“This just isn’t that same parrot,” said the polite Eddie. “You must be mistaken.”
“It’s the one,” I said. “Green and with a ring.”
“Photon?” asked Korneev in a prosecutor’s tone.
“Photon. Janus called him his little Photon.”
“And the numbers?” asked Volodia.
“And the numbers!”
“The numbers are the same?” Korneev asked threateningly.
“I think they are the same,” I said, looking at Roman uncertainly.
“Let’s have that a bit more precisely,” demanded Korneev, covering the parrot with his red paw. “Would you repeat those numbers again?”
“Nineteen…” I said. “Eh…zero-two, is it? Sixty-three.”
Korneev looked under his palm. “You lie,” he said. “And how about you?” He turned to Roman.
“I don’t remember,” Roman said calmly. “It seems it was zero-five, not zero-three.”
“No,” I said. “I still think it was zero-six. I remember there was that hook on it.”
“A hook,” Pochkin said contemptuously. “See our Holmeses and Pinkertons! They grow weary of the law of cause and effect.”
Korneev stuffed his hands in his pockets. “That’s a different matter,” he said. “I don’t believe you are lying. You are simply mixed up. The parrots are all green, many are tagged. This pair was from the ‘Photon’ series. And your memory is full of holes. As with all versifiers and editors of hack bulletin gazettes.”
“Full of holes?” inquired Roman.
“Like a sieve.”
“Like a sieve?” repeated Roman, smiling strangely.
“Like an old sieve,” elaborated Victor. “A rusty one. Like a net. With large mesh.”
Then Roman, continuing to smile strangely, pulled a notebook out of his shirt pocket and riffled its pages.
“And so,” he said. “Large, meshed, and rusty. Let’s see…nineteen, zero-five, seventy-three,” he read.
The magisters lunged toward the parrot and collided their foreheads with a dry crack.
“Nineteen, zero-five, seventy-three,” Korneev read the numbers on the ring in a fallen voice. It was most spectacular. Stella immediately squealed with pleasure.
“Big deal,” said Drozd without tearing himself away from his drawing. “I once had a number coinciding with the winner in a lottery. I ran to the savings outlet to pick up my car. And then it turned out—”
“Why did you write down the number?” said Korneev, squinting at Roman. “Is it a habit with you? Do you write down all numbers? Maybe you have the number of your watch in there?”
“Brilliant!” said Pochkin. “Victor, you are great! You have hit the bull’s eye. Roman. what a disgrace! Why did you poison the parrot? How cruel!”
“Idiots!” said Roman. “What am I to you? A Vibegallo?”
Korneev ran up to him and ogled his ears.
“Go to the devil!” said Roman. “Sasha, just look at them; aren’t they admirable?”
“Come on, fellow,” I said. “Who jokes that way? What do you take us for?”
“And what is left for us to do?” said Korneev. “Someone is lying. Either it’s you or the laws of nature. I believe in the law of nature. Everything else changes.”
Anyway, he quickly wilted, sat down out of the way, and settled down to think. Sanya Drozd drew his banner calmly. Stella was looking at each of us—in turn with frightened eyes. Volodia Pochkin rapidly wrote and crossed out some formulas. Eddie was the first to speak.
“Even if laws are not subverted,” he said with a show of reasonableness, “the unexpected appearance of a large number of parrots in the same room and their suspiciously high modality rate still remain most unlikely. But I am not too surprised, since I have not forgotten we are dealing here with Janus Poluektovich. Don’t you feel that Janus Poluektovich is in himself a most curious personage?”
“It would seem so,” I said.
“I think so, too,” said Eddie. “What field is he actually working in, Roman?”
“It depends on which Janus you mean. Janus-U is involved in communication with parallel spaces.”
“Hmm,” said Eddie. “That’ll hardly help us.”
“Unfortunately,” said Roman. “I, too, have been constantly thinking about how we can tie in the parrots with Janus, and I can’t come up with anything.”
“But is he not a strange person?” asked Eddie.
