"Stanislaw Lem - The Offer Of King Krool" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lem Stanislaw)

“There's one difficulty. You see, if the King defeats our mechanical beast, he'll undoubtedly
have us thrown into that pit, for we won't have done his bidding. If, on the other hand, the
beast... You see what I mean?”
“If the beast isn't defeated?”
“No, if the beast defeats him, dear colleague. If that happens, the King's successor may
not let us off so easily.”
“You don't think we'd have to answer for that, do you? As a rule, heirs to the throne are
only too happy to see it vacated.”
“True, but this will be his son, and whether the son punishes us out of filial devotion or
because he thinks the royal court expects it of him, it'll make little difference as far as we're
concerned.”
“That never occurred to me,” muttered Klapaucius. “You're quite right, the prospects aren't
encouraging . Have you thought of a way out of this dilemma?”
“Well, we might make the beast multimortal. Picture this: the King slays it, it falls, then it
gets up again, resurrected, and the King chases it again, slays it again, and so on, until he
gets sick and tired of the whole thing.”
“That he won't like,” said Klapaucius after some thought. “And anyway, how would you
design such a beast?”
“Oh, I don't know... We could make it without any vital organs.
The King chops the beast into little pieces, but the pieces grow back together.”
“How?”
“Use a field.”
“Magnetic?”
“If you like.”
“How do we operate it?”
“Remote control, perhaps?” asked Trurl.
“Too risky,” said Klapaucius. “How do you know the King won't have us locked up in some
dungeon while the hunt's in progress?
Our poor predecessors were ¹fools, and look how they ended up.
More than one of them, I'm sure, thought of remote control—yet it failed. No, we can't
expect to maintain communication with the beast during the battle.”
“Then why not use a satellite?” suggested Trurl. “We could install automatic controls…”
“Satellite indeed!” snorted Klapaucius. “And how are you going to build it, let alone put it in
orbit? There are ¹miracles in our profession, Trurl! We'll have to hide the controls some other
way.”
“But where can we hide the controls when they watch our every step? You've seen how
the servants skulk about, sticking their noses into everything We'd never be able to leave the
premises ourselves, and certainly not smuggle out such a large piece of equipment. It's
impossible!”
“Calm down,” said prudent Klapaucius, looking over his shoulder.
“Perhaps we don't need such equipment in the first place.”
“Something has to operate the beast, and if that something is an electronic brain anywhere
inside, the King will smash it to a pulp before you can say goodbye.”


Fierce Simulations

They were silent. Night had fallen and the village lights below were flickering on, one by
one. Suddenly Trurl said:
“Listen, here's an idea. We only pretend to build a beast but in reality build a ship to