To Ride Pegasus
- Автор: Маккефри Энн
- Серия: Talents #1
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «To Ride Pegasus». Краткое содержание книги:
Charlie’s voice carried clearly in the tense silence. “Oh, I see. Can you tell me where he plans to be in the morning hours? But surely, he left an itinerary?
Thank you.” Charlie’s voice was wooden and his face expressionless. “He is not in the office. The assistant is a very rude, uncouth bumptious twit.”
“If he’s not in the office,” op Owen said, “he’s college hopping-him and that Research Appropriations Committee of his. He’s the sly kind is Zeusman, loves to arrive unannounced.”
“He could be on his way to North East then,” Lajos said.
Op Owen told Charlie to get Rizor back on the line.
“Sir,” Charlie reported, concerned, “Dr. Rizor has left his office. Is there a message?”
Op Owen picked up an extension phone. “Miss Galt? Daffyd op Owen here. We have reason to believe that Senator Mansfield Zeusman will pay an unscheduled visit to your campus before noon. Will you please inform Dr. Rizor immediately? Good.
Thank you. I can be reached at the Center on a priority call basis. Yes, the situation could be considered critical.”
Lajos felt himself unwind a trifle but his apprehension did not completely abate. He smiled weakly at op Owen.
“Paradox time.”
“How so, lad?”
“Dr. Rizor believes. He is already altering the circumstances I foresaw. We may have undone ourselves!”
Op Owen’s eyes flashed. “At the risk of Zeusman’s life, and that of how many others you saw in the precog?”
“No, sir, I didn’t mean it that way,” Lajos replied, stung by op Owen’s scorn.
“I meant, that fire can’t happen now because Rizor will prevent Zeusman from entering the lab.”
“I’d still prefer to see that sparrow fall!” Welch’s mutter was clearly audible.
Op Owen swung his chair in idle half-arcs but his eyes remained on his dissident engineer.
“I am not in the least tempted, gentlemen,” he said in his usual easy voice. “We are not God. Nor are we trying to replace God. The psionic arts are preventive, not miraculous. We are fallible, and because of that fallibility we have to be scrupulously impartial, and try to help any man our senses touch, whoever he may be, whenever we can. Lajos is right. We have already…”
“Sir,” Charlie’s interruption was apologetic but determined, “two more danger precogs involving Mansfield Zeusman. One from Delta and one in Quebec. Neither could get through to Zeusman and are applying to us.”
Op Owen looked as if he might be swearing silently. He glanced up at the clock, its hands inexorably halfway past eleven.
“We haven’t altered the future enough,” Lajos said with a groan.
“Charlie, alert all rescue teams in the North East area,” op Owen said, his words crisp but calm. “I’ll try for Rizor. Les, get Lajos a sedative. Henry, I’m glad I could reach you…”
“Don’t worry about a thing,” Dr. Rizor replied cheerily. “I’ve a crew checking the converter and the building is completely off limits. What’s this Miss Galt says about Zeusman paying us an unexpected visit?”
“Evidence points in that direction, and we’ve new precogs of danger for him.”
“Look, we’re all set here, Dave,” Rizor told him in an easy drawl. “No one can pass the gate without checking through my office and…Oh, no! No!”
The connection went dead. Op Owen looked around at the others.
“That’s known as locking the barn when the horse is gone,” said Welch in a flat voice. “Lay you two to one and no previewing, Rizor just discovered that Zeusman uses a heli-jet for these jaunts of his.”
“Charlie, get me through to one of the mobile rescue team trucks.”
“Sir, they’re converging on the campus. Only they’ve been delayed at the gate,” Charlie said in a quiet sad voice after a moment of urgent cross-wire phoning.
Welch scratched his head, smoothing his hair back over his ears, trying not to stare at op Owen’s expressionless face. Lajos wondered how the Director could sit so calmly, but suddenly, not the tranquillizer but an inner natural composure settled Lajos’s tensions.
“Sir,” he said to op Owen, “I think it came out all right.”
Everyone glanced up at the clock which now ticked over to high noon. The secondhand moved forward again, and again, the sweep-second duly circumscribing its segments of time. The phone’s buzz startled everyone. Op Owen depressed
Receive and Broadcast.
“I want to speak to the Director of this so-called Center,” a bass voice demanded authoritatively.
“Op Owen speaking, Senator Zeusman.”
“Well, didn’t expect to get you.”
“You asked to speak to the Director; I am he.” Op Owen hadn’t switched on his visual.
The composed answer appeared to confound the Senator briefly. He had not activated the screen at his end either.
“You’ve outsmarted yourself, Owen, with this morning’s exhibition of crystal-balling. I thought you’d have better sense than to set one up and try to fool me into believing in your psionic arts bunk.” The senator’s voice was rich with ridicule and self-satisfaction. “Heat converter’s blowing, indeed! They’re constructed not to blow. Safest, most economical way of heating large institutional buildings. A scientific way, I might add.”
“I tell you, Senator,” Rizor interrupted, “there is a flaw in the bleed-off of that converter. My engineers reported it.”
“Get off the extension, Rizor. I’ll settle your hash later. Applying for funds to run a research program which you arbitrarily interrupt at a vital stage on the say-so of crackpots and witch doctors? Your university is unfit to handle any further public monies over which I have any control,” Zeusman was almost snarling.
“I won’t get off the extension, Zeusman. This is my college, in what is reputedly still a free country, and I don’t regret in any way having listened to Dr. op Owen. There was a flaw which would have exploded under conditions foreseen…”
“Don’t defend Owen, Rizor,” Zeusman said. “His meddling costs his defenders too damned much. How’s Joel Andres feeling these days, Owen? How’s his amyloidosis progressing? Just remember when you predict his death that the research your scheme interrupted here might have saved his life.”
There was a loud clack as Zeusman broke the connection.
“Dave?” Rizor sounded defeated.
“I’m still here,” op Owen replied. “What’s this about Joel Andres?”
“You’ve had nothing? I thought you always kept a check on important men…like Zeusman.” The name was grated out.
“Nothing’s been reported on Joel. Precog is highly unpredictable, as you’ve just witnessed.”
“That damned converter was faulty,” Rizor was angry now and defiant. “It would have blown in the next overload. You saved Zeusman-and you’ve also saved other people.”
“And Joel? Is it true about his liver?”
“So I understand,” Rizor said in a heavy voice. “And our research was for a neoprotein to replace the faulty endogenous protein and restore a normal metabolism. Don’t worry. The experiments can be reinitiated.”
“With Zeusman withholding funds?”
“There are other sources of funds and I intend to use your so-called ‘meddling’ to advantage. Damn it, the converter would have blown!” Rizor was muttering as he ended the call.
Lajos was utterly spent when he returned to his apartment. Ruth took one look at his face and fixed him a stiff drink. He took it down, and with a weary smile flopped onto the bed.
“Dorotea asleep?” he asked hopefully. He was too disturbed not to generate emotional imbalance and too tired to suppress it.
“Fast asleep. Good for a couple of hours, honey,” Ruth replied, her strong fingers already at work on his tense muscles. She did not question his depression and weariness. Slowly she felt him relax as her massage and the stiff drink combined to bring surcease.