"R. A. Lafferty - Stories 2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lafferty R A)

Estimated Time: 25 months. Exceptions and Alternatives: 256 (detailed).
Follow-Up Units: $260,000.00 ea. Estimated Time: 30 days each for first 6,
grading down to 21 days each for additional. 2. Intensive
Instrumentation. Basic Module: $2,004,000.00. Estimated Time: 721 days.
Exceptions and Alternatives: 228 (detailed). The Follow-Up Units:
$248,000.00 ea. Estimated Time: 28 days each for first 4, 19 days each for
additional.
3. Dow-Mec-Tech. Basic Module: $1,999,999.98. Estimated Time: 23
months. Exceptions and Alternatives: 204 (detailed). Follow-up Units:
$235,000.00 ea. Estimated Time: 21 days each for first 9, 16 days each for
additional.
4. M.'M.' McGruder. Basic Module: $24.00. Estimated Time: 24 hours.
Exceptions and Alternatives: none (undetailed). Follow-Up Units: $24 ea.
Estimated Time: 24 hours each -- "this keeps going on time: as long as I
live or as long as you buy them, whichever is first. Note: Got one made
already. Come try it. I need the $24.00. 1 don't see how anybody can make
them cheaper than this."
"We run into the impossible," said Ludenschiager sadly. "We need one
within two weeks or we may as well forget the program. And if we forget the
program, we may as we forget everything. It is not for personal
aggrandizement that we seek this (except for Dinneen a little), but for the
good of our country and the world. There has to be a way out of this delay."

"How about McGruder?" Schachmeister laughed sourly.l
"Oh, we'll prosecute him under the Joker Act, of course,"
Lodenschlager growled, "but now we have the taller thing to tackle. We have
to find the way. Two years will be too late; we'll be done for by then. Two
weeks will almost be too late. We must somehow break the time barrier in
this."
"We're whipped, we're whipped!" Dinneen wailed, "and our enemies
will rejoice over us." He turned on three toes and strode gloomily out of
the room.

"The Covenant," it said. "Large, hard-roasted, de-oiled, white
peanuts under the Goober John trade name. Three a day, and they must be
Goober John Number Ones. Failure to provide them will void the Covenant."
"There will be no failure," said Malcomb 'the Marvelous' McGruder.
"It shall be done."
"We like-stuff pledge fulfill the Covenant,' it said.

The micro-miniatureized control station, the "bullet brain", had to
handle thirteen data flows at once. It had to do other things, including the
monitoring and inhibiting of the world. It must be practially
indestructible. And it had to be about the size of an eraser on a pencil.
This small size was of the greatest importance.
The smallest model of this which would handle such data properly was
about a cubic meter, and it weighed a thousand kilgrams. And it was itself a
miniaturization.
The project is still classified, so we cannot in conscience give
deep details of it. The project is still active, and perhans an answer can