[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.It was worse than unethical, but he was past caring.In the physiomonth justgone he had, in his own eyes, become a criminal.There was no way of glossingover that fact.He would be no more a criminal by compounding his crime and hehad a great deal to gain by doing so.Now, as part of his felonious maneuvering (he made no effort to choose amilder phrase) he stood at the barrier before the 2456th.Entry into Time wasmuch more complicated than mere passage between Eternity and the kettleshafts.In order to enter Time the coordinates fixing the desired region onEarth's surface had painstakingly to be adjusted and the desired moment ofTime pin-pointed within the Century.Yet despite inner tension Harlan handledthe controls with the ease and quick confidence of a man with much experienceand a great talent.Harlan found himself in the engine room he had seen first on the viewingscreen within Eternity.At this physiomoment Sociologist Voy would be sittingsafely before that screen watching for the Technician's Touch that was tocome.Harlan felt no hurry.The room would remain empty for the next 156minutes.To be sure, the spatio-temporal chart allowed him only 110 minutes,leaving the remaining 46 as the customary 40 per cent "margin." Margin wasthere in case of necessity, but a Technician was not expected to have to useit.A "margin-eater" did not remain a Specialist long.Harlan, however, expected to use no more than 2 minutes of the iio.Wearing his wrist-borne field generator so that he was surrounded by an auraof physiotime (an effluvium, so to speak, of Eternity) and therefore protectedfrom any of the effects of Reality Change, he took one step toward the wall,lifted a small container from its position on a shelf, and placed it in aPage 32 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlcarefully adjusted spot on the shelf below.Having done that, he re-entered Eternity in a way that seemed as prosaic tohimself as passage through any door might be.Had there been a Timer watching,it would have seemed to him that Harlan had simply disappeared.The small container stayed where he put it.It played no immediate role inworld history.A man's hand, hours later, reached for it but did not find it.A search revealed it half an hour later still, but in the interim aforce-field had blanked out and a man's temper had been lost.A decision whichwould have remained unmade in the previous Reality was now made in anger.Ameeting did not take place; a man who would have died lived a year longer,under other circumstances; another who would have lived died somewhat sooner.The ripples spread wider, reaching their maxium in the 2481st, which wastwenty-five Centuries upwhen from the Touch.The intensity of the RealityChange declined thereafter.Theorists pointed out that nowhere to the infiniteupwhen could the Change ever become zero, but by fifty Centuries upwhen fromthe Touch the Change had become too small to detect by the finest Computing,and that was the practical limit.Of course no human being in Time could ever possibly be aware of anyReality Change having taken place.Mind changed as well as matter and onlyEternals could stand outside it all and see the change.Sociologist Voy was staring at the bluish scene in the 2481st, where earlierthere had been all the activity of a busy space-port.He barely looked up whenHarlan entered.He barely mumbled something that might have been a greeting.A change had indeed blasted the space-port.Its shininess was gone; whatbuildings there stood were not the grand creations they had been.A space-shiprusted.There were no people.There was no motion.Harlan allowed himself a small smile that flickered for a moment, thenvanished.It was M.D.R.all right.Maximum Desired Response.And it hadhappened at once.The Change did not necessarily take place at the precisemoment of the Technician's Touch.If the calculations that went into the Touchwere sloppy, hours or days might elapse before the Change actually took place(counting, of course, by physiotime).It was only when all degrees of freedomvanished that the Change took place.While there was even a mathematicalchance for alternate actions, the Change did _not_ take place.It was Harlan's pride that when _he_ calculated an M.N.C., when it was_his_ hand that contrived the Touch, the degrees of freedom vanished at once,and the Change took place instantly.Voy said softly, "It had been very beautiful."The phrase grated Harlan's ears, seeming to detract from the beauty of his ownperformance."I wouldn't regret," he said, "having spacetravel bred out ofReality altogether.""No?" said Voy."What good is it? It never lasts more than a millennium or two.People gettired.They come back home and the colonies die out.Then after another fouror five millennia, or forty or fifty, they try again and it fails again.It is a waste of human ingenuity and effort."Voy said dryly, "You're quite a philosopher."Harlan flushed.He thought: What's the use in talking to any of them? He said,angrily, with a sharp change of subject, "What about the Life-Plotter?""What about him?""Would you check with the man? He ought to have made some progress by now."The Sociologist let a look of disapproval drift across his face, as though tosay: You're the impatient one, aren't you? Aloud he said, "Come withme and let's see."The name plate on the office door said Neron Feruque, which struckHarlan's eye and mind because of its faint similarity to a pair of rulers inthe Mediterranean area during Primitive times [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl centka.pev.pl
