"Herbert, Frank - The Eyes of Heisenberg" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

'You'd like to lay it to uncertainty, to Heisenberg,' Potter said. 'The principle of uncertainty, some result of our own meddling - everything an accident in the capricious universe.'
Svengaard felt stung by a quality of harshness in Potter's voice, said, 'Not precisely. I meant only that I hoped no super causal agency had a hand in-'
'God? You don't really mean you're afraid this is the action of a deity?'
Svengaard looked away. 'I remember in school,' he said. 'You were lecturing. You said we always have to be ready to face the fact that the reality we see will be shockingly different from anything our theories led us to suspect.'
'Did I say that? Did I really say that?'
'You did.'
'Something's out there, eh? Something beyond our instruments. It's never heard of Heisenberg. It isn't uncertain at all. It moves.' His voice lowered. 'It moves directly. It adjusts things.' He cocked his head to one side. 'Ah-hah! The ghost of Heisenberg is confounded!'
Svengaard glared at Potter. The man was mocking him. He spoke stiffly, 'Heisenberg did point out that we have our limits. If he taught us truly, how can we tell whether the unknown's an accident or the deliberate intent of God? What's the use of even asking?'
Svengaard spoke defensively, 'We appear to manage somehow.'
Potter startled him by laughing, head tipped back, body shaking with enjoyment. The laughter subsided and presently Potter said, 'Sven, you are a gem. I mean that. If it weren't for the ones like you, we'd still be back in the muck and mire, running from glaciers and saber-tooth tigers.'
Svengaard fought to keep anger from his voice, said, 'What do they think this arginine adjustment is?'
Potter stared at him, measuring, then, 'Damned if I haven't underestimated you, Sven. Apologies, eh?'
Svengaard shrugged. Potter was acting oddly today -astonishing reactions, strange eruptions of emotion. 'Do you know what they say about this?' he asked.
'You heard Max on the phone,' Potter said.
So that was Allgood, Svengaard thought.
'Certainly, I know,' Potter growled. 'Max has it all wrong. They say gene-shaping inflicts itself on nature - on a nature that can never be reduced to mechanical systems and, therefore, to stationary matter. You can't stop the movement, see? It's an extended system phenomenon, energy seeking a level that's- '
'Extending system?' Svengaard asked.
Potter looked up at the man's scowling face. The question focused Potter's attention abruptly on the differences in thought patterns between those who lived close to Central and those who touched the Optiman world only through reports and second-hand associations.
We are so different. Potter thought. Just as the Optimen are different from us and Sven here is different from the Sterries and breeders. We're cut off from each other... and none of us has a past. Only the Optimen have a past. But each has an individual past... selfishly personal... and ancient.
'Extended system,' Potter said. 'From the microcosmos to the macrocosmos, they say all is order and systems. The idea of matter is insubstantial. AU is collisions of energy - some appearing large, swift and spectacular... some small, gentle and slow. But this too is relative. The aspects of energy are infinite. Everything depends on the viewpoint of the observer. For each change of viewpoint, the energy rules change. There exist an infinite number of energy rules, each set dependent on the twin aspects of viewpoint and background. In an extended system, this thing from outside assumed the aspect of a node appearing on a standing wave. That's what they say.'
Svengaard slipped off the desk, stood in a rapture of awe. He felt that he'd had a fleeting glimpse, a wisp of understanding that penetrated every question he might ask about the universe.
Could that be what it's like to work out of Central? he wondered.
'That's a great summation, isn't it?' Potter demanded. He stood up. 'A truly great idea!' A chuckle shook him. 'You know, a guy named Diderot had that idea. It was around 1750 or thereabout. They spoon-feed it to us now. Great wisdom!'
'Maybe Diderot was... one of them' Svengaard ventured.
Potter sighed, thinking. How ignorant a man can become on a diet of managed history. He wondered then how his own diet had been adjusted and managed.
'Diderot was one of us,' Potter growled.
Svengaard stared at him, shocked to silence by the man's... blasphemy.
'It comes down to this,' Potter said. 'Nature doesn't like being meddled with.'
A chime sounded beneath Svengaard's desk.
'Security?' Potter asked.
'That's the all clear,' Svengaard said. 'They're ready for us now.'
'Central's Security hotshots are all in place,' Potter said. 'You will note that they didn't stoop to report to you or to me. They watch us too, you know.'
'I've... nothing to hide,' Svengaard said.
'Of course you haven't,' Potter said. He moved around the desk, threw an arm across Svengaard's shoulders. 'Come alongi It's time for us to put on the mask of Archeus. We're going to give form and organization to a living body. Veritable gods, we are.'
Svengaard felt himself still lost in confusion. 'What'll they do... to the Durants?' he asked.
'Do? Not a damn' thing - unless the Durants force it. The Durants won't even know they're being watched. But Central's little boys will know everything that goes on in that lounge. The Durants won't be able to belch without the gas being subjected to a full and complete analysis. Come along.'
But Svengaard held back. 'Doctor Potter,' he asked, 'what do you think introduced that arginine chain into the Durant morula?'
'I'm closer to you than you think,' Potter said. 'We're fighting... instability. We've upset the biological stability of the inheritance patterns with our false isomers and our enzyme adjustments and our meson beams. We've undermined the chemical stability of the molecules in the germ plasm. You're a doctor. Look at the enzyme prescriptions we all have to take - how profound the adjustment we have to make to stay alive. It wasn't always that way. And whatever set up that original stability is still in there fighting. That's what I think.'

three
THE cutting room nurses positioned the vat under the enzyme console, readied the tubes and the computer-feed-analysis board. They worked quietly, efficiently as Potter and Svengaard examined the gauges. The computer nurse racked her tapes and there came a brief whirring-clicking as she tested her board.
Potter felt himself filled with the wakeful anxiety that always came over him before surgery. He knew it would give way presently to the charged sureness of action, but he felt snappish at the moment. He glanced at the vat gauges. The Krebs cycle was holding at 86.9, a good sixty points above death level. The vat nurse came over, examined his breather mask. He checked his microphone, 'Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was black as hades - the surgeon took the credit for... a joke on all the ladies.'
He heard a distinct chuckle from the computer nurse, glanced at her, but she had her back to him and her face already hidden by hood and mask.
The vat nurse said, 'Microphone working. Doctor.'
He couldn't see her lips moving behind her mask, but her cheeks rippled as she spoke.
Svengaard flexed his fingers in their gloves, took a deep breath. It smelled faintly of ammonia. He wondered why Potter always joked with the nurses. It seemed demeaning, somehow.
Potter moved across to the vat. His sterile suit crinkled with a familiar snapping hiss as he walked. He glanced up at the wall screen, the replay monitor which showed approximately what the surgeon saw and which was the view watched by the parents. The screen presented him with a view of itself as he turned his forehead pickup lens toward it.
Damn' parents, he thought. They make me feel guilty... all of them.
He returned his attention to the crystal vat now bristling with instruments. The pump's churgling annoyed him.
Svengaard moved to the other side of the vat, waiting. The breather mask hid the lower half of his face, but his eyes appeared calm. He radiated a sense of steadiness, reliability.