“Yes, undoubtedly,” said Roman. “Beginning with the fact that there are two of them and he is one. We have become so used to that, that we no longer think about it…”
“That’s what I wanted to talk about. We seldom discuss Janus, as we respect him tremendously. But hasn’t every one of us noticed at least one idiosyncracy about him?”
“Idiosyncracy number one,” I said. “A fondness for dying parrots.”
“We’ll consider that as one,” said Eddie. “What else?”
“Gossips,” Drozd said with dignity. “I had occasion to ask him for a loan once.”
“Yes?” said Eddie.
“And he gave it to me,” said Drozd. “But then I forgot how much he gave me. Now I don’t know what to do.”
He was silent. Eddie waited a while for a continuation and then said, “Do you know, for example, that each time I had to work nights with him, at exactly twelve midnight he went away somewhere and came back five minutes later, and each time, I had the impression that, one way or another, he was trying to find out from me what we were doing there prior to his departure.”
“That is indeed so,” said Roman. “I know it very well. I have noted for a long time that right at midnight his memory is wiped clean. And he is thoroughly aware of this defect. He excused himself several times and said that it was a reflexive syndrome connected with the sequelae of a serious contusion.”
“His memory is worthless,” said Volodia Pochkin. He crumpled a sheet with computations and threw it under the table. “He keeps bothering you about whether he’s seen you yesterday or not.”
“And what you talked about, if he has seen you,” I added.
“Memory, memory,” Korneev muttered impatiently. “What has memory to do with it? Lots of people have faulty memories… That’s not the point. What has he been doing with parallel spaces?”
“First we have to collect the facts,” said Eddie.
“Parrots, parrots, parrots,” continued Victor. “Can it be that they are doubles, after all?”
“No,” said Volodia Pochkin. “I calculated. According to all criteria, it is not a double.”
“Every midnight,” said Roman, “he goes to that laboratory of his and literally locks himself up in it for several. minutes. One time he ran in there so hurriedly that he did not have time to shut the door…”
“And what happened?” asked Stella in a faint voice.
“Nothing. He sat down in his chair, stayed there a few minutes, and came back. Immediately he asked whether we had been talking about something important.”
“I’m going,” said Korneev, getting up.
“I, too,” said Eddie. “We’re having a seminar.”
“Me, too,” said Volodia Pochkin.
“No,” said Roman. “You sit here and type. I appoint you head of this enterprise. And you, Stellotchka, take Sasha and make verses. And I’m leaving. I’ll be back in the evening and the paper had better be ready.”
They left, and we stayed to do the paper. At first we tried to come up with something, but grew tired quickly and had to accept that we just couldn’t do any more. So we wrote a small poem about a dying parrot.
When Roman returned the paper was finished. Drozd lay on the table and consumed sandwiches, while Pochkin was expounding to Stella and me why the incident with the parrot could absolutely not be included.
“Stout fellow,” said Roman. “An excellent paper. What a banner! What boundless starry skies! And how few typos! And where is the parrot?”
The parrot lay in th
e petrie dish, the very same dish and in the very same place where Roman and I saw it yesterday. It was enough to make me catch my breath.
“Who put it there?” inquired Roman.
“I did,” said Drozd. “Why?”
“No, that’s all right,” said Roman. “Let it lay there. Right, Sasha?”
I nodded.
“Let’s see what’ll happen with it tomorrow,” said Roman.
Chapter 4
Tire poor old innocent bird curses like a thousand devils, but it does not understand a word of what it is saying.
R. Stevenson
Next morning, however, right from the start, I had to assume my normal duties. Aldan had been repaired and was ready to do battle, and when I arrived in Electronics after breakfast there was already a small queue of doubles, with lists of assigned problems, at the door. I began by vengefully expelling Cristobal Junta’s double, and writing on his list that I couldn’t decipher the script. (Junta’s handwriting was truly not susceptible to being read; he wrote Russian in gothic letters.) Feodor Simeonovich’s double brought a program that had been personally composed by him. It was the first program Feodor Simeonovich had written by himself without any advice, prompting, or directions on my part. I looked the program over attentively and was pleasantly reassured that it was put together competently, economically, and not without ingenuity. I corrected some inconsequential errors and turned it over to my girls. Then I noticed that a pale and distraught-looking accountant from the fish factory was visibly suffering from the delays in the line. He was so discomfited and even frightened that I received him at once.
