Linkov read the telephonogram, took a deep breath and carefully put the paper on the table.
— What do I have to do with it? — he lamented, actually not hoping for anything. — Labutin is on duty, he should go.
— He was called to Pushkinskaya, there the old lady got a gas poisoning!
— Suicide? — asked Linkov automatically, collecting papers from the table.
— Who knows. Maybe even suicide, – replied Valentin Temin, smiling happily.
— You are a funny man, Val'ka, — said Linkov gloomily. — A long life and a long youth are destined for you, because you don’t want to accept anything close to your heart.
— Well, it’s like when! — said Temin. — Why are you so sour? Vacation mood is taking over?
— What do you think? — said Savchenko, looking out the window at the morning rain-washed Mayan green. — Personally, I’m simply not able to work a week before a vacation. I get the most complete, you know, psychological inability.
— And how do you deal with it? — wandered Temin. — Are you given some kind of certificate because of your this inability?
— What a certificate! — sighed Savchenko. — Just so, I spin a little on the raw turns …
— Especially since it is the most natural form of existence for you, — noted Linkov.
— Come on! — Savchenko was naturally astonished, staring with round brown eyes. — I with all my heart, one can say, sympathize with you, and you…
— Oh, you feel bad, of course! Your sympathy, I bet, was not enough to tell Ivan Mikhailovich: well, Linkov is leaving in three days for the vacation, let me take this case …
— And he wouldn’t even listen to me! He said it right away: to the Institute of Time we’ll send Linkov, he’s a physicist!
— “Physicist”! It was a long time ago, and it’s even not true. In this Institute of Time everything is just as clear as mud, even for Einstein himself…
— Well, you don’t worry so much, — advised Savchenko. — What’s the big deal? Institute of Time. They have their own specifics, we have our own, it’s as simple as that.
— Exactly that, that they have this specificity, — responded Linkov gloomily. — That’s exactly what I am talking about …
— Oh yeah, they have hefty specificity! — declared Temin enthusiastically. — My friend works there, in the personnel department, Edik Konovalov. So he described to me the situation, well, in general. The main thing, he says, there’s no confidence in tomorrow, just like a worker in capitalism … I’ll come to work tomorrow, he says, and they perhaps, instead of tomorrow, will do yesterday. Or they altogether will reverse the time, like it’s nothing. And what should we do than, for example, with employment period, and, well, in general? …
— It’s a terrible thing to see, Valentin, what is going on in your brain. — said Linkov, frowning. – You should go to a lecture on chronophysics, or something. Or go to the collective for help, if you don’t manage the flow of information to such an extent.
— Well, maybe I’m saying something wrong, — said Valentin, with interest listening to the Linkov’s tirade. — I’m not a physicist, after all! But I personally think, that to keep all their cybernetics in the city center is dangerous. No, it’s true. It’s terrible, how carelessly it is! There’s a theater and schools, and residential areas … And they here in their … how are they called … time machines, or? … You know what an energy they put into them? And energy, it cannot disappear anywhere, it was said in school, I remember! Here they will accumulate this energy, devil knows how many, and it will take and explode! And what, you’ll say it’s not?
Linkov looked at him almost tenderly.
— Congratulations, my friend. You are developing with astonishing speed, – he said. — If the process will not slow down, in a week we’ll be able to show you to the public for money. Time machines, you say? Did your Edik came up with that on his own?
— What? Don’t they have time machines? — asked Temin with interest. — So it turns out, that Edik tell lies? No, I think, he, at worst, will brag a little, but he couldn’t fully compose it. Maybe they just haven’t been delivered yet.
— Where will they be delivered from, if they don’t exist in nature? They have accelerators there, you understand? — Linkov was talking and feeling, that Temin was not understanding really anything. — And the accelerators are fields, right? And the fields need energy …
— So what? — asked Temin lightly. — Fields are fields, it makes no difference to me, but the fact is, that energy is accumulating in enormous amounts. And these fields – they, you think, will withstand it? They will get to some point and explode!
— I’ll bring you the flyer, Valentin, read it, — grinning, said Savchenko. — Or else the girls will give you a dismissal, an account of an extreme cultural dysfunction. I think, I even observed one such fact yesterday. At 21:00, on the corner of Sovetskaya and Turgenevskaya, was there a thing? Such a blonde one, sports archetype?
— Oh, hell with her, this blonde, pretend to be …
— All right, guys, I’m going after all, — said Linkov, sighing
— What, with an ill-will? — asked Temin with interest, clearly glad, that the conversation changed.
— Oh, it should definitely be you … with your time machines, — replied Lnkov gloomily, putting on his coat.
— Hey, stop worrying, I say, — said Savchenko sympathetically — They are people there, humans, in this very Institute of Time, and not something else.
— You better tell me what, since you are so brave: if I don’t finish this before my vacation, will you take it?
— Seriously? — Savchenko was amazed — Three days aren’t enough for you to finish such a simple case? No, it’s definitely your vacation mood irritates you.
Linkov turned, standing by the door.
— I don’t believe in their simple things, — he said in funereal tone. — There are no simple cases, and we will tase great sorrow with this story, remember my word. Farewell, my friends, remember me kindly. Ovations are not needed, monuments, if anything, are not needed either, and instead of a wind orchestra, let Valya Temin explain to the audience the infernal essence of exploding fields, and then the public will forever remember the day of my funeral.
Having said all this, Alexander Grigorievich Linkov took a deep breath once more and fearlessly moved towards the Institute of Time.