“What a mess!”
“Yeah. You should’ve seen his face.”
“What a mess, what a mess! Which section?”
“One twenty-six oh three. Approximately. Aural associations.”
“Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.”
“Casparo sent her off to get some sleep. She’s sitting in Room Sixteen, crying.”
The two people in white disappeared. Zvantsev could hear them talking as they went down the staircase, but he no longer could make out the words. He closed the door and returned to the chair.
So, some Jean had almost screwed up the aural association center. Disgraceful! Casparo had grabbed her by the arm. But what if he hadn’t grabbed her? Zvantsev folded his arms and closed his eyes. He knew almost nothing about the Great Experiment. He knew only that it was a great experiment, that it was the most complicated thing that science had ever come up against. To encode the distribution of excitations in each of billions of brain cells, to encode the linkages between the excitations, the linkages between the linkages. The smallest mistake threatened irrevocable distortions… A girl had almost annihilated a whole section… Zvantsev remembered that it was section number 12603, and he became afraid. Even if the probability of a mistake or distortion during the transfer of the code was very small… Twelve thousand sections, trillions of units of information. Casparo still hadn’t come.
Zvantsev went out into the corridor again. He moved from candle to candle, toward the strange monotonous voice. Then he caught sight of a wide-open door, and the voice became quite loud. Beyond the door was an enormous hall, winking with hundreds of flames. Zvantsev saw panels with dials stretching along the walls. Several hundred people were sitting along the walls in front of the panels. They all wore white. The air in the hall was hot and heavy, and smelled of hot wax. Zvantsev realized that the ventilation and air-conditioning system was shut off. He went into the hall and looked around. He was searching for Casparo, but even if Casparo was here, it was impossible to pick him out among the hundreds of people in identical silvery coats with hoods pulled low.
“Section one eighty-seven twenty-two filled,” said a voice. It was unnaturally quiet in the hall-there was only that voice and the rustle of many movements. Zvantsev spied a table with several armchairs in the center of the hall. He went over to the table.
“Section one eighty-seven twenty-three filled.”
A broad-shouldered man with his head propped up by his arms was sitting in one of the chairs opposite Zvantsev. He was sleeping, and he sighed heavily in his sleep.
“Section one eighty-seven twenty-four filled.”
Zvantsev looked at his watch. It was exactly 3:00 a.m. He saw a man in white come into the hall and disappear somewhere into the gloom, where nothing could be seen except the winking flames.
“Section one eighty-seven twenty-five filled.”
A man with a candle came over to the table, stood the candle in a puddle of wax, and sat down. He laid a folder full of papers on the table, turned over one page, and immediately fell asleep. Zvantsev watched his head sink lower and lower and at last come to rest on the papers.
“Section one eighty-seven twenty-six filled.”
Zvantsev once again glanced at his watch. It had taken little more than ninety seconds to fill two sections. The Great Encoding had been going on for ten days, and fewer than twenty thousand sections were full.
“Section one eighty-seven twenty-seven filled.”
And so on for ten days. Someone’s strong hand came to rest on Zvantsev’s shoulder. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”
Zvantsev lifted his head and saw a round, tired face under a hood. Zvantsev recognized it.
“Get to sleep. Right now.”
“Professor Casparo,” Zvantsev said, getting up.
“Get to sleep, get to sleep—” Casparo looked him in the eye.
“Or if you can’t sleep, relieve somebody.”
He walked quickly to one side, stopped, and again peered fixedly at Zvantsev. “I don’t recognize you,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter—get to sleep!”
He turned his back and quickly walked along the rows of people sitting before the control boards. Zvantsev heard his harsh receding voice: “A half unit. Pay a little more attention, Leonid, half a unit… Good… fine… also good… A unit, Johnson, watch it more carefully… Good… also good…”
Zvantsev got up and walked behind him, trying not to let him out of sight. Suddenly Casparo shouted, “Comrades! Everything is going beautifully! Just be a little more attentive! Everything’s going very well. Just watch the stabilizers, and everything will be fine!”
Zvantsev bumped into a long table at which several people were sleeping. No one turned around, and none of the sleepers raised his head. Casparo had disappeared. Then Zvantsev walked at random along a yellow chain of flames in front of the control boards.
“Section one eighty-seven nine zero filled,” said a new, fresh voice.
Zvantsev realized that he was lost, and now did not know where the exit was, nor where Casparo had disappeared to. He sat on an overturned chair, his elbows resting on his knees, his chin propped on his hands, and stared at a winking candle in front of him. The candle was slowly guttering.
“Section one eighty-seven ninety-eight… Eighty-seven ninety-nine… Eighty-eight zero zero… Filled… Filled.”
“Aaaugh!” Someone shouted loudly, frightfully. Zvantsev jumped up. He saw that no one had turned around, but even so, everyone at once froze, their backs tensed. Twenty paces away, by one of the technicians’ chairs, a tall man was standing clutching his head and shouting, “Back! Back! Aaaugh!”
Casparo appeared from somewhere and darted toward the board, walking at a headlong pace. It was quiet in the hall except for the sputtering of wax.
“I’m sorry!” the tall man said. “I’m sorry… sorry…” he repeated.
Casparo straightened up and shouted, “Listen to me! Sections one eighty-seven ninety-six, eighty-seven ninety-seven, eighty-seven ninety-eight, eighty-seven ninety-nine, eighty-eight zero zero! Re-tape! Do it over!”
Zvantsev saw hundreds of people in white simultaneously raise their right hands and make some adjustment on their boards. The candle flames began to flicker.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” the man repeated.
Casparo clapped him on the back. “Get to sleep, Henry,” he said. “Get to sleep right away. Calm down, it’s no big deal.”
The man walked along the boards, repeating the same thing: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” No one turned around. Someone else already sat at his station.
“Section one eighty-seven ninety-six filled,” said the fresh voice.
Casparo stood a while, then slowly, stooping far over, he started walking past Zvantsev. Zvantsev moved toward him, and suddenly caught sight of his face. He stopped and let Cas-paro pass. Casparo went up to a small separate board, sank heavily into a chair, and sat there for several seconds. Then he roused himself, and, collapsing forward, pushed his face into the large eyepiece of a periscope which extended down through the floor.
Zvantsev stood nearby, near the long table, with his gaze fixed on the tired, hunched back. He could still see Casparo’s face as it had looked in the flickering candlelight. He remembered that Casparo was no longer young either, only, say, five or six years younger than Okada. He thought, How many years has he lost in these ten days? There will be a reckoning for this, and soon!
Two people walked up to Casparo. Instead of a hood, one of them wore a round, transparent helmet, which gleamed dimly in the candlelight. “We won’t make it,” the man in the helmet said quietly. He spoke to Casparo’s back.