"Harry Harrison - Galactic Dreams" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

on his cheekbones and dropping low on his chest.

Where Torrence was dark Numen was fair, where short he was tall, thick, thin.
A thin bow of a man, bent forward with a scholar's stoop and, though balding
now, his hair was still curled and blond and very much like the golden
ringlets of the boy asleep upstairs. Now he took the toy animal and led the
way to the shielded room deep in the house where Eigg was waiting.
"Give it here-here!тАЭ Eigg snapped when they came in, reaching for the toy.
Eigg was always like that, in a hurry, surly, square and solid with his width
of jaw and spotless white laboratory smock. But they needed him.

"Gently," Numen said, but Eigg had already pulled it from his grasp. "It won't
like it, I know . . .тАЭ

"Let me go . . . let me go... !тАЭ the teddy bear said with a hopeless shrill.

"It is just a machine," Eigg said coldly, putting in face down on the table
and reaching for a scalpel. "You are a grown man, you should be more logical,
have your emotions under greater control. You are speaking with your childhood
memories, seeing your own boyhood teddy who was your friend and companion.
This is only a machine.тАЭ

With a quick slash he opened the fabric over the seam seal and touched it: the
plastic-fur back gaped open like a mouth.

"Let me go . . . let me go . . .тАЭ the teddy bear wailed while its stumpy arms
and legs waved back and forth. Both of the onlookers went white.

"Must we... ?тАЭ

"Emotions. Control them," Eigg said and probed with a screwdriver. There was a
click and the toy went limp. He began to unscrew a plate in the mechanism.

Numen turned away and found that he had to touch a handkerchief to his face.
Eigg was right. He was being emotional. This was just a machine. It was
singularly stupid of him to get emotional over it. Particularly with what they
had in mind.

"How long will it take?тАЭ

He looked at his watch; it was a little past 2100.

"We have been over this before and discussing it again will not change any of
the factors.тАЭ

Eigg's voice was distant as he removed the tiny plate and began to examine the
machine's interior with a magnifying probe. "I have experimented on the two
stolen teddy tapes, carefully timing myself at every step. I do not count
removal or restoration of the tape, that is just a few minutes for each. The
tracking and altering of the tape in both instances took me under ten hours.