"Options" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sheckley Robert)

1. Use of "Simple Premises" Termed Misleading

Tom Mishkin was tooling along through the Lesser Magellanic Cloud at a low multiple of the speed of light, moving along smartly but not really pushing it. His ship, the Intrepid III, was loaded with frozen South African lobster tails, tennis shoes, air conditioners, malted milk makers, and other general stores, bound for the settlement on Dora V. Mishkin was catnapping in a big command chair, lulled by the light patterns rippling across the control board and by the quiet snap and crackle of the circuit breakers. He was thinking of a new apartment he planned to buy in the town of Perth Amboy-bas-mer, ten miles due east of Sandy Hook. You could get a little peace and quiet in the suburbs, although the problem of commuting by submarine…

One of the snaps turned into a clank.

Mishkin sat upright, his pilot's ear always attuned for the Malfunction That Could Not Happen but frequently did.

Clank, clank, clank, crunch.

Yes. It had happened.

Mishkin groaned — that special pilot's groan compounded of foreknowledge, fatalism, and heartburn. He could hear bad things happening deep in the guts of the ship. The Malfunction Telltale (supposedly for external impingement only) went violet, then red, then purple, then black. The ship's computer awoke from its dogmatic slumber long enough to growl, "Malfunction, malfunction, malfunction."

"Thanks, I already got the idea," Mishkin said. "Where is it and what is it?"

"Malfunction in Part L-1223A. Catalogue name: Port Side Crossover Lock Valve Assembly and Retainer Ring. Proximate cause of malfunction: 8 (eight) sheered bolts plus spiral fracture in retainer ring housing. Intermediate cause: angular pressure on aforesaid parts resulted in molecular changes in metal composition of aforementioned parts, resulting in the condition known as metal fatigue."

"Yeah. But why?" Mishkin asked.

"Conjecture as to primary cause: various bolts in said assembly torqued to unacceptable pressures, thus reducing the assembly's life to 84.3 hours rather than the 195.441 working years called for in the specifications."

"Very nice," Mishkin said. "What's happening now?"

"I have cut out the unit and shut down the main drive."

"Up space creek without a paddle," Mishkin commented. "Can I use the main drive at all, just long enough to get to the nearest Ship Service Centre?"

"Negative. Use of aforementioned malfunctioned Part would cause immediate and cumulative distortions in other parts of Main Drive, resulting in total disablement, implosion, and death, and a permanent black mark on your service record. You would also be billed for a new spaceship."

"Well, I certainly don't want any black marks on my record," Mishkin said. "What should I do?"

"Your only feasible option is to remove and replace the malfunctioned Part. Caches of spare parts have been established on various uninhabited planets to cover such a necessity. The planet nearest to your present coordinates is Harmonia II, 68 hours from here by secondary drive."

"That sounds simple enough," Mishkin said.

"It is, theoretically."

"But practically?"

"There are always complications."

"Such as?"

"If we knew that," the computer told him, "the complications wouldn't be very complicated, would they?"

"I suppose not," Mishkin said. "All right, cut a course and let's get going!"

"To hear is to obey," the computer said.

USE OF "MULTIPLE PREMISES" TERMED CONFUSING

In an exclusive press interview yesterday, Professor David Hume of Harvard declared that sequence did not imply causality. When asked to amplify, he pointed out that sequence is merely additive, not generative.

We asked Dr Emmanuel Kant for his opinion on this statement. Professor Kant, in his Cal Tech study, looked badly shaken. "This," he said, "has awakened me from my dogmatic slumber."