did it, all right, and you re brilliant, Gerald. You saw what else was
possible. So did the president s
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people. Now, I don t know how they got your reports, but I ll bet a check
would show you knew
someone in the budget review shop and Armstrong s boys were on you in a
flash. They threatened to
show that you padded the contract, right?
Branston-Hay looked blank.
You padded it, didn t you? I can get the answer from the examiners, you
know?
He finally nodded.
And then they asked what else you could do. You didn t want to let the
disassociator out. Even you
could see the problems there. So you came up with the replicator and
rejiggered your psychic scoop into
a filing mechanism. And that s how the president keeps outguessing the
Speaker. He has a data bank of
tame ghosts.
Who are you working for, Johan? Ralston will kill you if he finds out
what you re doing.
I ignored the question and the threat. Any answer would be wrong. If I
were you, Gerald, I d stick
very close to your family and take a vacation, a sabbatical, anything.
Walking over to his desk, even as he stood there, I opened the top left
drawer and pulled out sheets
of Babbage Center, Vanderbraak State University letterhead. You won t
need these, and I do.
But ... why ... what are you doing?
Trying to keep us both from getting killed. I put the sheets of
letterhead and the memo I had
Top
Page No 100
slipped under my folder into the folder. Then I took out my
handkerchief and wiped off the Colt, setting it
on the chair farthest from where he paced behind his desk. I dampened the
handkerchief in his water
glass, then wiped off the Babbage console keys and the arm of the chair,
fairly certain I hadn t touched
anything else.
After picking up my folder and walking to the door, I used the handkerchief
to turn the knob. He
didn t stop me, just looked, almost dazed.
I forced myself to walk slowly out of the building and straight down the
steps to the green, and then
to my office. The wind had picked up so much that it blew the white
steam of my breath away.
I skidded slightly on the bottom steps leading into the Natural Resources
building, where a patch of
ice remained, looking like someone had spilled something. Certainly the
methodical Gertrude and Hector
wouldn t have left anything on the bricks. Overhead, the glow strips
were glowing as the day faded.
I unlocked the door and stopped by the main office to check my box, but
nothing had been added. I
looked out the window uphill and watched as Gerald hurried down to his
old black Ford steamer, carting
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two data cases.
Poor bastard. Then I straightened. If I didn t keep moving, I knew who would
be the next poor
bastard. So I went upstairs to my office and looked at my desk and the
mostly ungraded tests lying there.
I left them on the desk. Maybe I d get back to them, and maybe I wouldn t,
but I had more than a
few things to do first I slipped some blank second pages of university
letterhead into my folder and
headed back out to the Stanley, relieved in a way that Llysette was tied
up with rehearsals for most of the
week.
When I got home, I unloaded Brace s latest creations from the Stanley
before driving it into the car
barn.
Marie I blessed her industrious Dutch heart once more and added ten
dollars to the check I set out
for her had left a chicken pot pie in the oven, and it was still warm. That
and the crusty bread were
almost enough to make me forget what I was going to attempt that night.
I also tried to forget the tests I hadn t graded. But a little part of me
nagged about them. I usually
didn t put off grading and returning things. After all, I was the one who
believed in the efficacy of
immediate feedback.
It seemed like I hadn t eaten in days, although that was probably the result
of nerves. Still, I ate
almost all of the chicken pot pie and a good third of the loaf of bread.
I had a bottle of Grolsch instead of
wine, and I promised that I d run harder and longer in the morning.
Then I went into the study and took Brace s latest gadgets from their boxes
and assembled them.
After that, I started in on the programming.
Some of it was relatively easy because I could use the first program I had
already developed for
ghost replications as a basis. I d already decided to split the
application into a basic system and a
separate personality creation configuration.
The basic system didn t take that long, a mere five hours. Testing it took
longer, and I hoped
Carolynne wasn t watching, because I duplicated the replicate of her
structure, then recoded it back to
simple lines, and tried to project it.
Of course, it didn t work. Nothing I ever try to program works the first
time. Or the second. Or the
third. On the fourth try, well after one in the morning, the system
worked. That is, the antennas indeed
projected an image, and it promptly collapsed.
So did I. The system part seemed to work, and I d have to develop a better
file/support structure if I
really wanted to create the equivalent of ghosts. Why I d want to do
that was a question I didn t have an
answer for, except that my guts said it was going to be necessary, and I
hadn t made it as far as I had by
ignoring gut feelings. Most people in dangerous occupations don t. You
figure out the reasons later, if you
have the time.
Since I didn t think very well with headaches and bright rainbows [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]