"Dafydd ab Hugh, Brad Linaweawer DOOM: Endgame (english)" - читать интересную книгу автора

organlike objects in a nutrient bath, running a low-
level electrical current through them for two days.
Now they jump-started the hearts with big jolts of
electricity, and the damned thing moaned, flapped its
arms, and sat upЧalive again, oo-rah.
The Newbie slowly stared at each of us, especially
curious about Sears and Roebuck; it made no attempt
to escape, attack, or even step off the operating table. I
guess it figured we were unknown quantitiesЧbest
not to rile us just yet.
The thing started picking up our language from the
moment we revived it. I asked Arlene whether she had
me covered, and the Newbie had all the vocabulary I
used (Arlene, name; you, me, pronouns; covered,
guarded with a gun) and half our language structure
(interrogative, expression) down cold in six seconds. I
started asking it simple questions; after the second or
third one, it was answering in good English, a lot
better than Sears and Roebuck had ever managed to
learn. An hour after reviving, we were having an
animated conversation!
"What is your name?" I asked.
"Newbies."
Thanks a lump. "Not you as a species, you as an
individual. . . . What is your name?"
"Newbies."
I shook my head. There was some sort of confusion,
but maybe it was just the language. "All right,
Newbie, what did you do to the Freds, to the ones who
were here before you?"
"They were broken, but we couldn't fix them."
"How were they broken?"
The Newbie stared unanswering for a moment; I
figured he was calculating the time factor. "Eleven
decades elapsed between contacts by the Freds, and
they had not grown to meet the circumstances. We
expected to surrender and seek fixing, but they were
broken and had to be fixed."
"We found a Fred here who said you destroyed
them, wiped them all off the face of the planet. Why
did you kill him and his buddies?"
"What is a Fred?"
"A Fred! The Freds!" I waved my arms in exaspera-
tion. "Why did you kill them?"
"We are not familiar with a Fred. The Freds were
broken; they did not grow to meet the circumstances.
We attempted to fix them, but it was beyond our
capabilities. We eliminated them from the mix while
we studied the problem. The next time we encounter
such a breakage, we shall have grown."