Harry Harrison Rebel in Time

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.'
'You are absolutely correct and I apologize. I'll try again. In the
laboratory, with the expenditure of a great deal of electrical energy, we have
managed a minimal transformation into temporal energy causing a physical
displacement.'
She heard her own words and had to stop and laugh.
'Incorrigible,' Troy said. 'But a message is seeping through. Are you saying
that you moved something in some way for a time?'
'Yes, I mean no. It moved, but not for a time but time.'
in
Troy put his glass down most carefully onto the end table, then looked up at
Roxanne.
'Please stop me if I am wrong,' he said. 'But are you trying to tell me that
you have moved a hunk of something through time?'
'Roughly speaking, why yes.'
'Then you are also telling me that down there among all that stuff that you
have built a time machine?'
'Well, I think& ' she smiled brightly. 'Why, yes, I suppose that we have.'
Chapter 11
'No wonder everyone's so upset about the security here,' Troy said. 'A time
machine why, just the idea of the thing, it's almost too big to take in! On
television, sure, you see people jumping back and forth through time, but
everyone watching knows that it's just actors in costumes and cardboard sets.
But to have a real one, here, in this lab ' He ran out of words, looked to see
if his glass was completely empty, then drained the remaining drops. Roxanne
saw this and stood and hurried to the bar.
'Sorry. I'm being a rotten hostess. But you're right, the kind of time
machines that zip into the past and future like temporal trolley cars, they
happen only on television. Ours is not quite that impressive. When we turn it
on we use enough electricity to light up all of Chicago to, well, do very
little.'
'Like doing what?'
'I'll show you. Let's just finish these before the ice melts.'
He sipped and was struck with sudden apprehension. 'Could your machine, could
it have anything to do with McCulloch's disappearance?'
Roxanne thought for a moment, then shook her head no
.
'I think that it is highly unlikely. You mean could he have sent that gold
somewhere for his own nefarious purposes? That is so close to impossible that
it impossible. The biggest target object we have used so is far only weighed
a few grammes. But let's get down to lab nine before they lock up for the day.
I'll show you just what I mean. We'll have to hurry. Bob Kleiman comes in at
the crack of dawn but he leaves just as early as well.'
Laboratory 9 was right down at the bottom of the building. They hadn't been
there on their earlier tour.
The heavy entrance door was locked and even the security guard could not open
it. He had to telephone through to security central and identify the two
visitors before the lock clicked and the door slid aside.
They went in and, as the heavy portal closed behind him, Troy had the strange
sensation that the hair was stirring on his head. He held his hand to it and
felt it writhing under his fingers. Roxanne noticed his shocked expression and
smiled.
'Nothing to worry about,' she said, rubbing at her own hair that was now
standing straight out from her head. 'Static electricity. A few million volts
Page 36
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of it, but no amps to speak of, so there is nothing to worry about. Side
effect that happens when the machine is in operation. But it gives you some
idea of the kind of juice we use here.'
It certainly did. The electrical fittings were most impressive. Wires thicker
than his arm swung from gigantic ceramic insulators, looping down into the
guts of hulking great machines. Most of the apparatus was grouped in the
brightly-lit centre of the room where the floor apparently bulged upwards. It
wasn't a bulge, Troy saw when they walked closer, but a ridge of grey stone
that projected up through the white concrete floor. Some of the machines were
bolted to it, while others hung out over the stone on shining steel arms. A
man in a laboratory smock was working at one of the machines; he turned around
when
Roxanne called out to him.
'Bob, you've got a visitor. Lieutenant Harmon, Doctor Kleiman. Troy, Bob.'
'My pleasure,' Kleiman said, wiping grease from his hand onto his already
stained coat before extending it. They shook hands. Doctor Kleiman looked very
much like the classic image of the scientist. His greying hair was raggedly
cut and long overdue for a barber's attention. And his eyesight was bad; he
blinked through bottle-thick lenses at Troy.
'If you are here to recruit me for the Army you are too late. I been four-F
since I was born.' Troy smiled.
'You're safe,' he said. 'You don't look like cannon-fodder to me.'
'You betcha. So, since the purpose of this visit is not official what is the
purpose?'
'A demonstration,' Roxanne said. 'I thought Troy would understand the project
better if he could see just what we are doing. Are you running any calibration
set-ups?'
'Been doing them all day, and if you don't mind some self-adulation I will
humbly tell you that I have added two more zeros to the right of the decimal
point.'
'How wonderful!'
Roxanne almost clapped with joy and Troy almost wished that he too could get
so excited by decimal points and zeros. But he knew better than to ask for an
explanation.
'However, don't take my word for it,' Bob Kleiman said, turning to a computer
terminal. 'Let me just feed in some info and I will show you. You, Troy, do
you have a quarter with you? Admission to this show is two-bits. Good,
thanks.'
Bob took the coin over to a workbench, laid it flat, gave it a few rasping
strokes with a file, then handed it back.
'Look close,' he said. 'I've put a nick right behind the cute little bow on
George's pigtail. Correct?'
'Right.'
'And the date on the coin is 1965. Is this coin unique enough so you will be
able to recognize it again?
Some people always claim they were tricked.'
'They could have been,' Troy said. 'I didn't notice the date when I gave you
the quarter. You could have substituted another one just like this, and have a
prepared duplicate as well.'
'You're right, this guy is a sharpy, Roxy, watch out for him. So do some
additions yourself, Mister
Sharpy. Take this knife and the coin and make it unique so you will be
positive there is no hanky-panky.'
Troy scratched a cross on Washington's noble forehead then returned the
quarter. Bob backed away from it, hands raised. 'No way, Sharpy,' he said.
'You put it down yourself, over there on top of the rock, on the laser spot.
Otherwise you will claim that I palmed it.' [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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