“It’s a bit uncomfortable,” he muttered, looking fearfully at the doubles out of the corner of his eye. “After all, these comrades are waiting there and they were here before me…”
“It’s all right, these are not comrades,” I calmed him.
“Well, citizens…”
“Not citizens, either.”
The accountant turned altogether pale, and bending toward me, pronounced in a halting whisper, “No wonder, then! I am looking at them, and they are not blinking… And that one there, in blue—I think he’s not even breathing…”
I had already processed half of the queue when Roman called.
“Sasha?”
“Yes.”
“The parrot’s gone!”
“What do you mean—gone?”
“Just like that.”
“Did the charwoman throw it out?”
“I asked. Not only did she not throw it out, she hasn’t seen it.”
“Maybe the brownies are fooling around.”
“In the director’s laboratory? I doubt it.”
“Mmm, yes,” I said. “Maybe Janus himself?”
“Janus hasn’t come in yet. And, anyway, I don’t think he’s back from Moscow.”
“So, what are we supposed to make of it?” I asked.
“I don’t know. We’ll see.”
We were silent.
“You’ll call me?” I asked. “If something interesting develops?”
“Of course. Without fail. So long, old chum.”
I forced myself not to think about the parrot, which was, after all, none of my business. I finished with all the doubles, checked all the programs, and took up the nasty little problem that had been hanging over me for a long time. It was given me by the absolutists. At first I had told them that it had neither sense nor solution, as was the case with most of their conundrums. But then I consulted with Junta, who had a sharp insight into such matters, and he gave me a few encouraging pieces of advice. I had reverted to the problem several times and put it off as many, but now I was able to finish it off. It worked out most elegantly. Just as I finished and leaned back in my chair to contemplate with delight the solution from a distance, Junta arrived, ominous and irate. Looking down at my feet, he inquired in a dry, menacing tone as to when I had ceased to understand his writing. It reminded him quite strongly of sabotage, he informed me.
I was looking at him with a melting mien.
“Cristobal Joseevich,” I said. “I finally did find the solution. You were absolutely right. Conjuration space can indeed be folded along any four variables.”
Finally he raised his eyes to me and looked me in the face. I must have had an especially happy expression because he softened and growled, “May I see it?”
I handed him the sheets and he sat down next to me and, together, we went over the problem from beginning to end, savoring the two most elegant transformations, one of which he prompted to me, and one which I found myself.
“You and I don’t have such bad heads, Alessandro,” Junta said finally. “We have a certain artistry of thought. What do you think?”
“I think we’re pretty good,” I said sincerely.
“And I concur,” he said. “We’ll publish it. No one should be ashamed to publish that. It’s not anything like self-powered galoshes or invisibility pants.”
We had reached a fine state of satisfaction and began to analyze his new problem. In no time at all he told me that be had previously judged himself a bit inept and had come to the conclusion that I was a mathematical ignoramus at our very first meeting. I hotly agreed with him and expressed the opinion that he was conceivably quite ready to retire on pension, and as for me, I should be ejected bodily from the Institute to load lumber because I wouldn’t quality for any other job. He contradicted me. He said there could be no talk of any pension and that he should be processed for fertilizer, while I should not be allowed within a kilometer of a sawmill, where a certain intellectual level was still required, but should be assigned as a junior trainee on the cesspool pumper at the cholera barracks. So we sat, propping up our heads and abandoning ourselves to mutual devaluation, when Feodor Simeonovich looked in. As near as I could make out, he was impatient to hear my opinion of his program.
