The Fourth Science Fiction MEGAPACK ®. Айн Рэнд

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ and me to change places, that’s all.”

      Alec said, “Oh!” and went to sit beside Mrs. Forsythe. Alistair sat at the drawing table. Tiny put a paw up on it, poked at the large tablet of paper. Alistair looked at him curiously, then tore off the top sheet. Tiny nudged a pencil with his nose.

      Then they waited. Somehow, no one wanted to speak. Perhaps no one could, but there seemed to be no reason to try. And gradually a tension built up in the room. Tiny stood stiff and rapt in the center of the room. His eyes glazed, and when he finally keeled over limply, no one went to him.

      Alistair picked up the pencil slowly. Watching her hand, Alec was reminded of the movement of the pointer on a ouija board. The pencil traveled steadily, in small surges, to the very top of the paper and hung there. Alistair’s face was quite blank.

      After that no one could say what happened, exactly. It was as if their eyes had done what their voices had done. They could see, but they did not care to. And Alistair’s pencil began to move. Something, somewhere, was directing her mind—not her hand. Faster and faster her pencil flew, and it wrote what was later to be known as the Forsythe Formulas.

      There was no sign then, of course, of the furor that they would cause, of the millions of words of conjecture that were written when it was discovered that the girl who wrote them could not possibly have had the mathematical background to have written them. They were understood by no one at first, and by very few people ever. Alistair certainly did not know what they meant.

      An editorial in a popular magazine came startlingly close to the true nature of the formulas when it said: “The Forsythe Formulas, which describe what the Sunday supplements call the ‘Something-for-Nothing Clutch,’ and the drawing that accompanies them, signify little to the layman. As far as can be determined, the formulas are the description and working principles of a device. It appears to be a power plant of sorts, and if it is ever understood, atomic power will go the way of gas lights.

      “A sphere of energy is enclosed in a shell made of neutron-absorbing material. This sphere has inner and outer ‘layers.’ A shaft passes through the sphere. Apparently a magnetic field must be rotated about the outer casing of the device. The sphere of energy aligns itself with this field. The inner sphere rotates with the outer one and has the ability to turn the shaft. Unless the mathematics used are disproved—and no one seems to have come anywhere near doing that, unorthodox as they are—the aligning effect between the rotating field and the two concentric spheres, as well as the shaft, is quite independent of any load. In other words, if the original magnetic field rotates at 3,000 r.p.m., the shaft will rotate at 3000 r.p.m., even if there is only a sixteenth horsepower turning the field while there is a 10,000 braking stress on the shaft.

      “Ridiculous? Perhaps. And perhaps it is no more so than the apparent impossibility of 15 watts of energy pouring into the antenna of a radio station, and nothing coming down. The key to the whole problem is in the nature of those self-contained spheres of force inside the shell. Their power is apparently inherent, and consists of an ability to align, just as the useful property of steam is its faculty to expand. If, as is suggested by Reinhardt in his ‘Usage of the Symbol B in the Forsythe Formulas,’ these spheres are nothing but stable concentrations of pure binding energy, we have here a source of power beyond the wildest dreams of mankind. And whether or not we succeed in building such devices, it cannot be denied that whatever their mysterious source, the Forsythe Formulas are an epochal gift to several sciences, including, if you like, the art of philosophy.”

      * * * *

      After it was over, and the formulas written, the terrible tension lifted. The three humans sat in their happy coma, and the dog lay senseless on the rug. Mrs. Forsythe was the first to move, standing up abruptly. “Well!” she said.

      It seemed to break a spell. Everything was quite normal. No hangovers, no sense of strangeness, no fear. They stood looking wonderingly at the mass of minute figures.

      “I don’t know,” murmured Alistair, and the phrase covered a world of meaning. Then, “Alec—that casting. We’ve got to get it done. We’ve just got to, no matter what it costs us!”

      “I’d like to,” said Alec. “Why do we have to?”

      She waved toward the drawing table. “We’ve been given that.”

      “You don’t say!” said Mrs. Forsythe. “And what is that?”

      Alistair put her hand to her head, and a strange, unfocused look came into her eyes. That look was the only part of the whole affair that ever really bothered Alec. It was a place she had gone to, a little bit; and he knew that no matter whatever happened, he would never be able to go there with her.

      She said, “He’s been…talking to me, you know. You do know that, don’t you? I’m not guessing, Alec—Mum.”

      “I believe you, chicken,” her mother said softly. “What are you trying to say?”

      “I got it in concepts. It isn’t a thing you can repeat, really. But the idea is that he couldn’t give us any thing. His ship is completely functional, and there isn’t anything he can exchange for what he wants us to do. But he has given us something of great value—” Her voice trailed off; she seemed to listen to something for a moment. “Of value in several ways. A new science, a new approach to attack the science. New tools, new mathematics.”

      “But what is it? What can it do? And how is it going to help us pay for the casting?” asked Mrs. Forsythe.

      “It can’t, immediately,” said Alistair decisively. “It’s too big. We don’t even know what it is. Why are you arguing? Can’t you understand that he can’t give us any gadgetry? That we haven’t his techniques, materials, and tools, and so we couldn’t make any actual machine he suggested? He’s done the only thing he can; he’s given us a new science, and tools to take it apart.”

      “That I know,” said Alec gravely. “Well, indeed. I felt that. And I…trust him. Do you, ma’am?”

      “Yes, of course. I think he’s—people. I think he has a sense of humor and a sense of justice,” said Mrs. Forsythe firmly. “Let’s get our heads together. We ought to be able to scrape it up some way. And why shouldn’t we? Haven’t we three got something to talk about for the rest of our lives?”

      And their heads went together.

      * * * *

      This is the letter that arrived two months later in St. Croix.

      Honey-lamb,

      Hold on to your seat. It’s all over.

      The casting arrived. I missed you more than ever, but when you have to go—and you know I’m glad you went! Anyway, I did as you indicated, through Tiny, before you left. The men who rented me the boat and ran it for me thought I was crazy, and said so. Do you know that once we were out on the river with the casting, and Tiny started whuffing and whimpering to tell me we were on the right spot, and I told the men to tip the casting over the side, they had the colossal nerve to insist on opening the crate? Got quite nasty about it. Didn’t want to be a party to any dirty work. It was against my principles, but I let them, just to expedite matters. They were certain there was a body in the box! When they saw what it was, I was going to bend my umbrelly over their silly heads, but they looked so funny! I couldn’t do a thing but roar with laughter. That was when the man said I was crazy.

      Anyhow, over the side it went, into the river. Made a lovely splash. And about a minute СКАЧАТЬ