"William Tenn - Child's Play" - читать интересную книгу автора (William Tenn)

He was still wondering about it the next night as he flipped the pages of "Twinning yourself and your friends." It would be interesting to twin Tina.
"One for me, one for Lew."
Only the horrible possibility of an error was there. His mannikin had not been perfect: its arms had been of unequal length. Think of a physically lopsided Tina, something he could never bring himself to disassemble, limping extraneously through life.
And then the book warned: "Your constructed twin, though resembling you in every obvious detail, has not had the slow and guarded maturity you have enjoyed. He or she will not be as stable mentally, much less able to cope with unusual situaнtions, much more prone to neurosis. Only a professional carnuplicator, using the finest equipment, can make an exact copy of a human personality. Yours will be able to live and even reproduce, but cannot ever be accepted as a valid and responsible member of society."
Well, he could chance that. A little less stability in Tina would hardly be noticeнable; it might be more desirable.
There was a knock. He opened the door, guarding the box from view with his body. His landlady.
"Your door has been locked for the past week, Mr. Weber. That's why the chamberнmaid hasn't cleaned the room. We thought you didn't want anyone inside."
"Yes." He stepped into the hall and closed the door behind him. "I've been doing some highly important legal work at home."
"Oh." He sensed a murderous curiosity and changed the subject.
"Why all the fine feathers, Mrs. LipantiЧNew Year's Eve party?
She smoothed her frilly black dress self-consciously. "Y-yes. My sister and her husband came in from Springfield today and we were going to make a night of it. Only...only the girl who was supposed to come over and mind their baby just phoned and said she isn't feeling well. So I guess we won't go unless somebody else, I mean unless we can get someone else to take care...I mean, somebody who doesn't have a previous engagement and who wouldn'tЧ" Her voice trailed away in assumed emнbarrassment as she realized the favor was already asked.
Well, after all, he wasn't doing anything tonight. And she had been remarkably pleasant those times when he had to operate on the basis of "Of course I'll have the rest of the rent in a day or so." But why did any one of the Earth's two billion humans, when in the possession of an unpleasant buck, pass it automatically to Sam Weber?
Then he remembered Chapter IV on babies and other small humans. Since the night when he had separated the mannikin from its constituent parts, he'd been runнning through the manual as an intellectual exercise. He didn't feel quite up to makнing some weird error on a small human. But twinning wasn't supposed to be as difficult.
Only by Gog and by Magog, by Aesculapius the Physician and Kildare the Doctor, he would not disassemble this time. There must be other methods of disposal posнsible in a large city on a dark night. He'd think of something.
"I'd be glad to watch the baby for a few hours." He started down the hall to anticiнpate her polite protest. "Don't have a date tonight myself. No, don't mention it, Mrs. Lipanti. Glad to do it."
In the landlady's apartment, her nervous sister briefed him doubtfully. "And that's the only time she cries in a low, steady way so if you move fast there won't be much damage done. Not much, anyway."
He saw them to the door. "I'll be fast enough," he assured the mother. "Just so I get a hint."
Mrs. Lipanti paused at the door. "Did I tell you about the man who was asking after you this afternoon?"
Again? "A sort of tall, old man in a long, black overcoat?"
"With the most frightening way of staring into your face and talking under his breath. Do you know him?"
"Not exactly. What did he want?"
"Well, he asked if there was a Sam Weaver living here who was a lawyer and had been spending most of his time in his room for the past week. I told him we had a Sam WeberЧyour first name is Sam?Чwho answered to that description, but that the last Weaver had moved out over a year ago. He just looked at me for a while and said, 'Weaver, WeberЧthey might have made an error,' and walked out without so much as a goodbye or excuse-me. Not what I call a polite gentleman."
Thoughtfully Sam walked back to the child. Strange how sharp a mental picture he had formed of this man! Possibly because the two women who had met him thus far had been very impressionable, although to hear their stories the impression was there to be received.
