"C M Kornbluth - Gomez" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

Gomez



C. M. Kornbluth




Gomez



Now THAT I'm a cranky, constipated old man I can afford to say that the younger generation of
scientists makes me sick to my stomach. Short-order fry cooks of destruction, they hear through the little
window the dim order: "Atom bomb rare, with cobalt sixty!" and sing it back and rattle their stinking
skillets and sling the deadly hash-just what the customer ordered, with never a notion invading their smug,
too-heated havens that there's a small matter of right and wrong that takes precedence even over their
haute cuisine.

There used to be a slew of them who yelled to high heaven about it. Weiner, Urey, Szilard,
Morrison-dead now, and worse. Unfashionable. The greatest of them you have never heard of. Admiral
MacDonald never did clear the story. He was Julio Gomez, and his story was cleared yesterday by a
fellow my Jewish friends call Malach Hamovis, the Hovering Angel of Death. A black-bordered letter
fromRosaadvised me that Malach Hamovis had come in on runway six with his flaps down and picked
up Julio at the age of thirty-nine. Pneumonia.



"But,"Rosapainfully wrote, "Julio would want you to know he died not too unhappy, after a good though
short life with much of satisfaction . . ."
I think it will give him some more satisfaction, wherever he is, to know that his story at last is getting told.

It started twenty-two years ago with a routine assignment on a crisp October morning. I had an
appointment with Dr. Sugarman, the head of the physics department at the University. It was the umpth
anniversary of something or other-first atomic pile, the test A-bomb,Nagasaki-I don't remember what,
and the Sunday editor was putting together a page on it. My job was to interview the three or four
University people who were Manhattan District grads.

I found Sugarman in his office at the top of the modest physics building's square gothic tower, brooding
through a pointed-arch window at the bright autumn sky. He was a tubby, jowly little fellow. I'd been
seeing him around for a couple of years at testimonial banquets and press conferences, but I didn't expect
him to remember me. He did, though, and even got the name right.

"Mr. Vilchek?" he beamed. "From the Tribune?"

"That's right, Dr. Sugarman. How are you?"

"Fine; fine. Sit down, please. Well, what shall we talk about?"