"Hogan, James P - The Genesis Machine p174-259" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hogan James P)

Aub stopped smiling when he saw that Clifford was not reacting. CliffordТs mind seemed to be a million miles away.
УI donТt know. . .У he said after what seemed a long time. And that strange light was still burning in his eyes.

Late that evening when they were relaxing over coffee to the background of BeethovenТs Fifth Piano Concerto, Clifford, who had hardly spoken a word since dinner, turned suddenly toward Aub. УDo you remember when we were talking to Al about a week ago .
about the technique thatТs used in the GRASER to induce annihilations? You said that you thought it might be possible to use the same principle to control the coordinates in normal space of where the return energy is delivered.Ф
УI remember. What about it?Ф
УIn other words, you figure that you could focus the return energy at a point . . . instead of having it spread out all the way to infinity.Ф
УMaybe. Why?Ф Aub put down the magazine he had
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been browsing through and looked puzzled. Clii ignored the questions.
УWhat would be involved to do it?Ф
УHow dТyou meanЧas a sorta lab test?Ф
УYes.Ф
Aub thought for a moment. УWell, I suppos the hardware youТd really need is already there. It would just have to function in a different w~ guess youТd need to reprogram the modulator-co computers and the supervisory processor . . . p1 few bits of rewiring in the front-end electrics. should do it.Ф
УHow long do you reckon itТd take?Ф
Aub suddenly looked alarmed. УHeyЧyouТre thinking of trying it, are you? That could be dai ous; nobody knows what to expect. You might en blowing a hole in the middle of Sudbury.Ф
УNot if the beam was wound right dowi
minimum power. All I want to do is prove the p
We should be able to get the annihilation rate c
to a few kilowatts.Ф
УAl would never okay it,Ф Aub protested. theoryТs still got too many unknowns in it. SuF thereТs some imbalance that you and ZimТs havenТt figured out yet, and the space integral unity. You might find that a lot more comes out you put in.Ф Aub was looking worried. УAny where were you thinking of focusing the r energy?Ф
УRight there in the lab. IТm happy the integr unity.Ф
УIn the lab! Christ! Al will never buy that million years. PeterТd have the mother and fath all heart attacks.Ф
УSo we donТt tell them about it. We set it up and quiet and run it late one night like a ro
piece of overtime. WhatТs the matterЧdonТt you trust me any more?Ф Clifford was grinning in a crooked kind of way. УI thought you were supposed to be the adventurous one. Have a ball.Ф
Aub stared as if Clifford had taken leave of his senses. He looked imploringly at Sarah, who was following the conversation, and threw out his hands.
УIt must be all these English females,Ф he said.
УHeТs finally flipped. Brad, get this straight. There is absolutely no way IТm gonna come into the lab with you, late one night like some kinda crook or something, and run that kind of experiment.Ф

Four weeks later at about an hour before midnight, CliffordТs car eased to a halt outside the GRASER building of the Sudbury Institute. Two figures got out, presented their credentials to the police guards at the main door, and disappeared inside. By three in the morning the huge generators that supplied the GRASER were humming and the banks of equipment racks stacked around the reactor sphere were alive with patterns of winking lights. An array of heat sensors, radiation detectors, ionization counters and photomultiplier tubes had been positioned around a ten-foot-diameter circle that had been cleared near one of the walls, about thirty feet away from the sphere. Clifford and Aub were sitting at a control panel, facing the circle from behind the battery of instruments.
Aub adjusted the parameters of the GRASER to produce just the faintest trickle of particles through the beam tube and into the reactor. Then he switched on the annihilation modulators. The readings on the display screens on either side of the panel confirmed that a microscopic reaction was taking place inside the sphere. The particles were disappearing out of
space to be transformed into hi-waves that propag instantly to every point in the universe, where subsequently reappeared as energy through secon reactions. So far, it was an everyday GRASER
Clifford nodded. Working together, they started the sequence of specially written programs that had loaded into the system earlier that day. On one the additional modified modulators were swit in and brought up to operating power, compre~ the return energy into an ever-decreasing radius tered on the middle of the empty circle. The eu that would normally have been distributed infin:
mally sparsely throughout the whole of space was being focused within a volume no bigger than a b ball.
The screens showed that the instruments were tecting radiation. Counters registered the ionizatic molecules of air. The infrared scanners indicated a in temperature. As Aub increased the beam p a fraction, dust particles began scurrying across floor of the lab toward the center of the circle, d] inward by the convection of the rising, heated ai cool breeze made itself felt on their skin.
At higher power an incandescent glow appe~ elongated upward into a shimmering column of radiance by the rising currents. It burned dull rc the outside, changing through brighter shade~ orange to a core of brilliant yellow. Clifford and watched spellbound. They were witnessing somel that no men in history had seen before; energy materializing in space out of nothing, from a sc that lay thirty feet awayЧand it was traversing distance in between through a realm of existence lay beyond the dimensions of space and time.
After a few minutes Clifford, having satisfied self that the recording instruments had capturec
erything, nodded and raised a hand. УThatТll do. DonТt take it any higher.Ф
УOkay to cut?Ф
УYep. That just about does it.Ф
Aub took the system through its shutdown sequence. The glow died from the center of the circle and silence gradually descended as one by one the huge machines became quiet and the last row of lights went out. Aub sat back and wiped the perspiration from his forehead.
УPhew,Ф he said. УOkay, IТll buy itЧthe space integral is unity. And you tried to tell me you werenТt a salesman. Jeez.Ф He shook his head.
УCТmon, it wasnТt that risky and you know it,Ф Clifford taunted. УIf it wasnТt unity, the detectors would have spotted an excess long before we wound the power up. There was no hazard really.Ф
УOkay, youТve made your point. WeТve proved we can focus the return energy. Now what?Ф
At once CliffordТs grin snapped off and his mood became serious. УTomorrow we talk to Al and Peter and put them in the picture,Ф he said. УIt doesnТt matter now if thereТs hell to pay because this is rapidly going to become a lot bigger than both of them. What Peter has to do is get in touch with Washington and fix us an appointment for as soon as he can with Foreshaw and his merry men.Ф He leaned across and slapped Aub on the shoulder. УYou keep telling me I have to be a salesman, my friend. OkayЧI, or, rather, we, are going to make the most mindblowing sale ever. No salesman ever walked into the Pentagon with anything like what weТve got. They want bombs? We are going to give them a bigger damn bomb than they ever dreamed of!Ф
Chapter 19

Clifford stood at the head of the large oval conference table and gazed along the line of unsmiling attentive faces. The Defense Secretary was seated at the far end with the restЧservice chiefs, technical advisers, presidential aides, and defense plannersЧseated around on either side. Aub was at the end near Clifford, flanked by Morelli and Peter Hughes.