"Edward L. Ferman - Best From F&SF, 23rd Edition" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ferman Edward L)

the beans about Zorphwar. (I suspect it was J.L., covering his ass.) Friday afternoon Westland came
slamming into my office to ask about a thousand questions about our schedules and the cost of running
Zorphwar. I tried to get him to try using the program, but he was too upset to listen to reason. He gave
me one hour to produce a full report justifying the project and went storming back up to the executive
wing. I'm afraid that your ass and mine would have been in the sling but for a stroke of incredible luck.
When Westland left, I headed for the men's room to down a couple of aspirin to steady my nerves.
And who should I meet coming out of the door but Admiral Venerate. Venerate and I are old buddies,
having been together on the Potlatch Investigation Team some eight years ago. At that time I proved
there were no irregularities in the award of the Potlatch missile contract to Megalo. Venerate proved that
the Navy had done nothing wrong. I was promoted to this staff position. Venerate moved up to Admiral.
"What brings you to the Megalo Corporation?" I asked him, trying to affect the nonchalance of a
happy executive.
"I have just been given the ultimate garbage presentation," he said. "Your boys should know better
than to try to snow me about naval-training games."
I smiled and spoke some platitudes about the vast technical expertise available at the Megalo
Corporation and their ability to respond quickly to any technical challenge.
"Damn it," said the Admiral, "I don't want technical expertise. I want a working system."
The old light bulb went on inside my head. "You want a working system?" I said. "You follow me."
I led the Admiral into my office and fired up Zorphwar on the tube.
"Now before you play," I said, "you must understand that we did not wish it known we were working
on a proposed naval system. Thus, we have pretended that we are fighting a space war of the future
against the mythical race of Zorphs. The weapons you will be using will not have the standard Navy
nomenclature, but you'll have no trouble recognizing what they really are.тАЭ
"Smart thinking," said Venerate. "Now how do I get this game started?"
'When Westland came charging back into my office an hoar later, he found the Admiral hammering at
my console keys and shouting his best Navy profanity at the Zorphs who had just zapped him for
fifteen-hundred energy units.
"You are witnessing a demonstration of the Zorphwar Naval Bat-tie Simulation System," I said to
Westland. "A valuable training aid, ft is a product of the research staff of the Megalo Corporation
Programming Services Department"
Westland stood there with his lower jaw down around his ankles watching Venerate polish off the
last of the Zorph fleet The Admiral turned around grinning like a child of ten who has found a pony under
the Christmas tree. "That is what I call action!" he cried.
He turned to Westland. "How come you dunderheads didn't show me this right off?" he demanded,
By now, I am sure, the Naval Support Bid Team has descended upon Programming Services to
begin costing out the proposal for a production version of Zorphwar. They are talking about a system
with one hundred terminals running on two Megalo 861's for starters. Eventually they may order a dozen
861's. Everyone here in Headquarters is too excited about the prospect of selling that kind of hardware
to worry about why the program was written in the first place.

Megalo Network Message: August 26,1977
Source: W. S. Halson
Destination: P.T. Warrington
Subject: Zorphwar Contract
Park, Old Friend: I just want to bring you up to date on the Zorphwar contract The team of
programmers and technical writers is in place. The schedule for putting together a production package is
a bit tight, considering that the only documentation available from Hazeldorf was a picture of a Zorph he
had sketched on the back of an envelope.
Speaking of Hazeldorf, I was a little disappointed in his reaction to the project When I explained to
him what this contract would mean to the Megalo Corporation and how I expected him to assume a