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- Исаак Азимов
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- Конец вечности
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Occasionally
he
would
lose
himself
in
a
world
where
life
was
life
and
death
,
death
;
where
a
man
made
his
decisions
irrevocably
;
where
evil
could
not
be
prevented
,
nor
good
promoted
,
and
the
Battle
of
Waterloo
,
having
been
lost
,
was
really
lost
for
good
and
all
.
There
was
even
a
scrap
of
poetry
he
treasured
which
stated
that
a
moving
finger
having
once
written
could
never
be
lured
back
to
unwrite
.
And
then
it
was
difficult
,
almost
a
shock
,
to
return
his
thoughts
to
Eternity
,
and
to
a
universe
where
Reality
was
something
flexible
and
evanescent
,
something
men
such
as
himself
could
hold
in
the
palms
of
their
hands
and
shake
into
better
shape
.
)
The
illusion
of
St
.
Nicholas
shattered
when
Hobbe
Finge
spoke
to
him
in
a
brisk
,
matter
-
of
-
fact
way
.
"
You
can
start
in
tomorrow
with
a
routine
screening
of
current
.
Reality
.
I
want
it
good
,
thorough
,
and
to
the
point
.
There
will
be
xio
slackness
permitted
.
Your
first
spatio
-
temporal
chart
will
be
ready
for
you
tomorrow
morning
.
Got
it
?
"
"
Yes
,
Computer
,
"
said
Harlan
.
He
decided
as
early
as
that
that
he
and
Assistant
Computer
Hobbe
Finge
would
not
get
along
,
and
he
regretted
it
.
The
next
morning
Harlan
got
his
chart
in
intricately
punched
patterns
as
they
emerged
from
the
Computaplex
.
He
used
a
pocket
decoder
to
translate
them
into
Standard
Intertemporal
in
his
anxiety
to
make
not
even
the
smallest
mistake
at
the
very
beginning
.
Of
course
,
he
had
reached
the
stage
where
he
could
read
the
perforations
direct
.
The
chart
told
him
where
and
when
in
the
world
of
the
482nd
Century
he
might
go
and
where
he
might
not
;
what
he
could
do
and
what
be
could
not
;
what
he
must
avoid
at
all
costs
.
His
presence
must
impinge
only
upon
those
places
and
times
where
it
would
not
endanger
Reality
.
The
482nd
was
not
a
comfortable
Century
for
him
.
It
was
not
like
his
own
austere
and
conformist
homewhen
.
It
was
an
era
without
ethics
or
principles
,
as
he
was
accustomed
to
think
of
such
.
It
was
hedonistic
,
materialistic
,
more
than
a
little
matriarchal
.
It
was
the
only
era
(
he
checked
this
in
the
records
in
the
most
painstaking
way
)
in
which
ectogenic
birth
flourished
and
,
at
its
peak
,
40
per
cent
of
its
women
gave
eventual
birth
by
merely
contributing
a
fertilized
ovum
to
the
ovaria
.
Marriage
was
made
and
unmade
by
mutual
consent
and
was
not
recognized
legally
as
anything
more
than
a
personal
agreement
without
binding
force
.
Union
for
the
sake
of
childbearing
was
,
of
course
,
carefully
differentiated
from
the
social
functions
of
marriage
and
was
arranged
on
purely
eugenic
principles
.
In
a
hundred
ways
Harlan
thought
the
society
sick
and
therefore
hungered
for
a
Reality
Change
.
More
than
once
it
occurred
to
him
that
his
own
presence
in
the
Century
,
as
a
man
not
of
that
time
,
could
fork
its
history
.
If
his
disturbing
presence
could
only
be
made
disturbing
enough
at
some
key
point
,
a
different
branch
of
possibility
would
become
real
,
a
branch
in
which
millions
of
pleasure
-
seeking
women
would
find
themselves
transformed
into
true
,
pure
-
hearted
mothers
.
They
would
be
in
another
Reality
with
all
the
memories
that
belonged
with
it
,
unable
to
tell
,
dream
,
or
fancy
that
they
had
ever
been
anything
else
.
