"Charles L. Harness-Time Trap" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harness Charles L)

Time Trap
by Charles L. Harness
This story copyright 1948 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.

* * *


The Great Ones themselves never agreed whether the events constituting Troy's cry for help had a
beginning. But the warning signal did have an end. The Great Ones saw to that. Those of the Great Ones
who claim a beginning for the story date it with the expulsion of the evil Sathanas from the Place of Suns,
when he fled, horribly wounded, spiraling evasively inward, through sterechronia without number, until,
exhausted, he sank and lay hidden in the crystallizing magma of a tiny new planet at the galactic rim.
***


General Blade sometimes felt that leading a resistance movement was far exceeding his debt to decent
society and that one day soon he would allow his peaceful nature to override his indignant pursuit of
justice. Killing a man, even a very bad man, without a trial, went against his grain. He sighed and rapped
on the table.
"As a result of Blogshak's misappropriation of funds voted to fight the epidemic," he announced, "The
death toll this morning reached over one hundred thousand. Does the Assassination Subcommittee have a
recommendation?"
A thin-lipped man rose from the gathering. "The Provinarch ignored our warning," he said rapidly.
"This subcommittee, as you all know, some days ago set an arbitrary limit of one hundred thousand
deaths. Therefore this subcommittee now recommends that its plan for killing the Provinarch be adopted
at once. Tonight is very favorable for our plan, which, incidentally, requires a married couple. We have
thoroughly catasynthesized the four bodyguards who will be with him on this shift and have provided
irresistible scent and sensory stimuli for the woman. The probability for its success insofar as
assassination is concerned is about seventy-eight per cent; the probability of escape of our killers is
sixty-two percent. We regard these probabilities as favorable. The Legal Subcommittee will take it from
there."
Another man arose. "We have retained Mr. Poole, who is with us tonight." He nodded gravely to a
withered little man beside him. "Although Mr. Poole has been a member of the bar but a short time, and
although his pre-legal life-- some seventy years of it-- remains a mystery which he does not explain, our
catasynthesis laboratory indicates that his legal knowledge is profound. More important, his persuasive
powers, tested with a trial group of twelve professional evaluators, sort of a rehearsal for a possible trial,
border on hypnosis. He has also suggested an excellent method of disposing of the corpse to render
identification difficult. According to Mr. Poole, if the assassinators are caught, the probability of escaping
the devitalizing chamber is fifty-three percent."
"Mr. Chairman!"
General Blade turned toward the new speaker, who stood quietly several rows away. The man
seemed to reflect a gray inconspicuousness, relieved only by a gorgeous rosebud in his lapel. Gray suit,
gray eyes, graying temples. On closer examination, one detected an edge of flashing blue in the grayness.
The eyes no longer seemed softly unobtrusive, but icy, and the firm mouth and jutting chin seemed
polished steel. General Blade had observed this phenomenon dozens of times, but he never tired of it.
 "You have the floor, Major Troy," he said.