"Lem - Seventh Voyage" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lem Stanislaw)

in a towel, and he pressed the flat of a knife to his forehead,
trying in this manner to reduce the swelling of a lump the size of
an egg. The Thursday me meanwhile approached with the tools and
stood beside me, calmly scrutinizing the me with the lump, who with
his free hand was putting back on the shelf a siphon of seltzer. So
it was its gurgle I had taken for his gargle.
"What gave you that?" I asked sympathetically.
"Not what, who," he replied. "lt. was the Sunday me.
"The Sunday me? But why...that can't be!" I cried.
"Well it's a long story..."
"Makes no difference! Quick, let's go outside, we might just make
it!" said the Thursday me, turning to the me that was I.
"But the rocket will fall into the vortex any minute now," I
replied. "The shock could throw us off into space, and that would be
the end of us..."
"Use your head, stupid," snapped the Thursday me. "If the Friday
me's alive, nothing can happen to us. Today is only Thursday."
"It's Wednesday," I objected.
"It makes no difference, in either case I'll be alive on Friday, and
so will you."
"Yes, but there really aren't two of us, it only looks that way," I
observed, "actually there is one me, just from different days of the
week..."
"Fine, fine, now open the hatch..."
But it turned out here that we had only one spacesuit between us.
Therefore we could not both leave the rocket at the same time, and
therefore our plan to fix the rudder was completely ruined.
"Blast!" I cried, angrily throwing down the toolbag. "What I should
have done is put on the spacesuit to begin with and kept it on. I
just didn't think of it--but you, as the Thursday me, you ought to
have remembered!"
"I had the spacesuit, but the Friday me took it," he said.
"When? Why?"
"Eh, it's not worth going into," he shrugged and, turning around,
went back to the cabin. The Friday me wasn't there; I looked in the
bathroom, but it was empty too.
"Where's the Friday me?" I asked, returning. The Thursday me
methodically cracked an egg with a knife and poured its contents
onto the sizzling fat.
"Somewhere in the neighborhood of Saturday, no doubt," he replied,
indifferent, quickly scrambling the egg.
"Excuse me," I protested, "but you already had your meals on
Wednesday--what makes you think you can go and eat a second
Wednesday supper?"
"These rations are mine just as much as they are yours," he said,
calmly lifting the browned edge of the egg with his knife. "I am
you, you are me, so it makes no difference..."
"What sophistry! Wait, that's too much butter! Are you crazy? I
don't have enough food for this many people!"
The skillet flew out of his hand, and I went crashing into a wall: