"James P. Hogan - The Genesis Machine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hogan James P)

throat. That's what."
"You didn't query it," Clifford corrected matter-of-factly. "You just
told me I couldn't do it. Period."
"But...You let me cancel."
"You said you had no alternative. I took your word for it."
"You knew damn well there'd be an exception approval on file."
Thompson's eyes were bulging as if he were about to become hysterical. "Why
didn't you mention the fact, or give me an access reference to it? How was I
supposed to know that the project director had personally given it a priority
1 status? What are you trying to do, make me look like some kind of idiot or
something?"
"You manage that okay without me."
"You listen to me, you smart-assed young bastard! D'you think this job
isn't tough enough already without you playing dummy? There was no reason why
I should have checked for an exception approval against that requisition. Now
I'm being bawled out because the whole project's bottlenecked. What the hell
made you think I'd want to check it out?"
"It's your job," Clifford said dryly, and cut off the screen.
He just had time to select some of the folders lying on his desk and to
turn for the door, when the chime sounded again. He cursed aloud, turned back
to the terminal, and pressed the Interrogate key to obtain a preview of the
caller without closing the circuit that completed the two-way channel. As he
had guessed, it was Thompson again. He looked apoplectic. Clifford released
the key and sauntered out into the corridor. He collected coffee from the
automat area, then proceeded on to one of the graphical presentation rooms
which he had already reserved for the next two hours. Since the meeting
demanded his presence at ACRE that day, he thought he might as well make the
most of the opportunity presented to him.
An hour later Clifford was still sitting at the operator's console in
the darkened room, frowning with concentration as he studied the array of
multidimensional tensor equations that glowed at him from the opposite wall.
The room was one of several specifically built to facilitate the manipulation
and display of large volumes of graphical data from ACRE's computer complex.
The wall that Clifford was looking at Was, in effect, one huge computer
display screen. In levels deep below the building, the machines busied
themselves with a thousand other tasks while Clifford pondered the subtle
implications contained in the patterns of symbols. At length, he turned his
head slightly to direct his words at the microphone grille set into the
console, but without taking his eyes off the display, and spoke slowly and
clearly.
"Save current screen; name file Delta Two. Retain screen modules one,
two, and three; erase remainder. Rotate symmetric unit phi-zero-seven.
Quantize derivative I-vector using isospin matrix function. Accept I-
coefficients from keyboard two; output on screen in normalized orthogonal
format."
He watched as the machine's interpretation of the commands appeared on
one of the small auxiliary screens built into the console, nodded his
approval, then tapped a rapid series of numerals into the keyboard.
"Continue."
The lower part of the display went blank and a few seconds later began