"Geoffrey A. Landis - Elemental (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Landis Geoffrey A)

knew to eliminate any noise in his readings. Finally convinced his data was
right, he set out to map the disturbed region in detail.
"Need help?" Susan's voice drifted in from the open door.
"Oh, hi, Susan," Ramsey said. He was perched precariously on top of a
stepladder, positioning little probes over a four-meter plastic sphere
representing the earth. "Yeah. Watch the display screen and shout whenever the
position marker goes over a hundred. That way
I can focus all my attention on the vernier."
"Sure thing."
After a while the readings stopped. "There! Now let's take a look at what
we've got." Ramsey got down, walked over to the terminal, and called up a
plot.
"Hey, best data I've got in a long time. Wanna stay on and be my assistant?"
"Love to," said Susan. " 'Long as you work fast. I'm leaving tomorrow
morning."
"You're leaving tomorrow? But I
thought you weren't leaving until-"
He stopped and thought for a moment.
Could it be Wednesday already'? "Huh!
It doesn't seem like so much time has
gone by!" _
"No, it doesn't," she said in a small voice. She hesitated and started to say
something, stopped and looked at him for a moment, then glanced away quickly.
"So what does this new data show, anyway?" she asked.
Ramsey looked it over. "The anomaly has localized and grown somewhat more
intense." He walked over to the screen and touched a control. A map of the
world superimposed itself on the data. "Just south of Rome."
"What's this?" Susan asked, pointing to a squiggle at the bottom of the
screen. "Looks almost like the signature of the Earth elemental."
"There's a quick modulation superimposed on the steady anomaly field." Ramsey
touched the screen and a scale appeared on the axis.
"Well, how 'bout that!" she said. "It is the characteristic of the Earth
elemental. Wonder why you should pick
that up'? You wouldn't believe the sort of things we do to get that clean a
signal. Some people just have all the luck."
"Luck!" said Ramsey. "What luck'? How do 1 get rid of the damn thing'.'"
"Well, it's not coming from my lab. I haven't manifested the elemental since
the day we had that problem with the water elemental. Why don't you ask
Kirschmeyer? 1'd bet that either he's running something that's interfering
with you or else he knows who is. Can't think what it might be, though.
"Anyway, gotta go. I have a ton of stuff I got to take care of by tomorrow, or
else. You take care of yourself now, okay'?"
Before Ramsey could reply, Susan ran up to him, stood on her tip-toes, put her
arms around him, and gave him a quick kiss. Then she turned and ran out of the
room. Ramsey stood there startled for a moment, staring at the open door.
"But how do I get this elemental out of my system?" he called after her.
"You have problems, see Hans," came the faint reply.
Giuseppe looked out in amazement at the vineyard behind his house. Grapes as
big as a man's fist! Who had ever heard of such a thing? He pulled out the
amulet and looked at it dubiously. He had la paura, the feeling of something