"Doorway Into Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moskowitz Sam)

Then I say:
"Now kiddies, you punch this one for what you want. I'm gonna take the old one away before it breaks down?"
And I glance at the screen. The kiddies have apparently said they wanna look at some real cannibals. So the screen is presenting a anthropological expedition scientific record film of the fertility dance of the HubaJouba tribe of West Africa. It is supposed to be restricted to anthropological professors and post-graduate medical students. But there ain't any censor blocks working any movie and it's on. The kids are much interested. Me, bein' a old married man, I blush.
I disconnect Joe. Careful. I turn to the other logic and punch keys for Maintenance. I do not get a services flash. I get Maintenance. I feel very good. I report that I am goin' home because I fell down a flight of steps and hurt my leg. I add, inspired:
"And say, I was carryin' the logic I replaced and it's all busted. I left it for the dustman to pick up."
"If you don't turn them in," says Stock, "you gotta pay for them."
"Cheap at the price," I say.
I go home. Laurine ain't called. I put Joe down in the cellar, careful. If I turned him in, he'd be inspected and his parts salvaged even if I busted something on him. Whatever part was off-normal might be used again and everything start all over. I can't risk it. I pay for him and leave him be.
That's what happened. You might say I saved civilization and not be far wrong. I know I ain't going to take a chance on having Joe in action again. Not while Laurine is living. And there are other reasons. With all the nuts who wanna change the world to their own line of thinking, and the ones that wanna bump people off, and generally solve their problems- Yeah! Problems are bad, but I figure I better let sleeping problems lie.
But on the other hand, if Joe could be tamed, somehow, and got to work just reasonable- He could make me a couple million dollars, easy. But even if I got sense enough not to get rich, and if I get retired and just loaf around fishing and lying to other old dufiers about what a great guy I used to be- Maybe I'll like it, but maybe I won't. And after all, if I get fed up with being old and confined strictly to thinking-why I could hook Joe in long enough to ask: "How can a old guy not stay old?" Joe'll be able to find out. And he'll tell me.
That couldn't be allowed out general, of course. You gotta make room for kids to grow up. But it's a pretty good world, now Joe's turned off. Maybe I'll turn him on long enough to learn how tє stay in it. But on the other hand, maybe

WITH FOLDED HANDS
by
Jack Williamson

Underhill was walking home from the office, because his wife had the car, the afternoon he first met the new mechanicals. His feet were following his usual diagonal path across a weedy vacant blockЧhis wife usually had the carЧand his preoccupied mind was rejecting various impossible ways to meet his notes at the Two Rivers bank, when a new wall stopped him.
The wall wasn't any common brick or stone, but some-thing sleek and bright and strange. Underhill stared up at a long new building. He felt vaguely annoyed and surprised at this glittering obstructionЧit certainly hadn't been here last week.
Then he saw the thing in the window.
The window itself wasn't any ordinary glass. The wide, dustless panel was completely transparent, so that only the glowing letters fastened to it showed that it was there at all. The letters made a severe, modernistic sign:

Two Rivers Agency
HUMANOID INSTITUTE
The Perfect Mechanicals
"To Serve and Obey,
And Guard Men from Harm."

His dim annoyance sharpened, because Underhill was in the mechanicals business himself. Times were already hard enough, and mechanicals were a drug on the market. Androids, mechanoids, electronoids, automatoids, and ordinary robots. Unfortunately, few of them did all the salesmen promised, and the Two Rivers market was already sadly oversaturated.
Underhill sold androidsЧwhen he could. His next consignment was due tomorrow, and he didn't quite know how to meet the bill.
Frowning, he paused to stare at the thing behind that invisible window. He had never seen a humanoid. Like any mechanical not at work, it stood absolutely motionless. Smaller and slimmer than a man. A shining black, its sleek silicone skin had a changing sheen of bronze and metallic blue. Its graceful oval face wore a fixed look of alert and slightly surprised solicitude. Altogether, it was the most beautiful mechanical he had ever seen.
Too small, of course, for much practical utility. He murmured to himself a reassuring quotation from the Android Salesman: "Androids are bigЧbecause the makers refuse to sacrifice power, essential functions, or dependability. Androids are your biggest buy!"
The transparent door slid open as he turned toward it, and he walked into the haughty opulence of the new display room to convince himself that these streamlined items were just another flashy effort to catch the woman shopper.
He inspected the glittering layout shrewdly, and his breezy optimism faded. He had never heard of the Humanoid Institute, but the invading firm obviously had big money and big-time merchandising know-how.
He looked around for a salesman, but it was another mechanical that came gliding silently to meet him. A twin of the one in the window, it moved with a quick, surprising grace. Bronze and blue lights flowed over its lustrous blackness, and a yellow name plate flashed from its naked breast:

HUMANOID
Serial No. 81-H-B-27
The Perfect Mechanical
"To Serve and Obey,
And Guard Men from Harm."

Curiously, it had no lenses. The eyes in its bald oval head were steel-colored, blindly staring. But it stopped a few feet in front of him, as if it could see anyhow, and it spoke to him with a high, melodious voice:
"At your service, Mr. Underhill."
The use of his name startled him, for not even the androids could tell one man from another. But this was a clever merchandising stunt, of course, not too difficult in a town the size of Two Rivers. The salesman must be some local man, prompting the mechanical from behind the partition. Underhill erased his momentary astonishment, and said loudly.
"May I see your salesman, please?"
"We employ no human salesmen, sir," its soft silvery voice replied instantly. "The Humanoid Institute exists to serve mankind, and we require no human service. We ourselves can supply any information you desire, sir, and accept your order for immediate humanoid service."
Underhill peered at it dazedly. No mechanicals were competent even to recharge their own batteries and reset their own relays, much less to operate their own branch office. The blind eyes stared blankly back, and he looked uneasily around for any booth or curtain that might conceal the salesman.
Meanwhile, the sweet thin voice resumed persuasively.
"May we come out to your home for a free trial demonstration, sir? We are anxious to introduce our service on your planet, because we have been successful in eliminating human unhappiness on so many others. You will find us far superior to the old electronic mechanicals in use here."
Underhill stepped back uneasily. He reluctantly abandoned his search for the hidden salesman, shaken by the idea of any mechanicals promoting themselves. That would upset the whole industry.