Conto sobre uma barra de metal indestrutível e infecciosa?

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Cerca de 15-20 anos atrás, li uma história curta (acredito como parte de uma coleção) que, como sua trama principal, apresentava uma barra de metal que apareceu um dia. Um cara pegou e jogou na reciclagem. A barra em si era indestrutível e impraticável, e qualquer metal que tocasse era "infectado" para ter as mesmas propriedades após um certo período de tempo. Por isso, danificou a máquina que tentou processá-la para reciclagem e transformou a máquina de reciclagem de metal no mesmo tipo de metal. E se espalhou a partir daí.

Para o IIRC, isso não foi muito bom para a civilização. Eu acho que um dos personagens calculou como isso pode se espalhar rapidamente pelas ferrovias etc. e cometeu suicídio no final ... talvez?

por Aaron Axvig 08.03.2019 / 02:31

1 resposta

Provavelmente é "AE van Vogt"Juggernaut"(1944), que foi perguntado e respondido anteriormente aqui. Embora essa resposta não tenha sido aceita, é quase certamente correta.

A história diz respeito à aparência misteriosa de uma barra do que parece aço comum, que é coletada em uma unidade de sucata de guerra. O metal do lote, incluindo essa barra, pode ser modelado como aço normal, mas, uma vez totalmente "endurecido" (que leva cerca de duas semanas), não pode ser novamente moldado e possui dureza sobrenatural (ou seja, não pode ser dobrado):

"As you all know, obtaining information from a metallurgist"—he paused and grinned inoffensively at Nadderly, whom he had invited down—"is like obtaining blood from a turnip. Mr. Nadderly embodies in his character and his science all the caution of a Scotchman who realizes that it’s time he set up the drinks for everybody, but who is waiting for some of the gang to depart.

"I might as well warn you, gentlemen, that he is fully aware that any statement he has made on this metal might be used against him. One of his objections is that thirty days is a very brief period in the life of an alloy. There is an aluminum alloy, for instance, that requires forty days to age-harden.

"Mr. Nadderly wishes that stressed because the original hard alloy, which seems to have been a bar of about two inches square by a foot long, has in fifteen days imparted its hardness to the rest of the bar, of which it is a part.

"Gentlemen"—he looked earnestly over the faces—"the hardness of this metal cannot be stated or estimated. It is not just so many times harder than chromium or molybdenum steel. It is hard beyond all calculation.

"Once hardened, it cannot be machined, not even by tools made of itself. It won’t grind. Diamonds do not even scratch it. Cannon shells neither dent it nor scratch it. Chemicals have no effect. No heat we have been able to inflict on it has any softening effect.

"Two pieces welded together—other metal attaches to it readily—impart the hardness to the welding. Apparently, any metal, once hardened by contact with the hard metal, will impart the hardness to any metal with which it in turn comes into contact.

"The process is cumulative and endless, though, as I have said, it seems to require fifteen days. It is during this fortnight that the metal can be worked.

A causa do efeito é descoberta tarde demais e o metal "infectado" é amplamente distribuído para impedir sua propagação. Você se lembra corretamente que a primeira pessoa a perceber isso comete suicídio:

It was two days after that that his mind, settling slowly to normalcy from the excitement of the previous ten weeks, gave birth to a thought. It was not a complete thought, not final. It was a doubt that brought a tiny bead of perspiration out on his brow, and it prompted him to sit down, a very shaken young man, and draw a diagrammatic tree.

The tree began with a line that pointed at the word "Vulcan." It branched out to "Factories," then to other factories. It branched again, and again and again, and again and again and again.

It raced along railway tracks. It bridged the seas in ships and planes. It moved along fences and into mines. It ceased to have a beginning and an end. There was no end.

There was no color in Boothby’s face now. His eyes behind their owlish spectacles had a glazed look. Like an old man, he swayed up finally from his chair, and, hatless, wandered out into the afternoon. He found his way home like a sick dog, and headed straight for his workroom.

He wrote letters to Nadderly, to the chairman of the board of Vulcan, and to the chief army and navy agent attached to the enormous steel and iron works. He staggered to the nearest mailbox with the letters, then returned to his work room, and headed straight for the drawer where he kept his revolver.

The bullet splashed his brain out over the floor.

O governo distribui intencionalmente o metal infectado na Europa para parar a máquina de guerra alemã.

A história foi publicada originalmente na edição de agosto da 1944 de Astounding Science Fiction, e pode ser leia online na íntegra cortesia de archive.org.

08.03.2019 / 02:47