"Larry Niven - ARM UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

Ordaz sounded serious enough. УHave you ever seen anything like this?Ф
УNo. ThatТs some machine.Ф Unmistakably an experimental device
Чno neat plastic case, no compactness, no assembly-line welding. Too complex to examine through a phone camera, I decided. УYah, that looks like something for us. Can you send it over?Ф
Ordaz came back on. He was smiling, barely. УIТm afraid we cannot do that. Perhaps you should send someone here to look at it.Ф
УWhere are you now?Ф
УIn Raymond SinclairТs apartment on the top floor of the Rodewald Building in Santa Monica.Ф
УIТll come myself,Ф I said. My tongue suddenly felt thick.
УPlease land on the roof. We are holding the elevator for examination.Ф
УSure.Ф I hung up.
Raymond Sinclair!
IТd never met Raymond Sinclair. He was something of a recluse. But the ARM had dealt with him once, in connection with one of his inventions, the FyreStop device. And everyone knew that he had lately been working on an interstellar drive. It was only a rumor, of course, but if someone had killed the brain that held that secret . .
I went.
The Rodewald Building was forty stories of triangular prism with a row of triangular balconies going up each side. The balconies stopped at the thirty-eighth floor.
The roof was a garden. There were rosebushes in bloom along one edge, full-grown elms nestled in ivy along another, and a miniature
forest of bonsai trees along the third. The landing pad and carport were in the center. A squad car was floating down ahead of my taxi. It landed, then slid under the carport to give me room to land.
A cop in vivid orange uniform came out to watch me come down. I couldnТt tell what he was carrying until I had stepped out. It was a deep-sea fishing pole, still in its kit.
He said, УMay I see some ID, please?Ф
I had my ARM ident in my hand. He checked it in the console in the squad car, then handed it back. УThe inspectorТs waiting downstairs,Ф he said.
УWhatТs the pole for?Ф
He smiled suddenly, almost secretively. УYouТll see.Ф
We left the garden smells via a ifight of concrete stairs. They led down into a small room half full of gardening tools, on the far side of which was a heavy door with a spy-eye in it. Ordaz opened the door for us. He shook my hand briskly, glanced at the cop. УYou found something? Good.Ф
The cop said, УThereТs a sporting-goods store six blocks from here. The manager let me borrow it. He made sure I knew the name of the store.Ф
УYes, there will certainly be publicity on this matter. Come, Gil . . .У Ordaz took my arm. УYou should examine this before we turn it off.Ф
No garden smells here, but there was somethingЧa whiff of something long deadЧthat the air-conditioning hadnТt quite cleared away. Ordaz walked me into the living room.
It looked like somebodyТs idea of a practical joke.
The indoor grass covered SinclairТs living-room floor, wall-to-wall. In a perfect fourteen-foot circle between the sofa and the fireplace, the rug was brown and dead. Elsewhere it was greenХ and thriving.
A manТs mummy, dressed in stained slacks and turtleneck, lay on its back in the center of the circle. At a guess, it had been about six months dead. It wore a big digital wristwatch with extra dials on the face and a fine mesh platinum band, loose now around a wrist of bones and brown skin. The back of the skull had been smashed open, possibly by the classic blunt instrument lying next to it.
If the fireplace was falseЧand it almost had to be; nobody burns woodЧthe fireplace instruments were genuine nineteenth- or twentieth-century antiques. The rack was missing a poker. A poker lay inside the circle, in the dead grass next to the disintegrating mummy.
The glowing goldberg device sat just in the center of the magic circle.
I stepped forward, and a manТs voice spoke sharply. УDonТt go inside that circle of rug. ItТs more dangerous than it looks.Ф
It was a man I knewЧOfficer-One Vaipredo, a tall man with a small, straight mouth and a long, narrow Italian face.
УLooks dangerous enough to me,Ф I said.
УIt is. I reached in there myself,Ф Valpredo told me, Уright after we got here. I thought I could ifip the switch off. My whole arm went numb. Instantly. No feeling at all. I yanked it away fast, but for a minute or so after that, my whole arm was dead meat. I thought IТd lost it. Then it was all pins and needles, like IТd slept on it.Ф
The cop who had brought me in had almost finished assembling the deep-sea fishing pole.
Ordaz waved into the circle. УWell? Have you ever seen anything like this?Ф
I shook my head, studying the violet-glowing machinery. УWhatever it is, itТs brand-new. SinclairТs really done it this time.Ф
An uneven line of solenoids was attached to a plastic frame with homemade joins. Blistered spots on the plastic showed where other objects had been attached and later removed. A breadboard bore masses of heavy wiring. There were six big batteries hooked in parallel, and a strange, heavy piece of sculpture in what looked like pure silver, with wiring attached at three curving points. The silver was tarnished almost black, and there were old file marks at the edges.
Near the center of the arrangement, just in front of the silver sculpture, were two concentric solenoids embedded in a block of clear plastic. They glowed blue, shading to violet. So did the batteries. A less perceptible violet glow radiated from everywhere on the machine, more intensely in the interior parts.
That glow bothered me more than anything else. It was too theatrical. It was like something a special-effects man might add to a cheap late-night thriller to suggest a mad scientistТs laboratory.
I moved around to get a closer look at the dead manТs watch.
УKeep your head out of the field!Ф Valpredo said sharply.
I nodded. I squatted on my heels outside the borderline of dead grass.
The dead manТs watch was going like crazy. The minute hand was circling the dial every seven seconds or so. I couldnТt find the second hand at all.
I backed away from the arc of dead grass and stood up. Inter-
stellar drive, hell. This blue-glowing monstrosity looked more like a time machine gone wrong.
I studied the single throw switch welded to tile plastic frame next to the batteries. A length of nylon line dangled from the horizontal handle. It looked like someone had tugged the switch on from outside the field by using the line; but heТd have had to hang from the ceiling to tug it off that way.
УI see why you couldnТt send it over to ARM headquarters. You canТt even touch it. You stick your arm or your head in there for a second, and thatТs ten minutes without a blood supply.Ф
Ordaz said, УExactly.Ф
УIt looks like you could reach in there with a stick and flip that switch off.Ф
УPerhaps. We are about to try that.Ф He waved at the man with the fishing pole. УThere was nothing in this room long enough to reach the switch. We had to sendЧФ