“Uh-huh,” said Kostylin, “and Athos is still more of a biologist than a spacer.”
“But what a biologist!” Pol raised a finger. “Honestly, I brag about having been friends with him in school.”
“Me too,” Kostylin agreed. “But you wait five years or so, and we’ll be bragging about being friends with the Captain.”
“Right,” said Pol. “And here I drift around like a bit of foil in the wind. I want to try everything. Now, you were just scolding me for not writing.” He put down his mug with a sigh. “I can’t write when I’m busy with something. Writing is boring then. When you’re working on a subject, writing is boring, because everything is ahead of you. And when you finish, it’s boring because it’s all behind you… And then you don’t know what’s ahead. You know, Lin, everything has really been working out stupidly for me. Here I work four years on theoretical servomechanics. One girl and I solved Chebotarev’s Problem—you remember, Teacher told us about it? We solve it, build two very good regulators… and I fall in love with the girl. And then everything ended and… everything ended.”
“You haven’t gotten married?” Kostylin asked sympathetically.
“That’s not the point. It was just that when other people work, they always get new ideas of some sort, but I didn’t. The work was finished, and it didn’t interest me any more. In these ten years I’ve gone through four specialties. And again I’m out of ideas. So I thought to myself, I’ll go find old Lin.”
“Quite right!” Kostylin said in his deep voice. “I’ll give you twenty ideas!”
“So give,” Pol said sluggishly. He grew gloomy and buried his nose in the mug.
Kostylin looked at him with thoughtful interest. “Couldn’t you get into endocrinology?” he proposed.
“Could be endocrinology,” said Pol. “Even if it is a hard word. And anyhow, all these ideas are utter languor of the spirit.”
Kostylin said suddenly, and without obvious relevance to what had gone before, “I’m getting married soon.”
“Wonderful!” Pol said sadly. “Just don’t tell me all about your happy love in X thousand boring words.” He became more lively. “Happy love is inherently boring anyhow,” he declared. “Even the ancients understood that. No real craftsman has been attracted by the theme of happy love. For great works, unhappy love was always an end in itself, but happy love is at best background.”
Kostylin assented reluctantly.
“True depth of feeling is characteristic only of unrequited love,” Pol continued with inspiration. “Unhappy love makes a person active, churns him up, but happy love calms him down, spiritually castrates him.”
“Cheer up, Polly,” said Kostylin. “It will all pass. The good thing about unhappy love is that it is usually short-lived. Let me pour you some more juice.”
“No, Lin,” said Pol, “I think this is long-lived. After all, two years have already gone by. She probably doesn’t even remember me, and I…” He looked at Kostylin. “Excuse me, Lin. I know it isn’t very nice when someone cries all over your shoulder. Only this is all so interminable. I sure as hell wasn’t lucky in love.”
Kostylin nodded helplessly. “Would you like me to put you in touch with Teacher?” he asked uncertainly.
Pol shook his head and said, “No. I don’t want to talk to Teacher when I’m like this. I’d feel like a fool.”
“Mmm, yes,” Kostylin said, and thought, What’s true is true. Teacher can’t stand unhappy people. He looked at Pol suspiciously. Could clever Polly be playing the unfortunate? He had a good appetite—it was a pleasure to watch him eating. And he loved attention, as always. “Do you remember Operation October?” Lin asked.
“Of course!” Pol once again came to life. “Do you remember how the plan failed?”
“Well-how should I put it?… We were too young.”
“Good heavens!” said Pol He grew more cheerful. “Teacher sicked us on Walter on purpose! And then he smashed us in the examination—”
“What examination?”
“Zow, Lin!” Pol shouted delightedly. “The Captain was right—you’re the only one who never figured it out!”
Kostylin slowly came to the realization. “Yes, of course,” he said. “But what do you mean, I never figured it out? I just forgot. And do you remember how the Captain tested us for acceleration?”
“That was when you ate all that chocolate to see if you could handle the extra weight?” Pol said wickedly.
“And do you remember how we tested the rocket fuel?” Kostylin recollected hurriedly.
“Yeah,” Pol said dreamily. “Boy, did it thunder!”
“I have the scar to this day,” Kostylin said with pride. “Here—feel it.” He turned his back to Pol.
