"Charles L. Harness-An Ornament to His Profession" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harness Charles L)

in time and space, and to do this he applies an electrical field on the space-time continuum. Ozone is sort
of a byproduct, the same as when you run an electric motor. So this thing moves around in a fog of
ozone. Not only that, ozone seems to attract him, the way nectar attracts bees.
"For a long time I didn't really realize he was around. And then last week I met him. It might have been
an accident. But with all this Freudian theory, maybe there's no such thing as an accident. Maybe, on a
subconscious level, I did it deliberately. Anyhow, you know we have a big structural formula of
pentacyclopropane drawn in white paint on the floor of the pilot plant. This makes a star, with the
methylene groups as the five points. It is also a pentagram-- a starlike geometric design used in certain...
rituals. Within the history of the United States, people have been burnt for making a pentagram. The
stage was set. Just one more thing was needed: the Lord's Prayer recited backwards. This was provided.
I'm a steady churchgoer. Bible class on Sunday mornings. Last Sunday I took my office tape recorder to
Bible class. Yes, we said the Lord's Prayer. It was still on the tape when I was going to dictate my
monthly progress report. I rewound the tape, so there it was, everything going backwards on audio. I
was inside the pentagram. And suddenly, there-- it-- was, on the other side. I was so scared I was
petrified. I wasn't surprised. Just scared. Maybe that means I knew what I was doing. So we stared at
each other. Except I wasn't sure what I was staring at. But it was definitely a shape, with arms, head,
eyes..."
"You were tired," said Patrick. "You know how fatigue can induce hallucinations."
"It's not that simple, Con. There-- was-- there is-- something there, some kind of elemental force, It's
a being, an intelligent being. And powerful, in strange ways. It can... alter the laws of chemistry and
physics. I got it to increase the yield of terpineol-- 'Neol'. At first, by about ten per cent. Then another
ten per cent. It was easy. And then last night we started up the pilot plant. We ran the C-10 through first,
cold, just to flush the lines and check the flowmeters. We got the ozonator tied in about midnight. Now
you understand the ozone won't start reacting with the C-10 until you hit about one sixty F., and we'd
planned to turn steam into the jacket after the ozone concentration had built up to about five per cent. But
the reactor began to warm up. It hit one sixty in a matter of seconds. The two technicians on shift were
scared. They ran over behind the explosion mat. I stayed put. I knew what was going on. He was doing
it. I wanted to know how far he could push it. I shunted the C-10 through the flowmeter. I switched in
the product receiver. It took about thirty minutes to feed one pound mole of C-10... exactly one hundred
and thirty pounds. I shut everything off. I had been watching the product scales all along, so I knew what
it was going to be. It was one hundred fifty-four pounds, one pound mole of Neol, exactly. Yield: one
hundred per cent of theory.
"They came out from behind the mats, then. They looked at the graphs. Nobody believed the graphs.
They looked for a weighing error. They knew it couldn't happen. So I told them to check the meters. The
meters were all right. I knew there was nothing wrong with the meters. Then we started another run. The
reaction didn't start cold this time. So we turned the steam into the jacket. That was supposed to start the
reaction. We usually start getting terpineol in the receiver at about one sixty. We watched it for a good
hour. Not a drop of product. Just C-10 going in, C-10 coming out. We couldn't explain it. We were
making ozone. The ozonator was OK. We had the right concentration of C-10, the right temperature,
mole ration, space velocity, everything was right. But not a grain of terpineol was coming out. He wanted
to show me, you understand, that he could control it either way. But he was going to leave it up to me
which way it went. I didn't want to decide right then. I didn't know what to do. Just then I didn't even
know how I could tell him, if I did decide. So we simply shut down and knocked off.
"I went home, but I couldn't sleep. I tried to think it through. And I guess I did think it through. This
being can put me through. With him on my side I can do anything. There's no position in this corporation
I couldn't have. And that would just be a starter. I don't know where the end would be. So I want to
make the deal. I know exactly what I want. And what he wants. He wants, well, he wants me. Not my
body, really, or anything like that. It's more like something mental. He wants to take it from me a little at a
time, like a parasitical drain. But it wouldn't affect me physically or mentally. In fact, I'd get sharper all the
time. And whatever it is, it would go so slowly, day-by-day, that I wouldn't notice it. This goes on for