Parallel Worlds pro et contra - стр. 25

Rutra took advantage of being the golden mean in the command of this power hierarchy and treating the main persons of power of their group. These are not police and military organizations, as many might think. It is not financial and economic organizations; not even religious ones. It is her majesty science and the doers of science. The priests of the modern world.

Rutra was trusted, his progressive and strict principles suited both sides, so he could enjoy almost complete freedom. No one in their system could boast of complete freedom, by the way; everyone depended on each other, and all decisions were made collegially. When they met at a meeting, which, however, was not so rare, they periodically discussed ideas that they considered secret only because the public would be horrified if they learned about the idea to realize such a thing.

Rutra decided to listen to the scientific community. In return, he wanted to propose something even more revolutionary. The general public, that is, ordinary citizens, could not learn about all this, could not adequately perceive the proposals due to the delirium of the ideas discussed. But the employees of the center were of great concern, because there were those who could use the technology.

This time even Ruthra was at a loss, if such a thing could happen; rather, he was confused. The scientist's idea was fantastic, unbelievable. And that made it all the more enticing to Ruthra, provoking a desire to try, not deny, even though he was merely proposing a real experiment with a human using his own technology. Rutra, despite his recklessness and bravery, was guided solely by a "sober" mind. In this case, it was impossible to send Squirrel and Strelka and then check the state of their bodies. In this technology, a person's consciousness was sent, so it was possible to check whether it worked or not only when this consciousness returned to the original body, i.e. to find out from the person personally. There was, of course, a risk of its non-return. In fact, it was something comparable to the first human flight into space. Was there a risk of Gagarin's death? Of course there was! Is there a risk for astronauts going into space to die even now with all the advanced technology? Of course there is!

The essence of the method proposed by the scientist was to test it on Earth. In principle, the technology was not much different from the state in virtual reality, only in this case one had to actually be in the real world only in someone else's body. It was certainly hard to imagine, but what else did Rutra have to wonder about…? He was offered nothing less than to try to transfer his consciousness from his own body to another. According to the scientist, with whom they were already friends and like-minded, it was possible, in a state of hypnotic sleep, to retain one's body and then transfer one's consciousness back. Rutra was familiar with such technology, so he was not so shocked, and he himself had participated in experiments on the transfer of consciousness, only to save the native body after a complete transfer could not be, the autonomic nervous system for some reason shut down. The technology had been developed by a secret academician with whom Rutra had worked under the previous program at the Polygon facility, in an underground city-state (if not a separate civilization). Only then the technology had worked a little differently: after the academician had tested it on himself, it had led to his death. There was, of course, another version, which Rutra put forward: the academician transferred his consciousness into a younger employee, and made his body dead. An ingenious alibi. It didn't matter so much now; Rutra was engaged in a new, more scientific endeavor, as opposed to one dominated by the military and political.