"Asimov, Isaac - Anniversary." - читать интересную книгу автора (Asimov Isaac)

"Well"-there was an impatient clicking of the tongue-"I've told you, I don't know. I don't want to be bothered with this again. I don't know that there was anything. The man hinted, but he was always hinting about some gadget or other."

"What gadget, sir?"

"I tell you I don't know. He used a name once and I told you about that. I don't think it's significant."

"We don't have the name in our records, sir."

"Well, you should have. Uh, what was that name? An optikoo, that's it."

"With a K?"

"C or K. I don't know or care. Now, please, I do not wish to be disturbed again about this. Good-bye." He was still mumbling querulously when the line went dead.

Brandon was pleased.

Moore said, "Mark, that was the stupidest thing you could have done, claiming a fraudulent identity on the tube is illegal. If he wants to make trouble for you-"

"Why should he? He's forgotten about it already. But don't you see, Warren? Trans-space has been asking him about this. He kept saying he'd explained all this before."

"All right. But you'd assumed that much. What else do you know?"

"We also know," said Brandon, "that Quentin's gadget was called an optikon."

"Fitzsimmons didn't sound certain about that. And even so, since we already know be was specializing in optics toward the end, a name like optikon does not push us any further forward."

"And Trans-space Insurance is looking either lor the optikon or for papers concerning it. Maybe Quentin kept the details in his hat and just had a model of the instrument. After all, Shea said they were picking up metal objects. Right?" "There was a bunch of metal junk in the pile," agreed Shea. "They'd leave that in space if it were papers they were after. So that's what we want, an instrument that might be called on opiikon."

"Even if all your theories were correct, Mark, and we're looking for an optikon, the search is absolutely hopeless now," said Moore flatly. "I doubt that more than ten per cent at the debris would remain in orbit about Vesta. Vesta's escape velocity is practically nothing. It was just a lucky thrust in a lucky direction and at a lucky velocity that put our section of the wreck in orbit. The rest is gone, scattered all over the Solar System in any conceivable orbit about the Sun."

"They've been picking up pieces," said Brandon.

"Yes, the tea per cent that managed to make a Vestan orbit out of it. That's all."

Brandon wasn't giving up. He said thoughtfully, "Suppose it were there and they hadn't found it. Could someone have beat them to it?"

Mike Shea laughed. "We were right there, but we sure didn't walk off with anything but our skins, and glad to do that much. Who else?"

"That's right," agreed Moore, "and if anyone else picked it up, why are they keeping it a secret?"

"Maybe they don't know what it is."

"Then how do we go about-" Moore broke off and turned to Shea, "What did you say?"

Shea looked blank. "Who, me?"

"Just now, about us being there." Moore's eyes narrowed. He shook his bead as though to clear it, then whispered, "Great Gal-

"What is it?" asked Brandon tensely. "What's the matter, Warren?"