  better one than yours. How do we  protect our
pipes and  steel  structures  from corrosion by sea water? By covering  them
with   insulation.  Besides  being  expensive,   this  method  isn't  always
dependable. When cracks form in the insulation, corrosion goes  ahead faster
than ever, as you yourself know. Another way of controlling corrosion is  by
using electricity, but this is expensive too, and it involves a lot of work.
You have to  string transmission lines and  bring a positive  charge  to the
pipeline. My idea  is a plastic coating  that would serve  as insulation and
have an electrostatic charge at the same time."
     "Not a bad idea," said Privalov. "But mine is better. It does away with
both pipes and insulation."
     Koltukhov  dismissed  it  with a wave of  his hand.  "You  talk  like a
college boy, Boris."
     The car drove into the Institute yard.
     "Is old man Bagbanly in town?" Privalov asked.
     "I think so. Why?"
     "I'd like to get in touch with him."
     "Yes, do go and have a talk with him. He'll  throw  cold water on  your
idea, if anyone does."
     They  sat  on the balcony  drinking  tea.  Professor  Bakhtiar Bagbanly
thoughtfully stirred his glass as he gazed out on the broad crescent of city
lights skirting the bay. A Corresponding Member of the  Academy of Sciences,
he  was  a   clever,  erudite  man  with  the  skilful  hands  of  a  gifted
experimenter. He had been Privalov's favourite lecturer when Privalov was an
undergraduate  twenty  years before.  Many  of  Professor  Bagbanly's former
students dropped in to discuss their work with him. He was generous with his
knowledge and advice, and he addressed all the  young  people by their first
names.  They addressed  him  in the  Eastern fashion as "Bakhtiar  Muellim",
meaning "Teacher Bakhtiar".
     The old man  had  a large  grey  head,  black  eyebrows and a  drooping
silvery moustache beneath a hooked nose.
     Professor Bakhtiar  Bagbanly fixed his twinkling brown eyes on Privalov
and said, "I  didn't understand a  thing.  Your words  are  as vague  as the
dreams of a camel. Now tell me straight out. What is it that you want?"
     Privalov knew  that the  old man's brusque  manner was not  to be taken
seriously, and so he let the "camel" bit pass unheeded.
     "I'll begin from the beginning", he  said, taking a sip of tea.  "We're
starting to design a pipeline across the bed of the Caspian."
     The old man nodded.
     "A pipeline, as you know, is not an end in itself," Privalov continued.
"It is only a means towards an end, which is a regular supply of oil."
     "What's wrong with using a pipeline to attain this end?"
     "As far as that goes, nothing. But what is the purpose of the pipes? To
separate the oil from the environment."
     "That's well put."
     "Please don't make fun  of me, Bakhtiar Muellim. When  it  comes to the
technique  of transporting  oil  across a  sea, or  transporting  one liquid
through  another  in general,  our thinking  is  conservative.  How  do  our
pipelines differ from  those used in ancient times? Well, the pipes are more
durable and the pumps more powerful. But the principle of the thing  remains
the same.  Pipeline delivery is better than  using  oil tankers,  of course.
It's cheaper and it does not pollute the sea. But, you realize-"
     "I  realize  that you don't like pipes.  How do  you propose to replace
them?"
     "This is what came to my mind." Privalov finished his tea and moved his
glass  aside. "I  recalled Plato's experiment. If we take  oil with the same
specific weight as that of water and pour it into the water, surface tension
will cause the oil to assume the minimum shape and form a sphere. Isn't that
so? But suppose we build up surface tension in such a way that it acts along
two axes instead  of  three? Then one  cross-section of  the oil  will  be a
circle and the other-  In a word, the oil will take the shape of a cylinder.
The surface of the oil will become a pipe, as it were."
     Professor  Bagbanly  grinned and  shook his  head. "Ingenious!  A  pipe
without a pipe. But please proceed."
     "Further," Privalov continued enthusiastically, "we must have  a field.
Imagine an underwater power beam pulsed along a route.  A definite frequency
would generate  a field  in which the oil  stretches along the  beam. Do you
realize what that would mean? A stream of oil running through the water from
the west coast of the Caspian to the east coast."
     "You've described  the  design  of the  steam  locomotive  to  me," the
professor said.  "Now  tell me how it can  travel  without being  pulled  by
horses. What would make the stream of oil move?"
     "Perhaps the energy of the beam itself. A conductor moves in a magnetic
field if  it crosses lines of force, doesn't it? I don't  know yet, Bakhtiar
Muellim. I'm just advancing a bare hypothesis."
     "Bare and defenceless," the old man added.