Pol felt it with pleasure. “We were good kids,” he said. “Glorious. Do you remember when on parade we turned into a herd of crayspiders?”
“Uff, it was noisy!”
They were sweet memories. Pol suddenly jumped up and with unusual animation imitated a crayspider. The surroundings filled with the repulsive gnashing howl of the multilegged monster that stole through the jungles of fearsome Pandora. And as if in reply, a deep roaring sigh came from afar. Pol froze in fright. “What’s that?” he asked.
Kostylin laughed. “Some spider you make! That’s cattle!”
“What sort of cattle?” Pol asked in indignation.
“Beef cattle,” Lin explained. “Astonishingly good either grilled or roasted.”
“Listen, Lin,” said Pol, “those are worthy opponents. I want a look at them. And anyhow, I want to see what you do around here.”
Kostylin’s face filled with boredom. “Forget it, Polly,” he said. “Cattle are cattle. Let’s sit here a little longer. I’ll get you some more juice. All right?”
But it was too late. Pol had filled with energy. “The unknown is calling us! Forward, on to the beef cattle, who throw down the gauntlet to crayspiders! Where’s my shirt? Didn’t some pedigreed bull promise me a clean shirt?”
“Polly, Polly,” Kostylin exhorted, “you’ve got cattle on the brain! Let’s go to the lab instead.”
“I’m septic,” Pol declared. “I don’t want to go to the lab. I want to go to the cattle.”
“They’ll butt you,” Kostylin said, and stopped short. That had been a mistake.
“Really?” Polly said with quiet rapture. “A shirt. Red. I’ll get a bullfight going.”
Kostylin slapped his hands on his thighs in despair. “Look what I get stuck with! A craymatador!”
He got up and headed for the building. As he walked past Pol, Pol stood on tiptoes, bent over, and did a semiveronica with great elegance. Lin began to bellow, and butted him in the stomach.
When he saw the cattle, Pol immediately realized that there would be no bullfight. Under the bright, hot sky, enormous spotted hulks moved slowly in a row through thick, succulent, man-high grass stretching out to the horizon. The line ate its way into the soft green plain-and behind it was left black steaming ground bare of a single blade of grass. A steady electric odor hung over the plain—there was the smell of ozone, warm black soil, grass, and fresh manure.
“Zow!” Pol whispered, and sat down on a hummock.
The line of cattle moved past him. The school where Pol had studied was in a grain district and Pol knew little about cattle raising, and had long forgotten what little he had learned. He had never had occasion to think about beef cattle, either. He simply ate beef. And now, with a rumble and ceaseless crackling, a herd of beef on the hoof, crunching, tramping, and masticating, went past him with heart-rending sighs. From time to time some enormous brown dribbling muzzle, smeared with green, stuck up from the grass and let out an indistinct deep roar.
Then Pol noticed the cybers. They walked a bit ahead of the line—brisk, flat machines on broad soft caterpillar treads. Now and again they stopped and dug into the ground, lagged behind, and then rushed forward. There were few of them, perhaps fifteen in all. They rushed along t
he line with frightening speed, throwing moist black clods out from under their treads in fan-shaped showers.
Suddenly a dark cloud covered the sun. A heavy, warm rain began. Pol looked back at the village, at the white cottages scattered over the dark green of gardens. It seemed to him that the paraboloid grids of the weather condensers, on the openwork tower of the microweather station, were staring straight at him. The rain passed quickly; the cloud moved along after the herd. Dim silhouettes that had unexpectedly appeared on the horizon caught Pol’s attention, but here he started getting bitten. They were nasty-looking insects, small, gray, winged. Pol realized that these were flies. Perhaps even dung-covered ones. Once he had figured this out, Pol jumped up and rushed briskly back to the village. The flies did not pursue him.
