[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Congressmen's irrational hopes of paradise. He couldn't plead for the Lab on
the grounds of sentiment -- or that it was sometimes a good idea to work out
your own problems. The Senators didn't care for the problems or concerns of
the scientists. It appeared that even the scientists themselves had forgotten
to care. He had to slug both groups with something very solid.
Markham was going on. "We are convinced this is a bargain which even
the most obstinate of our Congressional colleagues will be quick to recognize.
It would be folly to compute with building blocks when we can gain access to
giant calculators. There should be no real difficulty in getting funds
transferred from the National Laboratory.
"At this time we will adjourn. Liacan leaves this evening. Our
acceptance of this generous offer will be conveyed to Rykeman III directly
upon official sanction by the Congress. I wish to ask this same group to meet
again for discussion of the details incident to this transfer of operations.
Let us say at ten o'clock in the morning, gentlemen."
* * * *
Hockley said goodbye to the envoy. Afterwards, he moved through the
circle of Senators to his own group. In the corridor they tightened about him
and followed along as if he had given an order for them to follow him. He
turned and attempted a grin.
"Looks like a bull session is in order, gents. Assembly in five minutes
in my office." As he and Showalter opened the door to Miss Cardston's office
and strode in, the secretary looked up with a start. "I thought you were going
to meet in the conference room."
"We've met," said Hockley. "This is the aftermeeting. Send out for a
couple of cases of beer." He glanced at the number surging through the doorway
and fished in his billfold. "Better make it three. This ought to cover it."
With disapproval, Miss Cardston picked up the bills and turned to the
phone. Almost simultaneously there was a bellow of protest and an enormous,
ham-like hand gripped her slender wrist. She glanced up in momentary fright.
Dr. Forman K. Silvers was holding her wrist with one hand and clapping
Hockley on the back with the other. "This is not an occasion for beer, my
boy!" he said in an enormous voice. "Make that a case of champagne, Miss
Cardston." He released her and drew out his own billfold.
"Get somebody to bring in a couple of dozen chairs," Hockley said.
In his own office he walked to the window behind his desk and stood
facing it. The afternoon haze was coming up out of the ocean. Faintly visible
were the great buildings of the National Laboratories on the other side of the
city. Above the mist, the sun caught the tip of the eight-story tower where
the massive field tunnels of the newly designed gammatron were to be
installed.
Or were to have been installed.
The gammatron was expected to make possible the creation of
gravitational fields up to five thousand g's. It would probably be a mere toy
to the Rykes, but Hockley felt a fierce pride in its creation. Maybe that was
childish. Maybe his whole feeling about the Lab was childish. Perhaps the time
had come to give up childish things and take upon themselves adulthood.
But looking across the city at the concrete spire of the gammatron, he
didn't believe it.
He heard the clank of metal chairs as a couple of clerks began bringing
them in. Then there was the clink of glassware. He turned to see Miss Cardston
stiffly indicating a spot on the library table for the glasses and the frosty
bottles.
Hockley walked slowly to the table and filled one of the glasses. He
raised it slowly. "It's been a short life but a merry one, gentlemen." He
swallowed the contents of the glass too quickly and returned to his desk.
"You don't sound very happy about the whole thing," said Mortenson, a
chemist who wore a neat, silvery mustache.
"Are you overjoyed," said Hockley, "that we are to swap the National
Lab for a bottomless encyclopedia?"
"Yes, I think so," said Mortenson, "There are some minor objections,
but in the end I'm certain we'll all be satisfied with what we get!"
"Satisfied! Happy!" exclaimed the mathematician, Dr. Silvers. "How can
you use words so prosaic and restrained in references to these great events
which we shall be privileged to witness in our lifetimes?"
He had taken his stand by the library table and was now filling the
glasses with the clear, bubbling champagne, sloshing it with ecstatic abandon
over the table and the rug.
Hockley glanced toward him. "You don't believe, then, Dr. Silvers, that
we should maintain any reserve in regard to the Rykes?"
"None whatever! The gods themselves have stepped down and offered an
invitation direct to paradise. Should we question or hold back, or say we are
merely happy. The proper response of a man about to enter heaven is beyond
words!"
The bombast of the mathematician never failed to enliven any backroom
session in which he participated. "I have no doubt," he said, "that within a
fortnight we shall be in possession of a solution to the Legrandian Equations.
I have sought this for forty years."
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]