"Blish, James - To Pay the Piper" - читать интересную книгу автора (Blish James)

"Hsst!" Mudgett said. Carson had already broken off his
sentence. He wondered why the scanner gave a man such a
hard time outside that door, and then admitted him without
any warning to the people on the other side. Couldn't the
damned thing be trained to knock?
The newcomer was a page from the haemotology section.
"Here's the preliminary rundown on your 'student X,' Dr.
Carson," he said.
The page saluted Mudgett and went out. Carson began to
read. After a moment, he also began to sweat.
"Colonel, look at this. I was wrong after all. Disastrously
wrong. I haven't seen a blood-type distribution pattern like
Hamelin's since I was a medical student, and even back then
it was only a demonstration, not a real live patient. Look at
it from the genetic point of viewthe migration factors."
He passed the protocol across the desk. Mudgett was not
by background a scientist, but he was an enormously able
administrator, of the breed that makes it its business to know
the technicalities on which any project ultimately rests. He
was not much more than halfway through the tally before his
eyebrows were gaining altitude like shock waves.
"Carson, we can't let that man into the machine! He's"
"He's already in it, Colonel, you know that. And if we
interrupt the process before it runs to term, we'll kill him."
"Let's kill him, then," Mudgett said harshly. "Say he died
while being processed. Do the country a favor."
"That would produce a bell of a stink. Besides, we have no
proof."
Mudgett flourished the protocol excitedly.
"That's not proof to anyone but a haemotologist."
"But Carson, the man's a saboteur!" Mudgett shouted.
"Nobody but an Asiatic could have a typing pattern like-
this I And he's no melting-pot product, eitherhe's a classical
mixture, very probably a Georgian. And every move he's
made since we first heard of him has been aimed directly at
usaimed directly at tricking us into getting him into the
machine!"
"I think so too," Carson said grimly. "I just hope the
enemy hasn't many more agents as brilliant."
"One's enough," Mudgett said. "He's sure to be loaded to
the last cc of his blood with catalyst poisons. Once the
machine starts processing his serum, we're done forit'll
take us years to reprogram the computer, if it can be done at
all. It's got to be stopped!"
"Stopped?" Carson said, astonished. "But it's already
stopped. That's not what worries me. The machine stopped it
fifty minutes ago."
"It can't have! How could it? It has no relevant data!"
"Sure it has." Carson leaned forward, took the cruelly
chewed pencil away from Mudgett, and made a neat check