"Larry Niven - All the Myraiad Ways v1.0 (SS Collection)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

ISBN 0-345-28196-9

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition: June 1971

Fourth Printing: November 1978

Cover art by Dean Ellis


To MARILYN, alias Fuzzy Pink who starred in a couple of stories and inspired others


CONTENTS

ALL THE MYRIAD WAYS 1
PASSERBY 12
FOR A FOGGY NIGHT 28
WAIT IT OUT 36
THE JIGSAW MAN 45
NOT LONG BEFORE THE END 59
UNFINISHED STORY #1 72
UNFINISHED STORY #2 73
MAN OF STEEL WOMAN OF KLEENEX 74
EXERCISE IN SPECULATION: THE
THEORY AND PRACTICE
OF TELEPORTATION 83
THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF
TIME TRAVEL 110
INCONSTANT MOON 124
WHAT CAN YOU SAY ABOUT
CHOCOLATE COVERED
MANHOLE COVERS? 154
BECALMED IN HELL 167



ALL THE MYRIAD WAYS


There were timelines branching and branching, a mega-universe of universes, millions more every minute. Billions? Trillions? Trimble didn't understand the theory, though God knows he'd tried. The universe split every time someone made a decision. Split, so that every decision ever made could go both ways. Every choice made by every man, woman, and child on Earth was reversed in the universe next door. It was enough to confuse any citizen, let alone Detective-Lieutenant Gene Trimble, who had other problems to worry about.
Senseless suicide, senseless crime. A citywide epidemic. It had hit other cities too. Trimble suspected that it was worldwide, that other nations were simply keeping it quiet.
Trimble's sad eyes focused on the clock. Quitting time. He stood up to go home and slowly sat down again. For he had his teeth in the problem, and he couldn't let go.
Not that he was really accomplishing anything.
But if he left now, he'd only have to take it up again tomorrow.
Go, or stay?
And the branchings began again. Gene Trimble thought of other universes parallel to this one, and a parallel Gene Trimble in each one. Some had left early. Many had left on time, and were now halfway home to dinner, out to a movie, watching a strip show, racing to the scene of another death. Streaming out of police headquarters in all their multitudes, leaving a multitude of Trimbles behind them. Each of these trying to deal, alone, with the city's endless, inexplicable parade of suicides.
Gene Trimble spread the morning paper on his desk. From the bottom drawer he took his gun-cleaning equipment, then his .45. He began to take the gun apart.
The gun was old but serviceable. He'd never fired it except on the target range and never expected to. To Trimble, cleaning his gun was like knitting, a way to keep his hands busy while his mind wandered off. Turn the screws, don't lose them. Lay the parts out in order.