"Alan Dean Foster- Instant With Loud Voices" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

For a moment the great man appeared uncertain. "Kenji Wilson, at MIT?" Jerome nodded. Strevelle
mulled that over, then his paternal smile and eternal optimism reasserted themselves.

"Wilson's the best alive, Ken. I won't deny that. But he bases his calculus on DISRA's own information
and DISRA doesn't seem disinclined to try the question. Besides which he doesn't know DISRA the way
I do."

"Nobody alive does, Hank. You know that." He desperately tried another tack. "Look, if I can't get you
to call this off, at least postpone it so I can refine the figures." He held up the remote, touched tiny
buttons. A series of equations flashed across the small screen, hieroglyphs of a physics so advanced that
fewer than a hundred minds in the world could comprehend it.

Strevelle shook his head. "I've seen your work for weeks, Ken. I don't buy it." He gestured toward the
control booth, led Jerome toward it. "There are five senators there plus representatives from all over
Europe and Asia. I can't put them off." His eyes gleamed from under brows tufted with fleece.

"You know what that group of senators promised me? That if we derive any kind of sensible answer to
the question, anything at all, they're going to try and put through appropriations to double DISRA's
capacity. Double it. I won't be around to see that happen, but I don't care. It'll be my legacy, the first
computer that doesn't just approximate the ability of a human brain but equals or surpasses it."

"Run this program," Jerome said, "and you're liable not to have any legacy, Hank." I'm not saying it right,
he told himself frustratedly. I'm not making my point strongly enough, emotionally enough. I'm a bland
personality and I live with a calculator. Damn to the hundredth power! He's going to go through with it.

The equations weren't solid enough, he knew. Though given the glow of the great man's expression,
Jerome wasn't sure the solidest math in the universe could have dissuaded him today. He resigned himself
to the asking of the question.

Five senators. Jerome tried to tell himself that he was wrong, that Wilson was wrong. They could be.
Certainly Strevelle knew what he was doing. They'd said DISRA couldn't be built and Strevelle had built
it. He'd proven everyone wrong. Among his early de-tractors had been the youthful, brilliant theoretician
named Kenneth Jerome.

I hope to God he proves me wrong again.

There were quiet greetings and introductions, idle conversation to cover nervousness. Only a couple of
reporters had been allowed in, one from the New York Times, the other from Der Spiegel. Friends of
Strevelle from the early days of derision and doubt. Now they would receive recompense for that early
support. Strevelle never forgot a circuit, or a friend.

He folded himself into a chair next to the master control board, touched instrumentation, murmured to his
ready associates. Jerome stood back among the curious. He was Strevelle's backup in case the great
man had a stroke or forgot some item of programming. But Strevelle had the body of a man half his age
and the mind of several. He would not collapse either physically or mentally.

"Quiet, please," a technician requested. The multilingual muttering in the booth faded to silence.

Strevelle thumbed a switch. "Condition?"