June 25, 1993
Friday
10:00 AM
Incredible, unthinkable, unimaginable, but the exam went exactly as I’d foreseen.
I drew the right question card, sat down at the front desk, and, without fidgeting or fussing, with Olympic calm, copied out onto paper everything I’d kept in my memory after the night’s vigil. I’d memorized the terms, diagrams, and formulas cold, top to bottom.
As soon as I stopped tormenting the pages, the examiner came over to the desk, glanced at my scrawl, and asked:
— What’s the first question?
— DMA organization and memory management in microprocessor systems. The principle of direct access.
— Go ahead.
I started reciting the phrases crowding my head. The examiner nodded, and a minute later interrupted:
— That’s enough. Second question.
— The structure and operation of a typical microprocessor system based on the K1821 VM85. The K1821 VM85 microprocessor is an improved version of the 580IK80, meaning that within a single chip is combined… — I started rattling off.
— Good, — he slid over a blank sheet with instructions to draw the timing diagrams of the K1821 VM85’s operating cycle.
With a steady hand I drew out the lines and squares.
— Full marks. Your grade book.
Not rejoicing at the grade I’d received, I left the classroom. Stood a while in the hallway, sighed, went down to the street. Sat on a bench under the fir trees by the main building.
The weather was gorgeous. A summer day blossomed in all its glory — green, fresh, easy. Wind stirred the fir branches overhead. In my grade book shone the word «Excellent.» The facts of student happiness were all present, yet brought no joy.
«What was that? How?!» I tried to work it out. Yesterday’s joy and excitement had vanished, leaving a sober conclusion: «Without question, this has something to do with Zhorik, with the scar on his stomach, with the piece of paper that once had my palm print burned into it.»
I couldn’t make sense of any of it. The only decision I arrived at: if the vision happens again, I’ll act against it and see what comes out.
Exactly. Against it!
I got up and walked out through the checkpoint.
Ha! Who could doubt it!
Zhorik met me by a black Audi 100. Stole it again, probably. I bragged about my «fiver.» He bragged about his ride — bought it just now, didn’t steal it, I swear! Got it for a grand and a half, cheap, because it had no papers, the owner wasn’t rotting in a ditch somewhere all beat up, he was off writing claims to an insurance company in Hamburg. We’ll flip it for five grand minimum, already got a deal lined up, easy money coming… and he drove me off into the industrial wilderness beyond the Moscow River, somewhere I’d never been before.
We drove in circles around the industrial zone opposite the ZiL plant, got lost a couple of times, running into dead ends, but eventually wound our way to a long, four-story building with no signs or markings. Only an address plate, «Nauchny Proyezd, building 6,» hung on a pockmarked wall.
— Former secret institute, NIIVychMekh. Got their freedom a month ago, now they can rent out space, — Zhora explained. — Here’s the setup: I’m George J. Coffin, US citizen, vice president of Scientific Symmetry, want to collaborate with Russian scientists. You’re my assistant, a natural-born genius from Russia, here are the business cards.
He held out sand-colored cards printed with: «Scientific Symmetry. Palo Alto. Center for Physical and Chemical Research of Microstructures. Roman Viktorovich Peskov, Ph.D. in Engineering, Assistant Project Manager.»
— What is this?
— Just take it, take it. Your job is to keep quiet and look serious. I’ll handle the rest.
We shuffled around the lobby for about five minutes. Then, led by a lady of a certain age, we went up to the second floor and found ourselves at a door with a plaque: «Director, NIIVychMekh (Institute of Computational Mechanics), Gavrilin Yuri Anatolyevich, Doctor of Technical Sciences.»
The lady opened the door and nodded us in. We walked in and were met with a smile that seemed out of place in this decaying kingdom of science: «Hello, Mr. Coffin.»
The smile belonged to a blonde, the director’s secretary. Zhora played the foreigner: «Waoww, Lyubotchka, glahd to zee you,» flashed a Hollywood grin in return, and continued: «Zis eez my colleague, Mr. R-r-roman Beskoff.»
I clicked the soles of my sneakers together with a flourish, and Zhorik glanced at the door leading straight to the director.
— Yes, yes, Yuri Anatolyevich is expecting you, please, go on in, — Lyubochka undulated, showing us in.
Coffin and I walked into the office. From behind a desk buried in a heap of papers rose an elderly man, gaunt, a bespectacled bookworm of science.
— Hello! I’m intrigued! What can I do for you? — he asked, extending a hand that wouldn’t quite bend at the elbow, which we shook carefully.
— We’re interested in your institution, — Zhorik reported. His crackling transatlantic accent had shrunk down to a soft Baltic one.
— Fascinating, — the director waved a stick-like arm toward two armchairs: «Please, sit,» and returned to his seat. He ordered three cups of coffee over the intercom.
Zhora turned his head, surveying the office. Held a pause, a solid one… a weighty one. Spun stories about American science, of which he was a representative… noted the shortage of ideas back home and the surplus in Maza-Rasha… having performed his aria of the visiting foreigner, moved on to the plan of acquiring a profit — (how do you say it in Russian, ah, right, profitable) — factory, producing something with no equivalent, no, well, something similar exists in the West, but you Russians made something…
The director nodded. His eyes sparkled, radiant and modest — don’t exaggerate! oh, please! — as if the doctor of technical sciences Gavrilin himself had dreamed up something absent in the West and lying around underfoot in Maza-Rasha.
Then, in five minutes, Zhora and Yuri Anatolyevich together condemned modern science, which «ain’t what it used to be.»
The condemnation ended with Zhora’s proposal to show the damn Yankees a thing or two and symmetrically open a Moscow representative office of Scientific Symmetry. The director would be a «young, talented scientist who spent two years at Stanford and has colossal research experience.» At these words I fished a business card out of my pocket and handed it to Yuri Anatolyevich.
He fell into thought, worked his lips, took a sip of coffee, and suggested calling in his deputy for administration and supply, Ivan Timofeyevich.
Zhorka noted that the matter had already been settled with Mr. Rudakov. Added: «We plan to hire staff and pay Palo Alto rates. There, after taxes and utilities, it comes to ten to fifteen thousand dollars a year. In Moscow we’re aiming for the same figures. We have no objection to part-timers, as long as they work.»
Yuri Anatolyevich worked his lips again, remarked that he needed to think it over. Zhora flashed a grin: «We’re in no hurry. To give you something to think about: we’ll need an office on the ground floor of your building, with windows onto Nauchny Proyezd. About five hundred square meters total. All the best!»
We left the director alone with his thoughts on the paths of science and administration. Headed home.
