"William Tenn - Brooklyn Project" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tenn William)

occurred we would not notice them, that no instruments imaginable could detect them. They claimed we
would accept these changes as things that had always existed. Well! This at a time when our
countryтАФand theirs, ladies and gentlemen of the press, theirs, tooтАФwas in greater danger than ever.
Can youтАФ"
Words failed him. He walked up and down the booth, shaking his head. All the reporters on the
long, wooden bench shook their heads with him in sympathy.
There was another gong. The two dull spheres appeared briefly, clanged against each other and
ricocheted off into opposite chronological directions.
"There you are." The government official waved his arms at the transparent labo-ratory floor above
them. "The first oscillation has been completed; has anything changed? Isn't everything the same? But the
dissidents would maintain that alter-ations have occurred and we haven't noticed them. With such
faith-based, unscientific viewpoints, there can be no argument. People like theseтАФ"


II. Two billion years ago. The great ball clicked its photographs of the fiery, erupting ground
below. Some red-hot crusts rattled off its sides. Five or six thousand complex mol-ecules lost their
basic structure as they impinged against it. A hundred didn't.

"тАФwill labor thirty hours a day out of thirty-three to convince you that black isn't white, that we have
seven moons instead of two. They are especially dangerousтАФ"
A long, muted note as the apparatus collided with itself. The warm orange of the corner lights
brightened as it started out again.
"тАФbecause of their learning, because they are sought for guidance in better ways of vegetation." The
government official was slithering up and down rapidly now, ges-turing with all of his pseudopods. "We
are faced with a very difficult problem, at presentтАФ"


III. One billion years ago. The primitive triple trilobite the machine had destroyed when it
materialized began drifting down wetly.

"тАФa very difficult problem. The question before us: should we shllk or shouldn't we shllk?" He was
hardly speaking English now; in fact, for some time, he hadn't been speaking at all. He had been stating
his thoughts by slapping one pseudopod against the otherтАФas he always had...


IV. A half-billion years ago. Many different kinds of bacteria died as the water changed
temperature slightly.


"This, then, is no time for half measures. If we can reproduce well enoughтАФ"
 V. Two hundred fifty million years ago. VI. A hundred twenty-five million years ago.


"тАФto satisfy the Five Who Spiral, we haveтАФ"


VII. Sixty-two million years. VIII. Thirty-one million. IX. Fifteen million. X. Seven and a half
million.