"Fontana,.D.C.-.Questor.Tapes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fontana D C)

Jerry began to remove the leads, his deft fingers moving with the skill of one whose craft is both instinctive and well learned. A bluish pulsating glow came from a power unit deep inside the android. The color intensified as Jerry removed the fine wires one by one.
The scientists and technicians hovered over control and monitoring devices as the young microelectronics engineer worked. Their ID tags identified several as Nobel Prize winners in their fields. The white "clean suits" gave them all a uniform, bulky look, except for Phyllis Bradley, whose spectacularly contoured figure could not have been defeated by an old-fashioned diver's suit. She was also one of the Nobel Prize winners.
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Jerry completed the disconnections and stepped back a pace. Suddenly the android's chest heaved; Jerry caught his breath, startled. The rise and fall of the machine's chest steadied into a regular pattern, and Jerry became aware of the voices routinely reporting.
"Heartbeat simulation steady at eighty." This from Michaels.
Phyllis Bradley flicked her gaze across a console and nodded in satisfaction. "Respiration simulation holding at twenty-one. Epidermal reading, 98.6. Internal lubricant flow, normal; full circulation. Pulse registering normal."
Jerry moved to the android's side again. It lay unmoving except for the rhythmic rise and fall of the chest in a normal breathing pattern. The eyes remained shut. The flawless skin and lipless mouth made it seem suddenly alien and disquieting. Jerry tentatively reached out to touch the android. The plastiskin was warm, but far too smooth. He had almost expected a human reaction-perhaps a ticklish drawing away. There was none, of course; he pulled back his hand, vaguely uncomfortable.
"It's doing nicely on its own." Michaels looked up in tune to see Jerry withdraw his hand, and he frowned. "Have you met a problem there, Robinson?"
"No, sir. When its chest started moving, it startled me, that's all."
Gorlov, the Russian, shook his head. "Strange you should be alarmed. This great toy of ours-you were most prominent in constructing it. You knew what it should do."
"Maybe I didn't really believe it would work." Gorlov appeared surprised but had no chance to comment. Geoffrey B. Darro entered the security lab. He was dressed like the others, in a white clean suit, wearing the obligatory identification tag and radiation-level badge. Jerry always knew when Darro was around, even if he hadn't seen him come in. Everyone instinctively fell silent and waited to be spoken to.
Darro was a man few people questioned. If they did, they seldom received answers. There probably was a dossier on him-somewhere-but most of what was known
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about him was only what Darro himself cared to reveal. Physically, he was a rugged, broad-shouldered man, still showing the easy, fluid motions of a well-conditioned athlete. He might have been fifty-there was a little gray in his crisp, dark hair. Intellectually, he was an accomplished man with a broad grasp of history, politics, economics, international strategies, and interplay on all levels. He was fluent in five languages and unyielding in all of them. Personally, he seemed to have no friends, no associates, no soft spots or weaknesses. At times Jerry was sure that Darro was made of harder steel than the android.
Darro was the official head of the five-nation Project Questor primarily because he was the one individual on whom they could all agree. He had been hired by many nations in the past-sometimes to overthrow a government, other times to save one. He never broke his word or his contract, and any country which employed him never regretted it. Geoffrey B. Darro's integrity was as dependable as the rising and setting of the sun.
Darro's eyes flicked around the room, taking it in with one look. The others went back to their monitoring rather self-consciously. The project chief crossed to the cosmetology section, where Dr. Chen was using a computer screen on which color slides flashed up. The finely detailed pictures were followed by complete information on the molding of features, skin pigmentation, hair implantation, and on other cosmetic instructions.
"Decided on the features you'll give it, Doctor?"
Chen looked around at the big man standing behind him. "Naturally, I would prefer Asian, Mr. Darro. I see great beauty in the shape and color of my people's faces." He smiled ruefully. "But when we hooked up its eye units, they turned a rather occidental blue."
Darro grunted. "Apparently Vaslovik had his own ideas on what he wanted."
"One of his many reputations," Chen said. He turned to the computer and keyed in a new diagram.
