"Charles L. Harness-The Tetrahedron" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harness Charles L)

The Tetrahedron
by Charles L. Harness
This story copyright 1994 by Charles L. Harness.Reprinted by permission of Linn Prentiss.This copy
was created for Jean Hardy's personal use.All other rights are reserved. Thank you for honoring the
copyright.

Published by Seattle Book Company, www.seattlebook.com.

* * *


1. Elizabeth
***


Elizabeth sat tightly in her chair-- a chair ordinarily occupied only by very important people.
The man on the other side of the desk, the senior-most partner of the most prestigious law firm in
Washington, DC, had called her in from her little cubbyhole. Why? What horror had she, a mere junior
associate, committed that required the personal attention of Barrington Wright? She was going to be
fired. She just knew it.
Cocooned in tight invisible armor, Wright peered over at her somberly: "Ms. Gerard, do you know
what TM is?"
TM? She thought. What the hell was that? Was she supposed to know? She suspected not. So just
tell him the truth. "No, sir. I don't think I've ever heard of it."
She watched his face covertly. Yes, the muscles around his mouth seemed to relax. She had passed
some sort of test. She hadn't known what TM was, and for some reason that was good.
He said in a soft monotone, "There are only ten persons in the world with TM clearance. That number
includes myself-- and now, you."
She blinked. They were not about to fire her. Quite the contrary.
"'TM,'" said Wright, watching her, "means time machine."
She knew she heard him clearly, but it made no sense. She waited.
"A client," he said, "has invented a time machine. Theoretically, it works. Our Mr. Pellar prepared and
filed a patent application on it." He paused and looked at his watch. "I had expected him to sit in with us,
but he has been delayed coming in from the airport. So we'll go ahead with the preliminaries. To
continue, the patent office has placed our patent application in interference with another application,
earlier filed, and directed to the same invention." He paused and looked over at her.
She nodded. C. Cuthbert Pellar was evidently one of the charter members of this TM club. Pellar the
Couth. Wright's clone, they called him-- but not to his face.
Wright was saying something to her. "Do you follow?"
"Yes, sir. We're junior party. To win the interference, we have to prove that our client is the first
inventor."
"And what would that involve?"
"We'd need at least a prior conception, properly confirmed, with a good showing of diligence leading
to actual reduction to practice."
"And what if the client can't do any of that?"
"Then somebody should tell him he can't win. At least save him the cost of useless litigation."
"That's good advice, ordinarily. But here it's a bit more complicated. Our client is the Department of
Defense."
"And Defense won't let you give up?"
 "Exactly. So what do we do now, Ms. Gerard?"