Pol crossed a stream, stopped on the bank, and debated for some time whether or not to go swimming. Deciding it wasn’t worth it, he began climbing the path to the village. As he walked, he thought, It was right that I got the rain dumped on me. And the flies know who to land on… It’s what I get for being a parasite. Everybody works like human beings. The Captain is up in space… Athos catches fleas on blue stars… Lin, the lucky man, cures cattle. Why am I like this? Why should I, an honest, hard-working man, feel like a parasite? He shuffled down the path and thought about how good it had been the night when he latched onto the solution of Chebotarev’s Problem, and had dragged Lida from her bed and made her verify it. When everything had turned out right, she even kissed him on the cheek. Pol touched his cheek and sighed. It would be great to bury himself now in some really good problem like Fermat’s Theorem! But there was nothing in his head but ringing emptiness and some idiotic voice that affirmed, “If we find a square root…”
On the edge of the village Pol stopped again. Under a spreading cherry tree, a one-seater pterocar was resting on its wing. Near the pterocar squatted a boy of about fifteen, with a sorrowful expression. In front of him, buzzing monotonously, a long-legged litter robot rolled through the grass. Evidently all was not well with the litter robot.
Pol’s shadow fell over the boy, and the boy raised his head and then got up. “I landed the pterocar on him,” he said with an unusually familiar guilty look.
“And now you’re repenting, huh?” Pol asked as a teacher might.
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” the boy said angrily.
For some time they watched silently the evolutions of the squashed robot. Then Pol squatted down decisively. “Well, let’s see what we’ve got here,” he said, and took the robot by a manipulator. The robot let out a squeal.
“Does it hurt?” Pol sang tenderly, easing his fingers into the regulatory system. “Did im hurt ims paw? Poor baby hurt ims paw.”
The robot squealed again, shuddered, and was quiet. The boy sighed with relief and squatted down too. “That’s it,” he muttered. “Boy, was it yelling when I got out of the pterocar!”
“Of course we yelled, we did,” cooed Pol, unscrewing the armor. “We’ve got ourselves a good acoustics system, a loudmouthed one. It’s an itty bitty AKU-6, it is, with longitudinal vibration… molecular-notchedy-watchty, it is… ye-es.” Pol took off the armor plate and carefully laid it on the grass. “And what is your name?”
“Fedor,” said the boy, “Fedor Skvortsov.” He watched Pol’s deft hands enviously.
“Well, Uncle Fedor, the litter robot is as strong as three bears,” Pol communicated, extracting the regulator block from the depths of the robot. “I already know one Fedor here. A likable fellow, freckled. A very, very aseptic young man. Are you related to him?”
“No,” the boy said cheerfully. “I’m here for practical training. Are you a cyberneticist?”
“We’re passing through, we are,” Pol said, “in search of ideas. Do you-ums have any sparey-wary ideas?”
“I… my… in the laboratory we get a lot of ideas, and nothing ever works out.”
“I understand,” muttered Pol, digging into the regulator block. “A flock of ideas rush every whichway up into the air. At this point the hunter runs out and shoots the crayspider…”
“You’ve been on Pandora?” the boy asked with envy.
Pol looked around furtively, then let out the yelp of a crayspider that is overtaking its prey.
“Great!”
Pol put the litter robot back together, whispered to it through its steel-blue back, and the robot rolled into the direct sunlight to accumulate energy.
“Marvelous!” Pol said, wiping his hands on his pants. “Now let’s see what shape the pterocar’s in.”
“No, please,” Fedor said quickly. “I’ll do it myself, honest.”
“By yourself, then,” said Pol. “In that case I’ll go wash my hands. Who’s your teacher?”
“My teacher is Nikolai Kuzmich Belka, the oceanographer,” the boy said, bristling.
Pol did not risk anything witty, and silently clapped the boy on the shoulder and went on his way. He felt much better. He had already gone two blocks into the village when a familiar pterocar darted by with a whoosh and a boy’s voice, intolerably out of tune, imitated the yelp of a crayspider that is overtaking its prey.
Lost in thought, Pol ran into a two-headed calf. It shied off to the side and stared at Pol with both pairs of eyes. Then it lowered its left head to the grass under its feet and turned the right to a lilac branch hanging over the road. Here it was nicked with a switch, and it ran on, kicking. The two-headed calf was being herded by a very attractive suntanned girl who wore a colorful peasant dress and a tilted straw hat. Pol muttered crazily, “And everywhere that Mary went, her, uh, calf was sure to go.”
“What?” asked the girl, stopping.
