"Stanley G. Weinbaum - The Worlds of If" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weinbaum Stanley G)

I gaped. "Your autobiography?"

"Yes. The world, though perhaps unaware, is crying for it. I shall detail my life, my work. I shall reveal
myself as the man responsible for the three years' duration of the Pacific War of 2004."

"You?"

"None other. Had I not been a loyal Netherlands subject at that time, and therefore neutral, the forces of
Asia would have been crushed in three months instead of three years. The subjunctivisor tells me so; I
would have invented a calculator to forecast the chances of every engagement; van Manderpootz would
have removed the bit or miss element in the conduct of war." He frowned solemnly. "There is my idea.
The autobiography of van Manderpootz. What do you think of it?"

I recovered my thoughts. "It'sтАФuhтАФit's colossal!" I said vehemently. "I'll buy a copy myself. Several
copies. I'll send 'em to my friends."

"I," said van Manderpootz expansively, "shall autograph your copy for you. It will be priceless. I shall
write in some fitting phrase, perhaps something like Magnificus sed non superbus. 'Great but not
proud!' That well described van Manderpootz, who despite his greatness is simple, modest, and
unassuming. Don't you agree?"

"Perfectly! A very apt description of you. ButтАФcouldn't I see your subjunctivisor before it's dismantled
to make way for the greater work?"

"Ah! You wish to find out something?"
"Yes, professor. Do you remember the Baikal disaster of a week or two ago? I was to have taken that
liner to Moscow. I just missed it." I related the circumstances.

"Humph!" he grunted. "You wish to discover what would have happened had you caught it, eh? Well, I
see several possibilities. Among the world of 'if' is the one that would have been real if you had been on
time, the one that depended on the vessel waiting for your actual arrival, and the one that hung on your
arriving within the five minutes they actually waited. In which are you interested?"

"OhтАФthe last one." That seemed the likeliest. After all, it was too much to expect that Dixon Wells could
ever be on time, and as to the second possibilityтАФwell, they hadn't waited for me, and that in a way
removed the weight of responsibility.

"Come on," rumbled van Manderpootz. I followed him across to the Physics Building and into his littered
laboratory. The device still stood on the table and I took my place before it, staring at the screen of the
Horsten psychomat. The clouds wavered and shifted as I sought to impress my memories on their
suggestive shapes, to read into them some picture of that vanished morning.

Then I had it. I made out the vista from the Staten Bridge, and was speeding across the giant span
toward the airport. I waved a signal to van Manderpootz, the thing clicked, and the subjunctivisor was
on.

The grassless clay of the field appeared. It is a curious thing about the psychomat that you see only
through the eyes of your image on the screen. It lends a strange reality to the working of the toy; I
suppose a sort of self-hypnosis is partly responsible.