     There was  a long  silence. Then  Professor Bagbanly  rose and began to
pace the balcony.
     "You  speak  of  surface tension," he said finally, "and  you hope  old
Bakhtiar will gladden your ears with a harmonious concept. You nurse an idle
hope,  my son.  The  surfaces  of  matter constitute  one of the fundamental
riddles of modern physics. The surface  tension  of  liquids is a zone where
the  specific  properties of surfaces manifest  themselves.  Surface tension
produces  forces that are always directed  inwards. The tea in that glass is
in a state  of tension. Its surface  presses inwards from the top and bottom
and  sides with  a force of more than ten tons per square centimetre. Hence,
liquids  are well-nigh  incompressible.  Until  recently it was thought that
liquids could not be compressed at all. Or take solids. When we cut a  piece
of  clay with a knife we disunite whole worlds and form new surfaces. In the
process, energy is released."
     "Just what lies under a surface?" Privalov asked.
     "I  don't know, my son. Nobody knows yet. How  can you get under it? If
you  scrape  off  a surface,  another surface  of the substance  immediately
forms. It is the interface  on which the  interatomic forces  that  hold the
elements of  a  substance  together  interact with  the ambient  medium  and
achieve a balance in some specific  fashion. How? That is something we don't
yet know. But if we  get to know it, then sooner or later we'll penetrate to
the heart of  the matter. And once  we have fathomed the secrets of surfaces
we will proceed to utilize the colossal force latent in them."
     "Do  you mean to say  that  my idea  is  too far  ahead of the  times?"
Privalov asked sadly.
     "It  well may  be. Take an example  which Shuleikin cites in his Marine
Physics. When  an express train brakes suddenly  the enormous kinetic energy
it  releases  is absorbed  by  the extremely thin  surface layer of  contact
between the wheels and brake-shoes, yet this does not seem unbelievable.
     "Suppose," Bagbanly  continued as he walked back and forth, "we succeed
in increasing the surface tension and-"
     "You agree, Bakhtiar Muellim!" Privalov almost shouted.
     "Don't be in such a hurry. I assume that it is  possible-theoretically,
but not in reality."
     "Why?"
     "Because your oil 'sausage'-if you succeed in making one-will encounter
tremendous  resistance as  it moves through the water. Friction,  my friend.
Friction is also a property of  surfaces. The surface  layers will tear away
from the inner layers, and the jet will disintegrate."
     "Excellent,"  said  Privalov.  "That means we have another job-that  of
reducing the friction."
     Bagbanly dropped into an armchair and burst out laughing.
     "You're   wonderful,  Boris,"  he  said,  wiping  his  eyes  with   his
handkerchief.  "Both friction and surface tension are child's play  to  you.
You're even prepared to turn matter inside out."
     "Well,  I'll be going,  Bakhtiar Muellim, "  Privalov said with a sigh.
"Thanks for your advice."
     The old man stared  at him intently. "You know what? Take  me in  as  a
member  of  the team on this project. I'll work on it out of curiosity.  Who
knows what  may come of  it? But only on condition  we don't go to extremes.
We'll concentrate on the underlying principles and nothing more."


        CHAPTER NINE

        IN WHICH AN EXPERIMENT NOT ENTIRELY SUITABLE FOR THE HOME IS DESCRIBED

     "Are you sure the knife fell overboard, Rita?" Anatole Benedictov said.
     "Yes, I'm sure."
     "Quite sure?"
     "Well, really!" Rita laid aside her book and rose from the sofa.
     "Don't be angry,  darling. You see, a couple of men have hunted for the
knife on the sea bottom at that place and they failed to find it."
     "It would be easier to find a needle in a haystack."
     "You've changed lately. Your  attitude to my  work is different. That's
why I asked."
     "You're the one who's changed, Anatole.  You're simply stopped noticing
me.  Do give up those  experiments. Please  give  them up. They'll drive you
crazy.  They've  already  come between us. Think of  how wonderfully we were
getting along before that ill-fated discovery."
     "That's true," said Benedictov.
     "We were, weren't we?" Rita asked hopefully.
     Benedictov glanced at his watch. "A person is coming to see me in a few
minutes. We'll be doing some work together."
     Rita shook her head and silently left the study.