No, she wasn’t just attractive. She was plain beautiful. So beautiful she couldn’t fail to be smart, so smart she couldn’t fail to be nice, so nice… Pol suddenly wanted to be tall and broad-shouldered, with an unfurrowed brow and steely calm eyes. His thoughts darted in a zigzag. If nothing else, I have to be witty. He said, “My name is Pol.”
The girl answered, “I’m Irina. Did you say something to me, Pol?”
Pol broke out in a sweat. The girl waited, looking impatiently after the calf, which was moving off. The thoughts in Pol’s head darted in three layers. Let us find the square root… Cupid fires from a double-barreled carbine… Now she’ll think I’m a stutterer. Aha! A stutterer—that was a thought.
“Y-you’re in a h-hurry, I see,” he said, stuttering with all his might. “I’ll Hook you up th-this evening, if I m-may. Th-this evening.”
“Of course.” The girl was obviously pleased.
“T-till evening,” Pol said, and went on. I talked a little, he thought. We had a little c-conversation. I’m a veritable skyrocket of wit. He pictured himself at the moment of that conversation, and even moaned nasally at his awkwardness.
Somewhere nearby a loudspeaker boomed: “Will all unoccupied anesthesia specialists please stop by Laboratory Three? Potenko calling. We’ve got an idea. Will all unoccupied anesthesia specialists please stop by Laboratory Three? And don’t come crashing into the main building like last time. Laboratory Three. Laboratory Three.”
Why aren’t I a specialist in anesthesia? thought Pol. After all, I wouldn’t dream of crashing into the main building. Two fair maidens in shorts rushed past, down the middle of the street, their elbows pressed to their sides. Probably specialists.
It was quiet and empty in the village. A lonely litter robot languished in the sun at a perfectly clean intersection. Out of pity, Pol threw it a handful of leaves. The robot immediately came to life and set to work. I haven’t met so many litter robots in any city, thought Pol. But then, on a stock farm anything can happen.
A solid thunder of hoofs sounded from behind. Pol turned around in fright, and four horses galloped headlong past him, flanks foaming. On the lead horse, crouched over the mane, was a fellow in white shorts, tanned almost black and glossy with sweat. The other steeds were riderless. Near a low building twenty yards from Pol, at
full gallop, the fellow jumped from the horse right onto the steps of the porch. He whistled piercingly and disappeared into the door. The horses, snorting and twisting their necks, described a semicircle and came back to the porch. Pol did not even have time to be properly envious. Three boys and a girl ran out of the low building, leaped onto the horses, and rushed back past Pol at the same mad gait. They were already turning the corner when the fellow in the white shorts jumped out onto the porch and shouted after them, “Take the samples right to the station. Aleshka!”
There was no longer anyone on the street. The fellow stood there a little while, wiped his forehead, and returned to the building. Pol sighed and went on.
He stopped and listened at the threshold to Kostylin’s laboratory. The sounds that reached him seemed strange: A muffled blow. A heavy sigh. Something sliding. A bored voice said, “Right.” Silence. Again a muffled blow. Pol looked around at the sun-flooded laboratory square. Kostylin’s voice said, “Liar. Hold it.” A muffled blow. Pol went into the entryway and saw a white door with a sign, SURGICAL LABORATORY. Behind the door the bored voice said, “Why do we always take the thigh? We could take the back.” Kostylin’s bass answered, “The Siberians tried that—it didn’t work.” Again a muffled blow.
Pol went up to the door. It opened noiselessly. There was a lot of light in the laboratory, and along the walls shined strange-looking installations frosted with white. The broad panes set in the wall showed dark. Pol asked, “Can someone septic come in?”
No one answered. There were about ten people in the laboratory. They all looked gloomy and pensive. Three sat together, silent, on a large low bench. They looked at Pol without any expression. Two others sat with their backs to the door, by the far wall, with their heads together, reading something. The rest were gathered together in a semicircle in a corner. In the center of the semicircle, his face to the wall, towered Kostylin. He was covering his eyes with his right hand. His left hand was pushed through under his right arm. Freckled Fedor, who was also standing in the semicircle, slapped him on the left palm. The semicircle stirred, and thrust forward fists with thumbs up. Kostylin silently turned and pointed to a person, who silently shook his head, and Kostylin took up his former pose.