The screen obediently displayed a large color schematic of the mechanism which served as the android's eyes. The
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rounded front surface resembled an anatomical rendering of a healthy human eye. Chen tapped it with a finger.
"The part of it we will see looks remarkably human and will probably have normal eye movements, secretions, and so on."
Chen pushed another switch, and the diagram changed to reveal the complex microelectronic structure behind the rounded front area. Chen shook his head. "But exactly how the eye mechanism operates is still guesswork." He switched the screen diagram again, bringing in a closer, more detailed view of the delicate works. "We have never seen half the microunits Vaslovik used here. Or in the other components, for that matter."
"Fully disconnected," Robinson said from behind them.
Darro turned and moved back toward the assembly pallet. Dr. Bradley scanned the body monitor again. The levels were all satisfactory and no different from any average-human-body readings, as far as they went. There was no brain activity, no muscular movement except for that required by the rise and fall of the chest and the pumping of lubricant through the veins. "Readings excellent. Running very smoothly on its own," she said.
Michaels nodded and gestured to Jerry. "Seal it up, Mr. Robinson."
Jerry picked up a heat-molding tool and triggered it. The tip glowed red in a few seconds. He moved the flap of plastiskin into place, covering the exposed transistor packs in its side. The android's chest continued to move in even cadence, and Jerry hesitated for an instant. The eyes were closed, and the head still looked alien. It's a machine, Jerry reminded himself. Get on with it.
He applied the molding tip to the loose flap, holding the plastiskin in place to assure smooth bonding. The "skin" sizzled, but the accompanying odor was not unpleasant. Some smoke curled up from under the molding tip as Jerry moved it along the flap.
"You're not burning it?" Darro asked. "No. That's just normal residue in sealing up." Jerry stepped back so that Darro could see. The sealed area
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was clean and smooth, totally unblemished, as if the flap had never existed.
Darro nodded, impressed. "Another of Vaslovik's little inventions?"
"Mine." Jerry shrugged lightly. "I knew we'd need something like it. If it's supposed to look like a man, the seams can't show."
The project chief studied him intently but did not comment. Jerry had a feeling that the fact was registered, filed, and could be recalled instantly if Darro needed it. The young engineer turned his attention to the android.
Dr. Audret moved an information-input device over the android's head. It was a dome-shaped object, linked directly into the lab's programming computers. Audret glanced over at Gorlov. The Russian activated the data-tape turntables. Jerry shifted his weight nervously, impatiently, and Darro instantly snapped his attention from the android to the engineer.
"Programming ready," Gorlov said.
Darro watched Jerry. "The moment of truth."
Jerry suddenly stepped forward, his hand instinctively reaching out in a plea. "Please! I'm sorry-but I think you're wrong to use your programming instead of Dr. Vaslovik's."
The scientists turned to look at him with some surprise. Dr. Audret was the first to speak. "Monsieur Robinson, I think we all consider you a talented young engineer, but since this is a scientific decision-"
Jerry interrupted, turning to Darro as project chief. "Mr. Darro. Dr. Vaslovik's notes specifically state we should activate it with his programming tape. They now want to use their own computerized, hybrid mush-"
Darro cut in, hard and cold. "As project administrator, Mr. Robinson, I will not interfere with scientific decisions. Nor will you."
"It is a useless discussion," Audret said. "We all know half the Vaslovik tape has been erased-"
"By the attempts of your cryptographers to decode it," Jerry snapped.
Gorlov muscled into the debate, interposing himself be-
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tween Robinson and Audret. "Naturally we wished to learn what instructions Dr. Vaslovik left for the android. Unfortunately, we did not."
"No, you only managed to destroy what might mean the success of this project."
The Russian lifted his hands in a little gesture of acknowledgment. "Once we saw there was nothing to be gained and only certain loss if we continued, we ceased to experiment with the Vaslovik tape. We have selected university tapes of your systematized knowledge since our tests show that orderly data fed into the android will form patterns in the brain-case bionic plasma."