“Program!” exclaimed Junta, smiling biliously. “I haven’t seen your program, Feodor, but I am sure that it is a work of genius in comparison to this—” He handed Feodor Simeonovich the sheet with the problem, holding it in ginger disgust between two fingers. “Regard this exemplar of mental poverty and vapidity.”
“B-but, my dear f-fellows,” said Feodor Simeonovich, having diligently deciphered the handwriting. “This is B-Ben B-Beczalel’s problem! Didn’t C-Cagliostro prove th-that it had no s-solution?”
“We know that it has no solution, too,” said Junta, bristling immediately. “But we wish to learn how to solve it”
“H-how strangely you r-reason, C-Cristo… H-how can you look for a solution, where it d-does not exist? It’s s-some sort of n-nonsense…”
“Excuse me, Feodor, but it’s you who are reasoning strangely. It’s nonsense to look for a solution if it already exists. We are talking about how to deal with a problem that has no solution. This is a question of profound principle, which, I can see, is not within your scope, since you are an applications type. Apparently I started this conversation with you for nothing.”
Cristobal Joseevich’s tone was exceedingly insulting and Feodor Simeonovich became angry.
“I’ll t-tell you what, my g-good fellow,” he said. “I can’t d-debate with you in such a v-vein, in the presence of the young man. Y-you astonish m-me. It’s not s-scholarly. If you wish to continue, let’s go out in the hall.”
“As you wish,” replied Junta, drawing himself up like a steel spring and reaching convulsively for a nonexistent rapier hilt at his hip.
They walked out ceremoniously, holding their heads high and not looking at each other. The girls tittered. I wasn’t particularly concerned, either. Sitting down, I put my hands around my head, studying the sheet that had been left behind and listening to the mighty rumble of Feodor Simeonovich’s bass and the dry, angry expletives of Cristobal Joseevich cutting through, out in the hall.
In the end, Feodor Simeonovich bellowed, “Would you please follow me to my office!”
“A pleasure!” grated Junta. They had now assumed the
formal “you.” Their voices faded in the distance.
“Duel! A duel!” chittered the girls.
Junta had an arrant fame as a duelist and for picking quarrels. They said that he would bring his adversary to his laboratory, offer him a choice of rapiers, swords, or halbards, and then start jumping on tables and overturning cabinets à la Douglas Fairbanks. But there was no need to worry about Feodor Simeonovich. It was quite clear that, having arrived in his office, they would gloom in silence at each other across the table for half an hour, then Feodor Simeonovich would sigh heavily, open his liquor cabinet, and fill two glasses with the Elixir of Bliss. Junta would flare his nostrils, twist his moustache, and drink up. Feodor Simeonovich would fill the glasses again without delay and shout into the lab, “Fresh pickles!”
Roman called at this time and asked in an odd voice that I go to his place at once. I ran upstairs.
In the lab were Roman, Victor, and Eddie. Besides them, there was also a green parrot. Alive. He sat, just as yesterday, on the balance beam, ogled each one of us in turn out of one eye or the other, poked around under his feathers with his beak, and obviously exhibited excellent health. The scientists, in contradistinction, looked far from well. Roman hunched over the bird and periodically sighed with a jerk. A pale Eddie gently massaged his temples, wearing the agonized expression of a migraine sufferer. Victor, too, astride a chair, rocked it like a bug-eyed schoolboy and grumbled indistinctly, sotto voce.
“The same one?” I asked weakly.
“The same one,” said Roman.
“Photon?” I began to feel poorly, too. “And the number coincides?”
Roman did not reply.
Eddie said in a lugubrious tone, “If we knew how many feathers the parrot has in his tail, we could count them over again and account for the one lost yesterday.”
“Would you like me to go and fetch Braem?” I offered.
“Where is the corpse?” asked Roman. “That’s where we should start from! Listen, detectives—where is the corpse?”
“Corpse,” barked the parrot. “Ceremony! Corpse overboard! Rubidium!”
“The devil knows what he’s talking about,” said Roman with feeling.