"Robert A. Heinlein - The Man who sold the Moon (collected sto" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

"That's all very pretty, Pinero; if true, but where does that get you?"
Pinero favored him with an unresentful smile. "Patience, my friend. I
asked you to think of life as electrical. Now think of our long pink worm as a
conductor of electricity. You have heard, perhaps, of the fact that electrical
engineers can, by certain measurements, predict the exact location of a
break in a trans-Atlantic cable without ever leaving the shore. I do the same
with our pink worms. By applying my instruments to the cross-section here in
this room I can tell where the break occurs, that is to say, when death takes
place. Or, if you like, I can reverse the connections and tell you the date of
your birth. But that is uninteresting; you already know it."
The dour individual sneered. "I've caught you, doe. If what you said
about the race being like a vine of pink worms is true, you can't tell birthdays
because the connection with the race is continuous at birth. Your electrical.
conductor reaches on back through the mother into a man's remotest
ancestors."
Pinero beamed, "True, and clever, my friend. But you have pushed the
analogy too far. It is not done in the precise manner in which one measures
the length of an electrical conductor. In some ways it is more like measuring
the length of a long corridor by bouncing an echo off the far end. At birth
there is a sort of twist in the corridor, and, by proper calibration, I can detect
the echo from that twist. There is just one case in which I can get no
determinant reading; when a woman is actually carrying a child, I can't sort
out her life-line from that of the unborn infant."
"Let's see you prove it."
5
 "Certainly, my dear friend. Will you be a subject?"
One of the others spoke up. "He's called your bluff, Luke. Put up, or
shut up."
"I'm game. What do I do?"
"First write the date of your birth on a sheet of paper, and hand it to one
of your colleagues."
Luke complied. "Now what?"
"Remove your outer clothing and step upon these scales. Now tell me,
were you ever very much thinner, or very much fatter, than you are now. No?
What did you weigh at birth? Ten pounds? A fine bouncing baby boy. They
don't come so big any more."
"What is all this flubdubbery?"
"I am trying to approximate the average cross-section of our long pink
conductor, my dear Luke. Now will you seat yourself here. Then place this
electrode in your mouth. No, it will not hurt you; the voltage is quite low, less
than one micro-volt, but I must have a good connection." The doctor left him
and went behind his apparatus, where he lowered a hood over his head
before touching his controls. Some of the exposed dials came to life and a
low humming came from the machine. It stopped and the doctor popped out
of his little hide-away.
"I get sometime in February, nineteen-twelve. Who has the piece of
paper with the date?"
It was produced and unfolded. The custodian read, "February 22nd,
1912."
The stillness that followed was broken by a voice from the edge of the