"Henry Kuttner - Mimsy Were The Borogoves" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kuttner Henry)

But no boy has ever left a box unopened, unless forcibly dragged away. Scott probed deeper. The angles on this
thing were funny. Short
circuit, probably. That was whyтАФuh! The knife slipped. Scott sucked his thumb and gave vent to experienced
blasphemy.
Maybe it was a music box.
Scott shouldnтАЩt have felt depressed. The gadgetry would have given Einstein a headache and driven Steinmetz
raving mad. The trouble was, of course, that the box had not yet completely entered the space-time continuum where
Scott existed, and therefore it could not be openedтАФ at any rate, not till Scott used a convenient rock to hammer the
helical non-helix into a more convenient position.
He hammered it, in fact, from its contact point with the fourth di-mension, releasing the space-time torsion it had
been maintaining. There was a brittle snap. The box jarred slightly, and lay motionless, no longer only partially in
existence. Scott opened it easily now.

The soft, woven helmet was the first thing that caught his eye, but he discarded that without much interest. It was
just a cap. Next, he lifted a square, transparent crystal block, small enough to cup in his palmтАФmuch too small to
contain the maze of apparatus within it. In a moment Scott had solved that problem. The crystal was a sort of
mag-nifying glass, vastly enlarging the things inside the block. Strange things they were, too. Miniature people, for
example.
They moved, like clockwork automatons, though much more smoothly. It was rather like watching a play. Scott was
interested in their costumes, but fascinated by their actions. The tiny people were deftly building a house. Scott
wished it would catch fire, so he could see the people put it out.
Flames licked up from the half-completed structure. The automatons, with a great deal of odd apparatus,
extinguished the blaze.
It didnтАЩt take Scott long to catch on. But he was a little worried. The manikins would obey his thoughts. By the time
he discovered that, he was frightened and threw the cube from him.
Halfway up the bank, he reconsidered and returned. The crystal lay partly in the water, shining in the sun. It was a
toy; Scott sensed that, with the unerring instinct of a child. But he didnтАЩt pick it up immedi-ately. Instead, he returned
to the box and investigated its remaining Contents.
He found some really remarkable gadgets. The afternoon passed all too quickly. Scott finally put the toys back in
the box and lugged it home, grunting and puffing. He was quite red-faced by the time he arrived at the kitchen door.
His find he hid at the back of a closet in his room upstairs. The crystal cube he slipped into his pocket, which
already bulged with
string, a coil of wire, two pennies, a wad of tinfoil, a grimy defense stamp and a chunk of feldspar. Emma, ScottтАЩs
two-year-old sister, wad-dled unsteadily in from the hail and said hello.
тАЬHello, Slug,тАЭ Scott nodded, from his altitude of seven years and some months. He patronized Emma shockingly,
but she didnтАЩt know the dif-ference. Small, plump and wide-eyed, she flopped down on the carpet and stared dolefully
at her shoes.
тАЬTie тАШem, Scotty, please?тАЭ
тАЬSap,тАЭ Scott told her kindly, but knotted the laces. тАЬDinner ready yet?тАЭ
Emma nodded.
тАЬLetтАЩs see your hands.тАЭ For a wonder they were reasonably clean, though probably not aseptic. Scott regarded his
own paws thoughtfully and, grimacing, went to the bathroom, where he made a sketchy toilet. The tadpoles had left
traces.

Dennis Paradine and his wife Jane were having a cocktail before dinner, downstairs in the living room. He was a
youngish, middle-aged man with soft gray hair and a thin, prim-mouthed face; he taught phi-losophy at the University.
Jane was small, neat, dark and very pretty. She sipped her Martini and said:
тАЬNew shoes. Like тАШem?тАЭ
тАЬHereтАЩs to crime,тАЭ Paradine muttered absently. тАЬHuh? Shoes? Not now. Wait till IтАЩve finished this. I had a bad day.тАЭ
тАЬExams?тАЭ