"John Varley - Mammoth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Varley John)

"More or less. Something that can get a useful mass from Time B to Time A—"

"Without killing it."

"Sure."

"I'd have to say no. See, the theory allows for moving in any direction through time... but it
forbids the transfer of any information that way, whether the information is a single 1 or 0 bit, or the
information in, say, strands of mammoth DNA, or the rather more complex information that is the
molecular makeup of a living body. And Howard, I really hate to tell you that, because I was getting
to like this lifestyle, and now I have to say I can't take your money. That is, if building a time machine
was what you wanted to hire me for. Was I right?"

Christian looked at the sea, and the big Ferris wheel, and when he turned back to Matt there
was a measure of satisfaction there.

"You were on the right track, but not on the money," he said.

"Excellent. That's where you learn things. So how did I go wrong?"

"Not enough information."

"There's always that danger."
 Christian turned the key in the ignition and the V-12 engine rumbled powerfully. He put the
Duesenberg in gear.

"I don't want you to make me a time machine, Matt. I already have one. I want you to see if you
can fix it."




FROM "LITTLE FUZZY, A CHILD OF THE ICE AGE"
That same summer in what would one day be called Canada there was a male woolly mammoth
we will call Tsehe.

Tsehe was in musth in a very bad way.

Just as human females are affected in different ways by their menstrual cycles, male elephants
react to musth in different ways. For some women, getting their period is no big deal. For others, it
means days spent being sick in bed and getting angry at everyone.

Tsehe was like that.

The long, thick fur on his head was sticky and matted from smelly stuff that oozes from a gland
male mammoths have on their temples. It was irritating.

His penis, which he normally kept tucked safely away in a sheath like horses or dogs do, was
now erect almost all the time. Sometimes it dragged on the ground (mammoths had very long
penises!), which was irritating.