The Gold at the Starbow's End
- Автор: Пол Фредерик
- Год: 101
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Gold at the Starbow's End». Краткое содержание книги:
Knefhausen had long since stopped regretting what could not be helped, but wistfully he still wished he had the opportunity to measure the total heat flux properly. Not less than 1016 watt-years, he was sure, just to judge by the effects on the Earth's atmosphere, the storms, the gradual raising of temperature all over, above all by the rumors about the upward trend of sea level that bespoke the melting of the polar ice caps. There was no longer even a good weather net, but the fragmentary information he was able to piece together suggested a world increase of four, maybe as many as six or seven degrees Celsian already, and the reactions still seething away in Czechoslovakia, the Congo, Colorado, and a hundred lesser infernos.
Rumors about the sea level?
Not rumors, no, he corrected himself, lifting his head and staring at the snake of hard rubber hose that began under the duckboards at the far end of the room and ended outside the barred window, where the gasoline pump outside did its best to keep the water level inside his cell low enough to keep the water below the boards. Judging by the inflow, the grounds of the White House must be nearly awash.
The door opened. The President of the United States (Washington) walked in, patting the shoulder of the thin, scared, hungry-looking kid who was guarding the door.
"How's it going, Knefhausen?" the President began sunnily. "You ready to listen to a little reason yet?"
"I'll do whatever you say, Mr. President, but as I have told you there are certain limits. Also I am not a young man, and my health—"
"Screw your health and your limits," shouted the President. "Don't start up with me, Knefhausen!" "I am sorry, Mr. President," whispered Knefhausen.
"Don't be sorry! What I got to judge by is results. You know what it takes to keep that pump going just so you won't drown? Gas is rationed, Knefhausen! Takes a high national priority to get it! I don't know how long I'm gonna be able to justfy this continuous drain on our resources if you don't cooperate."
Sadly, but stubbornly, Knefhausen said: "As far as I am able, Mr. President, I cooperate."
"Yeah. Sure." But the President was in an unusually good mood today, Knefhausen observed with the prisoner's paranoid attention to detail, and in a moment he said: "Listen, let's not get uptight about this. I'm making you an offer. Say the word and I'll fire that dumb son-of-a-bitch Harry Stokes and make you my Chief Science Advisor. How would that be? Right up at the top again. An apartment of your own. Electric lights! Servants—you can pick 'em out yourself, and there's some nice-looking little girls in the pool. The best food you ever dreamed of. A chance to perform a real service for the U. S. of A., helping to reunify this great country to become once again the great power it should and must be!"
"Mr. President," Knefhausen said, "naturally, I wish to help in any way I can. But we have been all over this before. I'll do anything you like, but I don't know how to make the bombs work again. You saw what happened, Mr. President. They're gone."
"I didn't say bombs, did I? Look, Kneffie, I'm a reasonable man. How about this. You promise to use your best scientific efforts in any way you can. You say you can't make bombs; all right. But there will be other things."
"What other things, Mr. President?"
"Don't push me, Knefhausen. Anything at all. Anything where you can perform a service for your country. You give me that promise and you're out of here today. Or would you rather I just turned off the pump?"
Knefhausen shook his head, not in negation but in despair. "You do not know what you are asking. What can a scientist do for you today? Ten years ago, yes. Even five years ago. We could have worked something out maybe; I could have done something. But now the preconditions do not exist. When all the nuclear plants went out— When the factories that depended on them ran out of power— When the fertilizer plants couldn't fix nitrogen and the insecticide plants couldn't deliver— When the people began to die of hunger and the pestilences started—"
“I know all that, Knefhausen. Yes or no?"
The scientist hesitated, looking thoughtfully at his adversary. A gleam of the old shrewdness appeared in his eyes.
"Mr. President," he said slowly. "You know something. Something has happened."
"Right," crowed the President. "You're smart. Now tell me, what is it I know?"
Knefhausen shook his head. After seven decades of vigorous life, and another decade of slowly dying, it was hard to hope again. This terrible little man, this upstart, this lump—he was not without a certain animal cunning, and he seemed very sure. "Please, Mr. President. Tell me."
The President put a finger to his lips, and then an ear to the door. When he was convinced no one could be listening, he came closer to Knefhausen and said softly:
"You know that I have trade representatives all over, Knefhausen. Some in Houston, some in Salt Lake, some even in Montreal. They are not always there just for trade. Sometimes they find things out, and tell me. Would you like to know what my man in Anaheim has just told me?"
Knefhausen did not answer, but his watery old eyes were imploring.
"A message," whispered the President.
"From the Constitution?" cried Knefhausen. "But, no, it is not possible! Farside is gone, Goldstone is destroyed, the orbiting satellites are running down—"
"It wasn't a radio message," said the President. "It came from Mount Palomar. Not the big telescope, because that got ripped off too, but what they call a Schmidt. Whatever that is. It still works. And they still have some old fogies who look through it now and then, for old times' sake. And they got a message, in laser light. Plain Morse code. From what they said was Alpha Centauri. From your little friends, Knefhausen."
He took a sheaf of paper from his pocket and held it up.
Knefhausen was racked by a fit of coughing, but he managed to croak: "Give it to me!"
The President held it away. "A deal, Knefhausen?"
"Yes, yes! Anything you say, but give me the message!"
"Why, certainly," smiled the President, and passed over the much-creased sheet of paper. It said:
PLEASE BE ADVISED. WE HAVE CREATED THE PLANET ALPHA-ALEPH. IT IS BEAUTIFUL AND GRAND. WE WILL SEND OUR FERRIES TO BRING SUITABLE PERSONS AND OTHERS TO STOCK IT AND TO COMPLETE CERTAIN OTHER BUSINESS. OUR SPECIAL REGARDS TO DR. DIETER VON KNEFHAUSEN, WHOM WE WANT TO TALK TO VERY MUCH. EXPECT US WITHIN THREE WEEKS OF THIS MESSAGE.
Knefhausen read it over twice, stared at the President and read it again. "I—I am very glad," he said inadequately.
The President snatched it back, folded it and put it in his pocket, as though the message itself was the key to power. "So you see," he said, "it's simple. You help me, I help you."
"Yes. Yes, of course," said Knefhausen, staring past him.
'They're your friends. They'll do what you say. All those things you told me that they can do—"
"Yes, the particles, the ability to reproduce, the ability, God save us, to build a planet—" Knefhausen might have gone on cataloguing the skills of the spacemen indefinitely, but the President was impatient:
"So it's only a matter of days now, and they'll be here. You can imagine what they'll have! Guns, tools, everything—and all you have to do is get them to join me in restoring the United States of America to its proper place. I'll make it worth their while, Knefhausen! And yours, too. They—"
The President stopped, observing the scientist carefully. Then he cried "Knefhausen!" and leaped forward to catch him.