Vladimir Orlov - Danilov the Violist

"At the Searchlight Factory Club?" Danilov asked.

"No," Pereslegin said. "At the Culture Palace of Electrical Workers. We had made plans with Searchlight, but they changed their minds. And that's fine. Their club is too small for an orchestra. The electricians have a much bigger one."

"I'm free at nine tomorrow morning."

"Good. Chudetsky will come to see you at nine... Vladimir Alekseyevich, it was a pleasure talking to you. I'm off. Errands. And people are banging on the phone booth..."

"Three weeks!" Danilov suddenly realized. "What about Time X? They're counting on me, and -- pow! -- not a trace of me will be left." However, Danilov immediately forbade himself to think about Time X. He decided: "Now tomorrow the conductor Chudetsky is coming, and we'll talk about music then. I won't let him run off." Danilov even bought a bottle of cognac. However, at nine in the morning Chudetsky did not come, he called. He made arrangements with Danilov about rehearsal times, apologized, said he was in a rush, and hung up.

Danilov sighed, put away the cognac, and decided to go to the self-service bar on Korolev Street to have a beer. But his intentions were blocked by another telephone call.

The caller had a lyric bass, which would have been fine if the caller had been a singer, especially of such roles as Prince Igor and Mazeppa. Danilov thought this voice sounded familiar -- but from where? The stranger spoke softly, mysteriously, almost as if Danilov were a bird in a cage. Danilov checked the voice with his indicator -- no, the caller was a local.

"Your mysteriousness makes me curious," Danilov said. "You make it clear that you know a lot about me. Therefore, you know that I don't have much time, so I'd like to ask you to get to the point of your business."

"For the moment I have no business," the stranger said, "but I do have a proposition."

"Which is?"

"To work with us."

"And who are you?"

"How can I put it? ..."

"Just like it is."

"Nastasyinsky Alley, Rostovtsov's apartment..."

"The futecons, you mean?"

"That's not a serious word ... but you can use it..."

Suddenly Danilov recognized the voice. He was talking to the skewbald man with the sideburns. He was, perhaps, the secretary of the futecons, the one who usually wrote in the account books. But maybe he wasn't the secretary.

"You're the secretary with the sideburns," Danilov said.

"How did you recognize me?"

"I'm a musician. I have to have a good ear."

"This is an official call."

"Did Klavdia Petrovna put you on to me?"

"What does Klavdia Petrovna have to do with this? Klavdia Petrovna is part of the line! We are interested in you, for your own sake. And Klavdia Petrovna should not find out about my call."

"And what prompted this official call?"

"Our initiative group is special, experimental... well, you have a general idea. We are on our own for the present, but what we are doing, if only in our analyses and forecasts, will bring definite good to society..."

Here Danilov remembered the fifteen rubles and the solid citizens who stood with numbers inked on their hands in Rostovtsov's waiting room. He said: "Do you mean the people in your line when you refer to society?"

"This is an experiment, and we can handle only a certain number of people, the ones who are most receptive to the conditions of our test."

"All right," Danilov said. "But what do you need me for?"

"We have many difficulties. Especially in the area of scientific forecasting. We need your help. Naturally, it will be rewarded."

"My help?" Danilov said in surprise.

"Yes," said the skewbald man. "We know of your abilities."

"I'm an orchestra musician. What abilities do I have?"

"We're not talking about your musical abilities."

"Which ones, then?"

"You know which..."

"You're confusing me with someone else."

"No. We know everything about you."

"From whom?"

"We have our people."

"Those people are mistaken and they have misled you."

"You mean you do not wish to accept our proposition?" the skewbald man said grimly.

"I am taking your call as a joke that I cannot appreciate because I have no sense of humor."

"Too bad. For us. And for you. I'd like to give you time to think it over, so that later you won't regret this frivolous attitude toward a serious matter."

"You sound as if you were threatening me."

"Perhaps I am. Irrational stubbornness should be punished... Then, apparently you do not believe in our seriousness or in our power, but soon you'll experience them firsthand..."

"And what will happen?"

"There will be some minor unpleasantness -- say, at the theater... Well, for instance, you may not go to Italy with the orchestra..."

"What else?"

"The police probably won't ever find the Albani..."

"Go on..."

"Three weeks from now a performance by you at the House of Culture of Medical Workers is supposed to take place..."

"Why not at the Palace of Electrical Workers?"

"The Palace of Electrical Workers will be the site of a ballroom dancing contest, and the orchestra will have to look for another hall..."

"Well, all right, so it's at the House of Culture of Medical Workers... So what?"

"So your performance will not take place... It might not ever take place..."

"That's enough! I can get angry, too."

"That's entirely up to you."

"You are contradicting yourself. You ascribe special abilities to me and threaten me with minor unpleasantness. But if I do have such abilities, what do I care about your threats?! Shouldn't you be thinking about how to protect yourselves from my unpleasantness?"

There was a silence and heavy breathing. Then he said, but not confidently:

"You see, this is a unique situation. We probably did not find the right way to approach you, so please consider this just a preliminary discussion... We approached you Earth-Style... And you, perhaps, on your high level, are full of other feelings... Perhaps you were insulted by my talk of rewarding you... This is foreign to you ... I can understand... We are feeling our way around here... But you must understand. We're trying to look into the future, and why shouldn't... a creature ... say, who came here from a higher civilization, even if he's busy with his own concerns, help us out? It's a tiny drop in the bucket of his riches. And we are merely people who are interested in bringing the future closer."

"Are you referring to me as a creature?"

"No, I was speaking theoretically... "

"Do you take me for an alien? There's no need for further conversation."

"Too bad. We have our earthly powers, and you may end up regretting -- "

Danilov hung up. "You crooks and confutes!" he said out loud. "You dare threaten me?"

He was keeping up a brave front, but he felt terrible. How did they learn so much about him? And why did they suspect mat he was an alien? Who gave them that information? Klavdia? Rostovtsov? Or maybe their computer?

The futecons were the last straw! "It's hard enough as it is," thought Danilov, "and now there're the futecons! Maybe I should have agreed; maybe they are good and wise people, and they take people's money just for out-of-pocket expenses." Danilov recalled the people in Rostovtsov's apartment and felt that they were aliens to him. He had no sympathy for wheeler-dealers, movers and shakers, and social climbers. No, Danilov told himself, even if the futecons had learned that in music and in his love for Natasha he felt compelled to be human and therefore vulnerable, even then he would not be afraid of them, and he would not enter into any collaboration with them.

27

They rehearsed mornings in the hall of the Palace of Electrical Workers. The players were young people; Danilov could have been their older brother. In the evenings they all had jobs -- some in theater orchestras, some at Moskoncert,* some in restaurant bands. They were all unhappy with their present jobs. Their souls yearned to play great music. Even if they weren't paid for it. They longed for independence and passion and were confident of their chances of becoming an Oistrakh, a Richter, or even a Beethoven. At the first rehearsal Danilov felt the orchestra members looking at him. They knew each others' worth already. Danilov played diligently, but probably not as well as he did at home -- no, not probably, but definitely. He did not notice any dissatisfied faces in the pit. But, no one banged with approval on the music stands either. Their attitude toward him was nonchalant, businesslike. Afterward, Danilov went off to one side, sat down on a chair, and put down his instrument. Chudetsky and Pereslegin were standing just five meters away from him. They were worrying, not about his playing or the orchestra's, but about the fact that the symphony ran forty-four minutes. They thought it was too long.