Читать книгу The Science Fiction Anthology онлайн

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There was a humming sound. Lon went out a third time and came back with a mass of shrubbery. He packed it in the large coil.

He muttered to himself, “I’m out of my head! I’m crazy!”

But then he went to the kitchen locker. He put a small packet of frozen green peas in the tin can between the two coils.

The humming sound increased. After a moment there was another parcel of green peas—not frozen—in the small coil.

Lon took it out. The device hummed more loudly again. Immediately there was another parcel of green peas in the small coil. He took them out.

When he had six parcels of green peas instead of one, the mass of foliage in the large coil collapsed abruptly. Lon disconnected the wires and removed the debris. The native foliage looked shrunken, somehow, dried-out. Lon tossed it through the window.

He put a parcel of unfrozen green peas on to cook and sat down and held his head in his hands. He knew what had happened. He knew how.

The local flora on Cetis Gamma Two naturally contained the same chemical elements as the green peas imported from Earth. Those elements were combined in chemical compounds similar, if not identical to, those of the Earth vegetation. The new gadget simply converted the compounds in the large coil to match those in the sample—in the tin can—and assembled them in the small coil according to the physical structure of the sample. In this case, as green peas.