"Raymond Z. Gallun - Dawn of the Demigods Or, People Minus X" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gallun Raymond Z)

who had perished with the Moon was enormous and slow. So in cellars and
out-of-the-way places countless biological technicians tried their skill. They
could not have made the grade at all if they were stupid, and their results,
generally, were good.
The various Julius Caesars and Michelangelos really came into being as
novelties, side-show pieces. All were reasonable likenesses, physically. From
existing minds such traits and skills as each was supposed to possess could be
copied more or less accurately. But none of the pseudo-great amounted to very
much. They enjoyed a brief popularity; then, assuming the costumes and customs
of a changed world, they sank into nonentity among the populace. Like most of
those of the new flesh, they kept this secret as if by intuitive prudence. The
many people restored in normal protoplasm were less reticent.
That there were androids around him, known, suspected and unrecognized
as such, was a thrilling idea to Ed Dukas. It was part of the onward march to
greater wonders -- or so it seemed to him most of the time. Eager to




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understand how they thought and felt, he sought them out cautiously, not
wishing to offend. Usually his efforts were met with coolness and evasion --
which perhaps gave them away.
But then Ed met a very special memory man. He wasn't the copy of
somebody famous. He was just a humorous legend. Yet now perhaps he was the
right kind of personality striking against the right sort of circumstances to
produce the type of action and fire that could affect the existing era.
Ed and his two friends, Les Payten and Barbara Day, found him in a
little park feeding pigeons. Or, rather, he found them. For in conformity with
an ancient village belief that no one should be a stranger to anyone else, he
grinned at them and said, "Hello, there! Nice young fellers. Nice girl! Sit
and gab a while? I keep gettin' lonesome. Mixed up. Got to get straightened
out. Or try, anyway. Put yourselves down? That's fine!"
Abashed and curious after that, Ed and Barbara and Les sat and mostly
just listened.
"Been around these times three months. Scared stiff at first. Thought I
was addled. Know somethin'? I can remember all the way back to 1870. It's a
fake, sure. No, they didn't make me look young, or even give me all my teeth.
Afraid of spoiling 'verisimilitude,' my
great-great-great-something-grandson-supposed-to-be said. I'm a family brag.
Look what I keep carrying around with me. One of the first editions of Huck
Finn. They found this tintype of a feller inside it. Illinois farmer. And look
at this here writing in the front of the book. 'Property of Abel Freeman.' So
I'm supposed to be him, slouch hat and all-funny, I can't get used to anything
else. So I write just like that. This tintype and the writing are the only
solid clues about what the original Abel Freeman was really like. Up to there,
I'm him. The rest is mostly storybook stuff, and the idea the family has that
their ancestor was a kind of pixilated hellion -- the sort some folks like to
tell about. Some way for a man to be born, huh? Shucks, I can even remember
the night I was supposed to have died. Drunk, and kicked in the belly by my