     Anatole  Benedictov had fallen in love with Rita several years earlier,
when he was teaching at the University and she was a gay,  vivacious biology
student  there. Shortly before that he had presented  a brilliant thesis for
an advanced  degree dealing with electric  currents in living organisms, and
had published a  study of electric fish which  had  aroused  much discussion
among biologists. During one  of his lectures he  had noticed several  girls
giggling  and  whispering as  they  passed  a  sheet  of  paper through  the
auditorium.  He strode rapidly over  to them and snatched up  the  paper. He
looked  down at  it  and frowned. What  he  saw was  a  sketch  of  himself,
shaggy-haired, thickset, with a fish's tail,  conducting  with  a trident as
fish danced round him. Beneath the sketch were the words, written  in a fine
handwriting:
     Neither fish  nor  fowl,  neither  physicist  nor  biologist,  He's  an
intermediate class electro-ichthyologist.
     "Whose work is this?" he asked,  letting  his angry eyes  roam over the
auditorium.
     A slender blonde girl rose. "It's mine,"  she  said politely, her brown
eyes gazing boldly into Benedictov's.
     It was an announcement rather than a statement.
     "Thank  you,"  Benedictov  said slowly,  in  a  slightly  nasal  voice,
thrusting the drawing into his pocket and continuing his lecture.
     After they were married, Benedictov admitted to Rita that when she said
"It's mine" he had suddenly felt a wave of heat engulf him.
     As for Rita Matveyev,  she  had  long been  in love  with the brilliant
lecturer.
     Rita graduated from  the University  the  year  they were  married  and
started  teaching biology in a secondary school. That same  year  Benedictov
was  given a  laboratory at a research institute.  Here he  enthusiastically
continued  his investigations in the sphere  of action potentials. The young
couple led a fast-paced life, keeping open house for their many friends.
     Half a  year  before their cruise on the Uzbekistan the Benedictovs had
moved into a new  flat. On moving day  there occurred  a strange event which
triggered a series of disasters.
     Rita  and her  husband had decided to leave a lot of  their  old things
behind when they  moved.  Anatole  naturally  protested  when  he found  her
putting an old flower vase and a rusty bar of iron into a packing crate.
     "We agreed not to take such things, Rita," he said. "You ought to throw
that trash away."
     Rita discarded the vase but insisted that she could not part  with  the
bar of iron,  which  had been in the possession of her family for years  and
years.
     "A Matveyev relic?" Benedictov asked  with a laugh, picking up the bar.
He turned it over in his hands and shook it.
     The blade of a knife slid out of the side of the bar.
     Benedictov  stared dumbfounded at the narrow blade. It was covered with
a thin, transparent layer of grease  through which a wavy pattern showed. He
cautiously touched the blade. His fingers went through it-just as they would
have passed through empty space.
     He pressed his hand to his eyes.
     "What's  the matter?"  Rita asked in alarm.  She  came  up  to him  and
glanced at the bar. Her eyes widened.
     No, she didn't know anything about the bar except, that according to an
old family  legend  a distant  ancestor  had brought it back from India. Her
father had treasured the bar all his life, and now  she was  doing the same.
No one had ever imagined there might be something inside it.
     Benedictov held the bar as if it were a  rattlesnake.  He slowly closed
his fist over the blade. His fingers came together over emptiness.
     Rita gave  a  start.  "Wait a minute," she said. "There was another bar
just like this one,  all covered with  rust. We used it  to prop  up the old
wardrobe that  had  a broken leg." She ran  into the next room,  returning a
moment  later to say, "It's gone. We  must have thrown it out yesterday when
we carted all that old rubbish away."
     The first few moments of astonishment gave way to curiosity. Benedictov
carefully examined the bar. Two lines of letters  were engraved on one side.
Between the two lines there was  something that  looked like a  crown. Or it
might  have simply been a  spot  of  rust. Benedictov  noticed a  fine  line
running round the outside of the  bar. The whole thing was  obviously  not a
solid bar of iron but a box with a cover.
     After a  long struggle Benedictov finally pried off the top. Inside the
box lay a knife handle, with a piece of cloth wound round it. The cloth must
have become loosened with time and when the box was shaken the blade dropped
out.
     There was nothing extraordinary about the  beautiful handle of yellowed
ivory. It could be grasped. He concluded that the  section of the blade that
went into the handle must be made  of ordinary metal too, otherwise it would
not remain attached to the handle.
     But the  blade  itself! It  passed  freely  through  everything without
leaving the slightest trace, as though it were made of thin air.
     The first glimpse of the mysterious knife marked a turning point in the
life  of the Benedictovs. Anatole  determined  to  get to  the  root of  the
mystery.
     "Penetrability. The  ability to  pass through  matter. That's the goal,
Rita. You say this knife has been in your family at least two hundred years?
Well,  if  they could make a knife that  passes through matter you and I can
certainly do the same."
