take anything material from there. It is useless to move material things across great cosmic distances. Then what? The same waves of happiness. Imagine what kind of currency it will be, what kind of drug it will be, although maybe it will be the medicine of the soul in the future. After all, if our bodies do not matter for our existence – only spiritual food will be needed.
While thinking about the fact that his friend's jokes clearly carried a scientific assumption, a thought occurred to Ruthra. It was a question – why doesn't anyone come to us from other worlds? He thought about it and found the answer himself. How can they come if they don't have a welcoming terminal. That is, you can send a radio signal – even to the next street, even to deep space. If they don't have a receiving facility, all your efforts are useless.
– Listen, Mr. Smartass, I've got a clever idea," Ruthra addressed the scientist mentally.
– I'm ready to feed off your happy ideas.
– What if we put the brain in a consciousness receiving setting and put it into a trance state?
– Is this your grand idea? – sneered a colleague.
– I thought your brain power was strong enough to process that information. All right, I'll give you a new batch. We've been working on modifying the optical unit for six months now. We combined it with the collider and the emitter in the reverse order of particle motion and turned it into a receiving device. We know the principle. Let's install a transmitting device on the other side so that it does not send from the brain, but introduces there the influence of entangled pairs. If it is a natural, natural influence of pairs on each other, the brain will not understand anything. Like white noise on radio and television. And if there is something there that the brain understands, then the brain should sort of see it. So we will try to record the influence not of particles of this brain on particles somewhere else in the world, but the influence of any particles on this brain.
– Let's start with your great brain.
– I'm not a scaredy-cat, unlike you.
– Oh, oh, Darwin's theory in practice.
– Shall we?
– Well, it's your brain, I don't care. I have your clone. I'll restore my chess partner. I don't need a competitor.
– I didn't doubt your loyalty. I'm going to the lab.
– Are you eager to test your innovation?
– I got a report this morning that the system is ready. What are you waiting for? Let's at least test it.
– Well, it's your brain. Torture it.
Ruthra waved his hand, a gesture that said "I'm done with you," and headed for the rigging room.
***
Rutra lay in the rig, the assistants switched the rig to the mode he recommended, performed additional procedures. Ten minutes of manipulation yielded nothing. They called in additional technicians and a programmer. Another ten minutes of fiddling and no result. Ruthra didn't want to believe that no one from other worlds could come to Earth. The impossibility of it, the unreality of such a process, defied logic. The revolutionary technology had to work both ways. It was, in fact, a natural process. Unusual, perhaps, but natural. If you hear, you are heard. If you see, they see you. If your organs can be transplanted to someone else, someone else's organs can be transplanted to you. If your thoughts influence someone – and you are influenced by someone else's thoughts. Why can you accept electrons coming from a distant star, galaxy, some radiation, but you cannot accept the totality of all thoughts, which are someone else's thoughts? That is, someone's identity as such. Why not? You can. Only in the same way that you can hear someone's voice or the signals of distant stars using an instrument created by your brain; you need another instrument to receive the radiation of the thoughts of a distant being from the vast expanse of the universe.
Something wasn't working. Ruthra was getting nervous, and Parmen was teasing him:
– You fall asleep, go into a trance and then imagine you're there somewhere. It'll suck, but it'll give the Grand Master peace of mind. He really doesn't want to admit failure.
– You'd better be quiet, 'luminary of science,'" Ruthra replied in a tone that only Parmen understood.
– Maybe you really need to calm down your emotional state? – suggested one of the professors, the chief laboratory specialist.
– I'm calm.
– Maybe it's a blockage. You really need to calm down. Let's do this: you will try to create a detached state for yourself, to go into a trance… or better yet, to fall asleep, and we will scan all the incoming frequencies that are functional for the brain. We will switch the equipment to all modes. And if you feel any changes, let us know.
– All right. (chuckles) Let's try that, too, and if it doesn't work, I'm sorry, I'll take it from here.
Soon Rutra went into a trance by meditation, or perhaps he fell asleep. Somewhere in the depths of nirvana he heard Parmen's voice whispering in his ear:
– Relax, I think it's working. We're going to take you to the tomograph and find out what's going on in your head, plus the chip data… we'll know exactly what frequency to manipulate.
– Am I okay? I'm in some strange state. It's like I don't own my own body," Ruthra asked in a whisper without opening his eyes.
– Yes. I confess we are fixing something," Parmen said just as quietly, warily, almost like an incantation.
Suddenly, the machine made an eerie sound, the optical unit glowed, and a shock ran through Rutra's body. Whether Rutra was losing consciousness, or whether the sound had affected him so… he did not know. The fact was that he was completely relaxed, detached, or perhaps paralyzed, almost unconscious, and at the moment when for a moment he had completely shut down, had entered a dreamlike state, had realized that he was losing control, he jerked and woke up. The reality he saw spoke of some kind of change… or he was hallucinating, seeing things, because when he opened his eyes, there was another reality in front of him.
***
It was only after Parmen had told him what was happening in parallel that he realized what was going on. At first he had been surprised, annoyed and indignant. It all concerned the attitude towards Parmen's methods. He had again conceived a cunning program, had lured Rutra into it, and had apparently decided to study his psychological state before the real experiment. In idea – he was right, of course. After all, if we go to an unknown place, country or territory, even if we know a lot of things, we will find ourselves in a completely different mental, spiritual and psychological environment. And what to say if we find ourselves in an unknown world. The scientist was not devoid of imagination, only in the scientific context, but in the design context – alas. The surroundings were squalid.
Ruthra, though he had been out for some time, was thinking clearly, but at the first moment of "waking up" he couldn't understand what was happening. The fact that the surroundings were different was more of a clue than a mystery. So he immediately realized that Parmen had again decided to play a trick on him, as if to create a situation for studying the reaction. He did that periodically, or rather, they did it together. They didn't enter virtual reality to study human behavior in different circumstances, but made such performances in reality. This way it was better to find out how the psyche reacts during the transition to a parallel reality and in it, in that world. It was very difficult to believe in the reality of transition from one world to another. However, it seemed like a dream to Rutra after he regained consciousness. "Parmen most likely used a new technology – altering the perception of reality and creating an illusion of reality," he pondered logically. This technology is used in making feature films – like computer graphics superimposed on real objects, environments, but here – directly through the chip, in the brain, on everything a person sees. Rutra decided that's why he sees things that way.
Ruthra tried to contact Rangit. There was no reply. All other communication was also absent. It was a poorly furnished and colored room. Gray and beige with incomprehensible trappings. Parmen didn't think much of it. And yet what was his purpose? He, or those who