Laboratory W

“The Dublve Laboratory” (1938) is Alexander Belяev’s science-fiction novel—one of the writer’s last major works.

In a certain country, the future is bright: its citizens are many-sidedly developed individuals whose abilities are directed toward the goals of public good, and nearly all needs are satisfied by definition. Only some outstanding yet unsolved tasks are handled by talented scientists. A graduate student, Nina Nikitina, arrives at the Institute of Experimental Medicine to work on her doctoral dissertation, but she can’t choose a supervisor from two “friends-rivals”: Sugubov, a pragmatic man “firmly standing on his feet,” and Lavrov, “a dreamer.” Lavrov is searching for ways to fight aging, which he believes is a treatable disease; he decides to involve Nina in experiments in the mysterious W laboratory—to save for the country the fading genius nuclear scientist Mikhaileye. After starting experiments that initially seem quite successful, Nina realizes that the professor has fallen into an electronarcotic addiction and is losing control of himself…