Harrison, Harry (ed) - The Astounding-Analog Reader / Гаррисон, Гарри (ред) - Astounding-Analog: избранное [1972-1973, EPUB, ENG]

The Astounding-Analog Reader, Volume 1 1972, epub, ISBN: 0-385-02334-0, Doubleday The Astounding-Analog Reader, Volume 2 1973, epub, ISBN: 0-385-02732-X, Doubleday

The Push of a Finger by ALFRED BESTER

—or a careless word, for that matte, can wreck the entire universe. Think not? Well, if it happened this way—

I think it’s about time someone got all those stories together and burned them. You know the kind I mean—X, the mad scientist, wants to change the world; Y, the ruthless dictator, wants to rule the world; Z, the alien planet, wants to destroy the world. Let me tell you a different kind of story. It’s about a whole world that wanted to rule one man—about a planet of people who hunted down a single individual in an effort to change his life, yes, and even destroy him, if it had to be. It’s a story about one man against the entire Earth, but with the positions reversed. They’ve got a place in Manhattan City that isn’t very well known. Not known, I mean, in the sense that the cell-nucleus wasn’t known until scientists began to get the general idea. This was an undiscovered cell-nucleus, and still is, I imagine. It’s the pivot of our Universe. Anything that shakes the world comes out of it; and, strangely enough, any shake that does come out of it is intended to prevent worse upheavals. Don’t ask questions now. I’ll explain as I go along. . . .