The Best of L. Sprague de Camp
- Автор: Де Камп Лайон Спрэг
- Год: 1978
- Язык: английский
- Год: Del Rey / Ballantine
- ISBN: 0-345-25474-0
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Best of L. Sprague de Camp». Краткое содержание книги:
"I'll say I was out of my head! Wait till I see your friend Dumville; I'll be able to describe a brand-new psychosis to him."
"He's a physiologist," replied Sugden, "not a psychologist. But he'll want to see you just the same.
"The doctor tells me you'll be out tomorrow, so I guess you're well enough to talk business. J. R. didn't mind the ducking, even after the exhibition he made of himself. But there's something more serious. Perhaps you noticed a small man with a crooked nose in front of the tank while you were there?"
"Did I notice him!"
"Well, you nearly drowned him when you let the water out of the tank. And he's going to sue us for damages—way up in five or six figures. You know what that means."
Brock nodded glumly. "I'll say I do. It means that I don't get your job when you retire next winter. And then I can't get ma—Never mind. Who is this little guy? A professional accident faker?"
"No; we investigated him. He was a trapeze artist in a circus until recently; he says he was getting too old for that work, but he didn't know any other. Then he hurt his back in a fall, and he's been on relief since. He just came in to watch you because he had nothing else to do."
"I see." Brock thought. "Say, I have an idea. Nurse! Hey, NURSE! My clothes! I'm going out!"
"No, you're not," said Sugden firmly. "Not till the doc says you can. That'll only be tomorrow, and then you can try out your idea. And I hope," he added grimly, "that it's better than the last one."
Two days later Brock knocked on Sugden's door. He knew that Sugden and J. R. were in there, and he could guess what they were talking about. But he had no fears.
"Morning, Mr. Whitney," he said.
"Oh—ah—yes, my deah boy. We were just talking about this most unfortunate—ah—"
"If you mean the suit, that's off."
"What?"
"Sure, I fixed it. Mr. Oscar Daly, the plaintiff, and I are going into a kind of partnership."
"Partners?"
"Yes, to exploit my discovery of lung conversion. I supply the technique so that he can exhibit himself in circuses as Oscar the Merman. He dopes himself with my gas and parks in a tank. Our only problem is the period when the effect of the gas wears off and the lungs return to normal. That, I think, can be licked by the use of any of several anesthetic drugs that slow down the metabolism. So, when the human fish begins to feel funny, he injects himself and passes out peacefully, while his assistants fish him out and wring the water out of his lungs. There are a few technical details to work out on my alligators yet, but that'll be all right. I'll wear a gas mask. Of course," he added virtuously, "any monetary returns from the use of the process will go to the Zoological Society. Oscar says to send your lawyer over any time and he'll sign a release."
"Why, that's fine," said Whitney, "that's splendid, my boy. It makes a big difference." He looked significantly at Sugden.
"Thanks," said Brock. "And now, if you'll excuse me, Sam and I have some fish to shift. So long, cheerio, and I hope you drop in often, Mr. Whitney." He went out, whistling.
"Oh, Vernon!" the head aquarist called after him. "Tomorrow's Sunday, and I'm driving my family out to Jones Beach. Like to come along for a swim?"
Brock stuck his grinning head back in. "Thanks a lot, Clyde, but I'm afraid I might carelessly take a deep breath under water. To be honest, the mere idea gives me the horrors. I've had enough swimming to last me the rest of my natural life!"
EMPLOYMENT
R. F. D. No.
Carriesville, Indiana
August 28, 1960
Dear George:
Thanks for your information on the State Geological Survey, and for those civil service blanks. I've already sent them in.
If I land the job you'll probably be my boss, so you're entitled to an explanation of why I want to leave a well-paying private job and go to work for the state.
As you know, I was working for Lucifer Oil in 1957 when the depression hit, and pretty quick I was out of a job, and with a family to support. Through one of the journals I got in touch with Gil Platt, my present employer, who was looking for an experienced geologist. You've probably heard of him—he started out in paleontology, but never worked ttp very high in that field because he was temperamentally unable to work under anybody. Then he took to inventing Prospecting devices, and for twenty years he's been as busy as a cat on fly paper, developing and patenting his gadgets and pursuing his paleo on the side. All the money he made in prospector royalties went into paleo expeditions and into litigation. In time he accumulated outstanding collections of patents, lawsuits pertaining thereto, and fossils.
About 1956 the Linvald Fund decided he'd done such good work as to deserve a little financial elbow room, and put him on their list. He'd designed a new prospector that looked quite wonderful, but that would take time and money to reduce to practice. So those monthly checks from Oslo were welcome.
Mrs. Staples and I were sorry to leave California for Indiana, both of us being natives of San Francisco, but in our business you can't be finicky about where you work.
I worked with Platt for about six months before we were ready to try it out. I'm not revealing any secrets by saying that it works by supersonic wave charting, like the old McCann prospector. The distinctive feature is that, by using two intersecting beams, Platt gets a stereoscopic effect and can chart the major discontinuities at any distance underground that he wants.
We tried it first mounted on a truck. We would set it for, say, two yards below the surface and buzz down the road to Fort Wayne—
The truck purred down the outside lane of the concrete at a steady fifteen miles an hour. Car after car swung to the inside lane and buzzed past, honking. Kenneth Staples, at the wheel, leaned back and shouted through the opening in the back of the cab: "Hey, Gil! Haven't we about reached the end of that strip?"
Something in the way of an affirmative floated back into the cab. Staples ran the truck off the concrete, stopped it, and went around to the rear. He was a big, hard-looking, rather ugly man, on whom the elements had stamped a look of more than his thirty-five years. Under his stiff-brimmed engineer's hat he was very bald. He wore a hat whenever decency permitted. Men who go prematurely bald have, perhaps, a slightly greater tendency than others to select outdoor careers, or to join the army, where hats are kept on heads.
Inside the truck, a smaller, gray-haired man was bending over a machine. The top part of the machine included a long strip of graph paper carried over spools. Above the paper was poised a rank of little vertical pens. While the truck moved, these pens dropped down at intervals to make dots on the paper as it was reeled under them. The dots made irregular outlines and patterns.
Gilmore Platt said: "C'mere, Ken, and see what you think of this. I know what it is but I can't think."
Staples stared at the dots. "Looks to me like the outline of a piece out of a jigsaw puzzle."
"No. No. It isn't—I know what it is! It's a section of a skull! One of the Felidae, probably Fellis atrox, from the size. We'll have to dig it up!"
"That squiggle? Well, maybe. You're the paleo man. But you can't go digging holes in a State highway just because there's a fossil lion buried under it."