"Тед Чан. Seventy-Two Letters (72 буквы, Рассказ) (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

Тед Чан. 72 буквы. Рассказ (англ.)

Seventy-Two Letters
by Ted Chiang

Originally published in Vanishing Acts, ed. Ellen Datlow.
Published in hardcover by Tor Books, July 2000; trade paperback, July
2001.

Copyright 2000 by Ted Chiang.
All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.



When he was a child, RobertТs favorite toy was a simple one, a clay
doll that could do nothing but walk forward. While his parents entertained
their guests in the garden outside, discussing VictoriaТs ascension to the
throne or the Chartist reforms, Robert would follow the doll as it marched
down the corridors of the family home, turning it around corners or back
where it came from. The doll didnТt obey commands or exhibit any sense at
all; if it met a wall, the diminutive clay figure would keep marching
until it gradually mashed its arms and legs into misshapen flippers.
Sometimes Robert would let it do that, strictly for his own amusement.
Once the dollТs limbs were thoroughly distorted, heТd pick the toy up and
pull the name out, stopping its motion in mid-stride. Then heТd knead the
body back into a smooth lump, flatten it out into a plank, and cut out a
different figure: a body with one leg crooked, or longer than the other.
He would stick the name back into it, and the doll would promptly topple
over and push itself around in a little circle.
It wasnТt the sculpting that Robert enjoyed; it was mapping out the
limits of the name. He liked to see how much variation he could impart to
the body before the name could no longer animate it. To save time with the
sculpting, he rarely added decorative details; he refined the bodies only
as was needed to test the name.
Another of his dolls walked on four legs. The body was a nice one, a
finely detailed porcelain horse, but Robert was more interested in
experimenting with its name. This name obeyed commands to start and stop
and knew enough to avoid obstacles, and Robert tried inserting it into
bodies of his own making. But this name had more exacting body
requirements, and he was never able to form a clay body it could animate.
He formed the legs separately and then attached them to the body, but he
wasnТt able to blend the seams smooth enough; the name didnТt recognize
the body as a single continuous piece.
He scrutinized the names themselves, looking for some simple
substitutions that might distinguish two-leggedness from fourleggedness,
or make the body obey simple commands. But the names looked entirely
different; on each scrap of parchment were inscribed seventy-two tiny
Hebrew letters, arranged in twelve rows of six, and so far as he could
tell, the order of the letters was utterly random.