Arkady Strugatsky: Tale of the Troika

“Why are you spreading this bureaucracy around here? You can’t see what color it is? The rationalization was carried out before your very eyes, there’s the comrade representing science sitting in front of you, he’s waiting, waiting for the requisition to be carried out, it’s way past dinner time, it’s dark outside, and all you do is juggle numbers!”

I felt a depression coming on and sensed that my future was about to become a dreary nightmare, irreparable and completely irrational. But I did not understand what was happening and only went on babbling that my box was not just a black box, or rather, not a box at all. I wanted to clear things up. The commandant was also muttering something very convincing, but Khlebovvodov threatened him with his fist and returned to his seat.

“Lavr Fedotovich, the box is black,” he announced triumphantly. “There can be no mistake, I looked at it myself. And there is a requisition for it, and the representative is right here.”

“It’s not the same box!” the commandant and I wailed in unison. But Lavr Fedotovich examined us thoroughly with his opera glasses and, obviously finding us lacking, decided to follow the will of the people and suggested that they get on with immediate utilization. There was no argument and all the responsible faces were nodding in agreement.

“The requisition!” demanded Lavr Fedotovich.

My requisition was laid before him on the green baize.

“The resolution!”

The resolution fell on the requisition.

“The Seal!”

The door of the safe creaked open, letting out a current of stale office smells, and the brass of the Great Round Seal gleamed before Lavr Fedotovich. And then I understood what was about to happen. Everything inside me went dead.

“Don’t!” I begged. “Help!”

Lavr Fedotovich took the Seal in both hands and raised it above the requisition. I gathered my strength and jumped up.

“That’s the wrong box!” I howled at the top of my voice. “What is this? Eddie!”

“Just a minute,” Eddie said. “Please stop and hear me out.”

Lavr Fedotovich halted his inexorable movement.

“A stranger?” he inquired.

“Not at all,” said the commandant, panting. “A representative. From below.”

“Then he does not have to be removed.” Lavr Fedotovich tried to renew the process of applying the Great Round Seal, but there was a problem. Something was interfering with the Seal. At first Lavr Fedotovich merely pushed on it, and then he rose and fell on it with his whole weight, but the Seal would not touch the paper—there was a space between the Seal and the paper, and the size of the space obviously did not depend on Comrade Vuniukov’s efforts. It seemed as though the space was filled with an invisible but very firm matter that prevented application. Lavr Fedotovich had apparently grasped the futility of his efforts and sat down, holding his elbows with his hands and looking at the Seal sternly, but without any surprise. The Seal hung motionless an inch above my requisition.

The execution had been stayed, and I began to perceive my surroundings again. Eddie was saying something, beautifully and feverishly, about reason, economic reform, goodness, the role of the intelligentsia, and the governmental wisdom of those present. He was fighting the Seal, my dear good friend, saving me, fool that I was, from the disaster that I had brought on my own head. Those present were listening to him politely but with displeasure, and Khlebovvodov was squirming in his seat and looking at his watch. Something had to be done. I had to do something immediately.

“And seventh of all, and finally,” Eddie was saying reasonably, “any specialist, and especially such an authoritative organization, should see, comrades, that the so-called Black Box is nothing more than a term used in information theory, and has nothing to do with the specific color or specific shape of some real object. Certainly there is no way that the term ‘Black Box’ could be applied to this Remington typewriter coupled with the simplest of electronic gadgets, which can be purchased in any electronics store, and it seems strange to me that Professor Vybegallo is burdening an authoritative organization with an invention that is no invention, and a decision that could undermine the organization’s authority.”

“I protest,” said Farfurkis. “First of all, comrade representative from below violated all the rules of order for the meeting, took the floor, which no one had given him, and went over the time limit, on top of it. That’s point one (I was horrified to see that the seal had dropped by a fraction of an inch.) Furthermore, we can not allow the comrade representative to malign our best people, to blacken our honored professor and official scientific consultant, Professor Vybegallo, and to whitewash the black box, already passed on by the Troika. That’s point two. (The seal dropped another fraction of an inch.) Finally, comrade representative, you should be made aware that the Troika is not interested in any inventions. The object of the Troika’s work is unexplained phenomena, which is what the already examined and rationalized black box is, that is, the heuristic machine.”

“We could be sitting here until nightfall,” Khlebovvodov added in a hurt voice, “if every representative got the floor.”

The seal settled even lower. The space was no more than a tenth of an inch.

“It’s not the same black box,” I said and lost a hundredth of an inch. “I don’t need this box! (Another hundredth.) Why the hell do I need that beat-up old Remington? I’m going to file a complaint.”

“That is your right,” Farfurkis said generously and won another hundredth of an inch.

“Eddie,” I begged.

Eddie started talking again. He called on the spirits of Lomonosov and Einstein, he cited editorials in the central newspapers, he sang the praises of science and our wise organizers, but it was to no avail. Lavr Fedotovich was finally bored by this impediment, and interrupting the oration, he spoke only one word:

“Unconvincing.”

There was a heavy thud. The Great Round Seal had pierced my requisition.

We were the last ones to leave the meeting room. I was crushed. Eddie was leading me by the arm. He was also depressed, but under control. Old Edelweiss whirled around us, pulled by the weight of his contraption. He was whispering words of undying love to me, promising to wash my feet and drink the water, and demanded traveling expenses and a per diem. Eddie gave him three rubles and bade him look in the day after tomorrow. Edelweiss managed to sucker him out of another fifty kopecks for hazardous work conditions and disappeared. Then I felt better.

“Don’t despair,” Eddie said. “All is not lost. I have a plan.”

“What?” I asked weakly.

“Did you pay attention to Lavr Fedotovich’s speech?”

“I did. Why do you ask?”

“I was checking to see whether or not he had any brains,” Eddie explained.

“So, what’s the opinion?”

“You saw for yourself that he does. He has brains, and I got them started. They had not been activated at all. Pure bureaucratic reflexes. But I convinced him that he had a real heuristic machine before him and that he was not Vuniukov, but a real administrator with a broad mind. As you see, there was some result. Of course, his psychic rigidity is enormous. When I removed the field, there were no signs of residual deformation. He remained just as he had been. But that was just a trial test. But now I’ll do the proper calculations, adjust the apparatus, and then we’ll see. I cannot believe that he can’t be changed. We’ll turn him into a decent man, and things will be good for us, and for everybody, and for him.”