     Anatole painted  glowing pictures  of  Altered  Matter which  man could
easily control. Rita  became enthusiastic too. She helped Anatole  to set up
experiments and kept a record of their results.
     Weeks and then months passed.  Benedictov turned his study into a small
laboratory where, more and  more frequently, he worked through the night. He
grew impatient  and irritable.  Rita  noticed that his behaviour  had become
strange. At  times he would be  depressed  and  sullen,  and  then  he would
suddenly become his cheerful,  energetic self again,  capable of working for
days on end without resting. He fell into apathy just as suddenly.
     Rita  grew  worried. She  now realized that Anatole had taken on  a job
that  was too much  for one  man. But when she tentatively suggested that he
ought to let the Academy of Sciences  know  about his discovery  he declared
that he could not do  this until he  himself got to  the bottom  of it. With
great difficulty she persuaded him to take her on  a holiday  cruise  on the
Volga.
     We already know how disastrously their holiday ended.
     When the doorbell  rang, Anatole jumped up  but  Rita  got to the  door
first. She opened it to Nikolai Opratin, who looked his usual dapper self in
an elegant grey  suit. Bending  his neatly combed head, he touched  his cold
lips to Rita's hand and inquired after her health.
     "I am in perfect health," Rita  said, enunciating the words distinctly.
"Goodbye."
     "Hold on, there. Where are you going?" Anatole asked.
     "To the  pictures."  The door slammed  shut  and  the two men were left
alone in the flat.
     "All the better without her." Anatole growled, leading the way into his
study.
     Nikolai  Opratin  cast a  critical  glance  over the equipment. Then he
removed his jacket, carefully pulled up his  trousers at the knees, and sank
into an armchair. Benedictov sat down opposite him.
     "First, Anatole,  I want  you  to  tell me in  detail about the knife,"
Opratin began.
     He listened closely to Benedictov's account.
     "Indian  magic.  If  I hadn't  seen it  myself  I wouldn't believe  it.
Penetrability ends near the handle, you say?"
     "Yes, there's a sort of intermediate zone of about six millimetres. The
part that goes into the handle is ordinary steel."
     "Did you weigh the blade?"
     "Yes. The weight corresponds to the size."
     "That's extremely interesting. It means the knife behaves like ordinary
matter in the gravitational field."
     "It seems to me,"  said Benedictov, "that the bonds between  atoms,  or
perhaps within atoms, have been changed in some way in this knife.
     I am  convinced that the properties  of  living  organisms, whose vital
functions are connected with the discharge of  energy in the  form of action
potentials, will provide the key to the riddle."
     He  went over to the round aquarium encircled by wire and launched into
a discourse, but Opratin soon interrupted him.
     "I get the picture, Anatole," he said courteously  but firmly. "You put
the fish between the plates of  a capacitor  in an  oscillatory circuit  and
look for  a resonance  in the bioelectrical frequency  of  the fish. I don't
think this avenue will  lead you  anywhere.  You're right, though, about one
thing -that the inter-atomic bonds in the  knife  were altered.  But how was
the energy of the intrinsic bonds of this substance overcome? If we only had
the knife now! By the way, you said it  lay inside an iron box.  You haven't
lost the box too, have you?"
     Benedictov took a small iron  bar from a drawer  and  held  it  out  to
Opratin. It looked something like a pencil case.
     Opratin sprang to his feet. "What the  devil!"  he exclaimed. "The same
letters!"
     Engraved on the cover were  the letters  "A M D G". Below the letters a
crown had been engraved, and below that were "J d M" in smaller letters.
     Opratin walked  the length  of  the  study and back  again,  his  steps
ringing like the pounding of a hammer.
     "What's the  matter?"  Benedictov asked,  turning  his  head to  follow
Opratin. "What's upset you?"
     "Oh, nothing much. What do those letters stand for?"
     "The  upper four are the initial letters of a Jesuit motto but I  don't
remember it. I don't know what the bottom ones stand for. It's unlikely they
have anything to do with our problem."
     "Well, let's not  lose time setting  up our  first experiment. When you
described your generator I got an idea. Was a crate of instruments delivered
to you today?"
     "Yes. By the  way, were you the  one who  sent that  ape to  this place
disguised as an electrician?"
     "How  could  you  ever  think  that?  He's  my  laboratory  technician.
Extremely useful, and not  a bad fellow at all. But to get back to business.
I think we should begin with a minimum surface, with the point of a needle."
     Opratin  opened  a case  and took out  a metal holder to which  a long,
highly polished needle was attached. Then he briefly set forth the method of
the experiment.
     The equipment lay on a small table, u