He doubted there was any mistake: the man had been looking for him on both occaнsions; his knowledge of Sam's vacation from foolscap this past week proved that. It did seem as if he weren't interested in meeting him until some moot point of identity should be established beyond the least shadow of a doubt. Something of a legal mind, that.
The whole affair centered around the "Bild-A-Man" set, he was positive. This skulkнing investigation hadn't started until after the gift from 2353 had been deliveredЧand Sam had started using it.
But till the character in the long, black overcoat paddled up to Sam Weber personнally and stated his business, there wasn't very much he could do about it.
Sam went upstairs for his Junior Biocalibrator.
He propped the manual open against the side of the bed and switched the instruнment on to full scanning power. The infant gurgled thickly as the calibrator was rolled slowly over its fat body and a section of metal tape unwound from the slot with, accordнing to the manual, a completely detailed physiological description.
It was detailed. Sam gasped as the tape, running through the enlarging viewer, gave information on the child for which a pediatrician would have taken out at least three mortgages on his immortal soul. Thyroid capacity, chromosome quality, cerebral content. All broken down into neat subheads of data for construction purposes. Rate of skull expansion in minutes for the next ten hours; rate of cartilage transformaнtion; changes in hormone secretions while active and at rest.
This was a blueprint; it was like taking canons from a baby.
Sam left the child to a puzzled contemplation of its navel and sped upstairs. With the tape as a guide, he clipped sections of the molds into the required smaller sizes. Then, almost before he knew it consciously, he was constructing a small human.
He was amazed at the ease with which he worked. Skill was evidently acquired in this game; the mannikin had been much harder to put together. The matter of dupliнcation and working from an informational tape simplified his problems, though.
The child took form under his eyes.
He was finished just an hour and a half after he had taken his first measurements. All except the vitalizing.
A moment's pause, here. The ugly prospect of disassembling stopped him for a moment, but he shook it off. He had to see how well he had done the job. If this child could breathe, what was not possible to him! Besides he couldn't keep it suspended in an inanimate condition very long without running the risk of ruining his work and the materials.
He started the vitalizer.
The child shivered and began a low, steady cry. Sam tore down to the landlady's apartment again and scooped up a square of white linen left on the bed for emergenнcies. Oh well, some more clean sheets.
After he had made the necessary repairs, he stood back and took a good look at it. He was in a sense a papa. He felt as proud.
It was a perfect little creature, glowing and round with health.
"I have twinned," he said happily.
Every detail correct. The two sides of the face correctly inexact, the duplication of the original child's lunch at the very same point of digestion. Same hair, same eyesЧor was it? Sam bent over the infant. He could have sworn the other was a blonde. This child had dark hair which seemed to grow darker as he looked.
He grabbed it with one hand and picked up the Junior Biocalibrator with the other.
Downstairs, he placed the two babies side by side on the big bed. No doubt about it. One was blonde; the other, his plagiarism, was now a definite brunette.
The biocalibrator showed other differences: Slightly faster pulse for his model. Lower blood count. Minutely higher cerebral capacity, although the content was the same. Adrenalin and bile secretions entirely unalike.
It added up to error. His child might be the superior specimen, or the inferior one, but he had not made a true copy. He had no way of knowing at the moment whether or not the infant he had built could grow into a human maturity. The other could.
Why? He had followed directions faithfully, had consulted the calibrator tape at every step. And this had resulted. Had he waited too long before starting the vitalizer? Or was it just a matter of insufficient skill?
Close to midnight, his watch delicately pointed out. It would be necessary to reнmove evidences of baby-making before the sisters Lipanti came home. Sam considнered possibilities swiftly.
He came down in a few moments with an old tablecloth and a cardboard carton. He wrapped the child in the tablecloth, vaguely happy that the temperature had risen that night, then placed it in the carton.
The child gurgled at the adventure. Its original on the bed gooed in return. Sam slipped quietly out into the street.
Male and female drunks stumbled along tootling on tiny trumpets. People wished each other a hic Happy New Year as he strode down the necessary three blocks.