.It was worse than unethical, but he was past caring.In the physiomonth justgone he had, in his own eyes, become a criminal.There was no way of glossingover that fact.He would be no more a criminal by compounding his crime and hehad a great deal to gain by doing so.Now, as part of his felonious maneuvering (he made no effort to choose amilder phrase) he stood at the barrier before the 2456th.Entry into Time wasmuch more complicated than mere passage between Eternity and the kettleshafts.In order to enter Time the coordinates fixing the desired region onEarth's surface had painstakingly to be adjusted and the desired moment ofTime pin-pointed within the Century.Yet despite inner tension Harlan handledthe controls with the ease and quick confidence of a man with much experienceand a great talent.Harlan found himself in the engine room he had seen first on the viewingscreen within Eternity.At this physiomoment Sociologist Voy would be sittingsafely before that screen watching for the Technician's Touch that was tocome.Harlan felt no hurry.The room would remain empty for the next 156minutes.To be sure, the spatio-temporal chart allowed him only 110 minutes,leaving the remaining 46 as the customary 40 per cent "margin." Margin wasthere in case of necessity, but a Technician was not expected to have to useit.A "margin-eater" did not remain a Specialist long.Harlan, however, expected to use no more than 2 minutes of the iio.Wearing his wrist-borne field generator so that he was surrounded by an auraof physiotime (an effluvium, so to speak, of Eternity) and therefore protectedfrom any of the effects of Reality Change, he took one step toward the wall,lifted a small container from its position on a shelf, and placed it in aPage 32 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlcarefully adjusted spot on the shelf below.Having done that, he re-entered Eternity in a way that seemed as prosaic tohimself as passage through any door might be.Had there been a Timer watching,it would have seemed to him that Harlan had simply disappeared.The small container stayed where he put it.It played no immediate role inworld history.A man's hand, hours later, reached for it but did not find it.A search revealed it half an hour later still, but in the interim aforce-field had blanked out and a man's temper had been lost.A decision whichwould have remained unmade in the previous Reality was now made in anger.Ameeting did not take place; a man who would have died lived a year longer,under other circumstances; another who would have lived died somewhat sooner.The ripples spread wider, reaching their maxium in the 2481st, which wastwenty-five Centuries upwhen from the Touch.The intensity of the RealityChange declined thereafter.Theorists pointed out that nowhere to the infiniteupwhen could the Change ever become zero, but by fifty Centuries upwhen fromthe Touch the Change had become too small to detect by the finest Computing,and that was the practical limit.Of course no human being in Time could ever possibly be aware of anyReality Change having taken place.Mind changed as well as matter and onlyEternals could stand outside it all and see the change.Sociologist Voy was staring at the bluish scene in the 2481st, where earlierthere had been all the activity of a busy space-port.He barely looked up whenHarlan entered.He barely mumbled something that might have been a greeting.A change had indeed blasted the space-port.Its shininess was gone; whatbuildings there stood were not the grand creations they had been.A space-shiprusted.There were no people.There was no motion.Harlan allowed himself a small smile that flickered for a moment, thenvanished.It was M.D.R.all right.Maximum Desired Response.And it hadhappened at once.The Change did not necessarily take place at the precisemoment of the Technician's Touch.If the calculations that went into the Touchwere sloppy, hours or days might elapse before the Change actually took place(counting, of course, by physiotime).It was only when all degrees of freedomvanished that the Change took place.While there was even a mathematicalchance for alternate actions, the Change did _not_ take place.It was Harlan's pride that when _he_ calculated an M.N.C., when it was_his_ hand that contrived the Touch, the degrees of freedom vanished at once,and the Change took place instantly.Voy said softly, "It had been very beautiful."The phrase grated Harlan's ears, seeming to detract from the beauty of his ownperformance."I wouldn't regret," he said, "having spacetravel bred out ofReality altogether.""No?" said Voy."What good is it? It never lasts more than a millennium or two.People gettired.They come back home and the colonies die out.Then after another fouror five millennia, or forty or fifty, they try again and it fails again.It is a waste of human ingenuity and effort."Voy said dryly, "You're quite a philosopher."Harlan flushed.He thought: What's the use in talking to any of them? He said,angrily, with a sharp change of subject, "What about the Life-Plotter?""What about him?""Would you check with the man? He ought to have made some progress by now."The Sociologist let a look of disapproval drift across his face, as though tosay: You're the impatient one, aren't you? Aloud he said, "Come withme and let's see."The name plate on the office door said Neron Feruque, which struckHarlan's eye and mind because of its faint similarity to a pair of rulers inthe Mediterranean area during Primitive times [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]