"Henry Kuttner - Android" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kuttner Henry)

Android
Henry Kuttner
BRADLEY LOOKED at the Director’s head. His stomach tried’ to crawl up into his throat. He
felt suddenly dizzy. He knew that he was betraying himself, and that would be absolutely fatal.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a few coins, and let the coins
drop, as though by accident, to the airfoam carpet.
“Oh-oh,” he said, and immediately crouched down to recover the money. It’s a basic principle of
first aid, in cases of shock or faintness, to lower the head, and Bradley was doing just that. The giddiness
began to pass as his circulation picked up. In a moment, he knew, he’d have to stand up and face the
Director, and by that time he was determined to have his feelings under control. But how the devil could
the Director’s head be where it was—after last night?
And then sanity came back. He remembered that, last night, the Director couldn’t possibly have
recognized him through the rubber-plastic false-face he had worn. On the other hand, after last night, the
Director of New Products, Inc., should have been incapable of living or breathing, not to speak of using
his memory-centers. Bradley had left the man’s body in one corner of the room and his head in another.
Man?
With a violent effort he controlled himself. He recaptured the last coin and stood up, his face
flushed. “Sorry,” he said. “I came in to deliver that report on the induced mutation project, not to act like
a horn of plenty.” His fascinated stare moved down to the Director’s neck and flicked away. The high
collar concealed any— any mark. Any mark, such as might have been left by razor-sharp steel shearing
through flesh and bone. . . . Was there a reason for the high collar? Bradley couldn’t be sure. In the fall of
2060, men’s fashions had changed considerably from the uncomfortable styles of a few years before, and
the Director’s flaring half-cape, with its gilt-braided, close-fitting collar, was far from extreme. Bradley
owned one like that himself.
Lord, he thought in white panic—can’t the—the things even be killed?
Arthur Court, the Director, turned a bland smile on his Chief of Organization. “Hangover?” he
asked. “Take an irradiation treatment. Medical’s always happy to use their gadgets. Our staff’s too
healthy to suit them, I think.” He talked!
A mad thought whirled into Bradley’s brain: a ringer? Was this really Court sitting behind the
desk? But instantly he knew that couldn’t be the explanation. It was Court, the same Arthur Court whom
Bradley had killed not many hours ago. If you could call it killing, when Court hadn’t actually been alive
... at least, not with the same sort of life that activated human beings.
He forced his mind from the danger-level and became the efficient Chief of Organization of the
company. “You can’t argue with a hangover,” he said. “Here’re the latest figures—”
“What about that variant factor? I gathered there was something that upset the calculations.”
“There was,” Bradley said. “But it’s a theoretical variable. It doesn’t matter a bit in practice,
because we’re not trying to mutate people. And the sterility rate doesn’t vary abnormally with fruit-flies
or—or strawberries.”
“But it does with people—eh?” Court glanced rapidly through the papers Bradley had given him.
“Uh-huh. We could follow it up, but it would cost money and wouldn’t have any immediately
practical results. That’s up to you to decide, sir.”
“We can predict non-human reactions with reasonable accuracy, though?”
Bradley nodded. “Two per cent factor of error. Close enough for us to mutate potatoes twenty
feet long and tasting like roast beef, without any danger of getting them half an inch long instead, and
tasting like cyanide.”
“Does the curve of variance rise with animals?”
“No. Only people. We can hatch chickens which are all white meat and built cube-shaped for
easy carving. And, really, we could mutate people too, if it weren’t illegal—but the uncertainty factor
steps in there, as I said. Too many people become sterilized instead of having mutated children.”
 “Um,” Court said, and pondered. “Well, forget about the people, then. There’s no profit in it.