“What the hell?” I cried, and ran to the stairs.
The Institute was stuffed to the gills with colleagues. It seemed there were even more of them than on a working day. In offices and laboratories the lights were full on, doors were wide open. The usual business hum pervaded the Institute: there was the c***k of discharges, the manytoned voices dictating numbers or pronouncing incantations, the staccato pounding of calculators and typewriters. Above it all was the rolling and victorious roar of Feodor Simeonovich: “That’s good! That’s great! You are a good man, old buddy. But who’s the imbecile who plugged in the generator?”
I was struck in the back with a sharp corner and grabbed the railing. I was enraged. It was Volodia Pochkin and Eddie Amperian, who were carrying a coordinate-measurin
