"Damon Knight - A for Anything" - читать интересную книгу автора (Knight Damon)

A FOR ANYTHING (v2.0)

(A.K.A. The People Maker)
Damon Knight, 1959


"EN TONTQ NIXA"
"IN THIS, CONQUER"
Words accompanying the vision of the cross seen by Constantine, on the eve of his victory
over Maxentius in 312




1

A retired bank vice-president named Harry Breitfeller, who lived in a comfortable duplex in
Santa Monica with his wife and other relatives, stepped out on the cement porch a little after
nine one morning to pick up the mail. There were half a dozen envelopes, mostly bills, in the
mailbox, and a whacking big cardboard carton on the porch under it.
Breitfeller picked up the carton, thinking it must be something his wife had ordered, but saw
that his own name was on the label.
There was no return address. According to the postmark, the box had been mailed late the
previous afternoon in Clearwater, which is about thirty-four miles northeast of Los Angeles.
Breitfeller could not think of anyone he knew in Clear-water. Remembering stories he had
heard about bombs in the mail, he shook the box gingerly. It seemed too light to have a bomb
in it, and it rattled.
He took the box inside and set it down, pulled up a chair, and put his half-smoked cigar
carefully in an ashtray.
His wife, Madge, came in from the kitchen drying her hands. "What's that?" she asked.
"Don't know." Breitfeller had his pocket knife open, and was slitting the brown paper tape
that sealed the carton.
"Well, who's it from?"
"Don't know," said Breitfeller again. He turned the two halves of the box top carefully back.
Underneath was a little crumpled newspaper, and under that, something made of wood.
Cottage lamps, was his first thought, but they were unstained and there were no shades, and
no light sockets.
He pulled the two objects out of the carton and set them upright on the table. His wife
looked over his shoulder, and so did her sister Ruth who had just followed her in from the
kitchen. The objects were two identical wooden crosses. They were about a foot and a half
high. Each one stood on a thick wooden base, and had some kind of wiring attached to the
upright and crossarm. On the base of each one was a typewritten paper, stapled down, which
read:


THIS IS A GISMO IT IS A DUPLICATING DEVICE -- IT WILL DUPLICATE ANYTHING --
EVEN ANOTHER GISMO. TO OPERATE, SIMPLY ATTACH A SAMPLE OF WHATEVER YOU WISH
TO COPY TO THE LEFT HAND ARM OF THE GISMO, AS SHOWN.
 (There was a careful pen sketch in the margin.)
THEN PRESS THE SWITCH, AND A COPY WILL APPEAR ATTACHED TO THE RIGHT HAND ARM