"John T. Phillifent - Owe Me" - читать интересную книгу автора (Phillifent John T)

"The circuitry," he murmured, as if talking to himself, "does things to concentrate the final output into a beam with a cross section considerably finer than a hair. So the temperature in that beam section is something ferocious."
Morriss saw the quartz tip move steadily along, "Saw a needle point of intense glare and a spit of microscopic sparks.
"Of course," Smith mused, "that beam range is only a shade more than an inch, but what more do you need?" He reached the far edge, lifted the gadget away. The mirror surface looked as if it had been scored with a needle, until Smith picked up the uncovered half and handed it across. "It's cold," he said, "and a clean cut. Mind your fingers, that edge is like a razor."
Morriss stared at the clean edge and had no words. He gazed up at Smith, and still the words wouldn't come. Smith grinned easily, took the cut plate back. "Just to show off," he said, almost apologetically, and took up a rubber band from the desk tray. Diving into his pocket again he brought out a stub of chalk-white stuff. "Borax stick," he explained. "It helps." He rubbed it delicately and sparingly on both

cut surfaces, maneuvered them back together' slipped the band around to hold them, made another adjustment to the thing in his hand. This time Morriss saw a faint fan of blue from that quartz tip. Less than a minute later the plate was whole again, only now it was a staring impossibility, one half of it miffor-smooth, the other half rough-cast finish. It was the same on the other side. Morriss turned it over, foolishly, just to check. His eyes could barely detect the join ridge.
"Try that on Dommy Richards, and watch his face," Smith suggested, and for a moment, Morriss grinned in anticipation, anxious to see what his chief engineer would make of it. But the mirth evaporated quickly.
"All right, Smith . . . if that is your name . . . what's it all about? You have obviously laid on this whole charade deliberately. But why?"
Smith's grin was guarded now. He held out the gadget for Morriss to take. It was respectably heavy, looked like a fat black pencil with a chrome waistline. Morriss put it down, watched Smith settle back in his chair.
"I don't have to tell you," the inventor said, "that it's a surefire hobby item. That's your field. Battery life is around eight hours continuous. And all the components are your own stock run or standard products. Here"--he fished out a folded paper from an inside pocket, leaned to toss it onto the desk--is the detailed guts of it, circuitry and parts named. You know the prices, the costing, the potential market. Go ahead and analyze it market-wise. Say, for three months."
Morriss almost asked, "Why three months?" But his own wit caught up in time to stop that gaffe. There would be a flush of competition just as soon as other hobby houses could lay hands on a sample and strip it. "Three months would be optimistic," he substituted. "Things catch on fast in this business."
"Yes, but . . . at least half the items in there are wild. Nonstandard. And you're the only one with the production details on file, the know-how. So you have the edge all the way. Still, three months would do for starters. And--as Morriss reached for his terminal console--it might be better on your desk comp, not that thing. Just as well not to have anything on permanent record just yet."
"You don't miss a trick, do you?" Morriss muttered, his fingers dancing over his desk computer. This was his field, and his fingers were sure, the LEDs flickering their swift responses. He had already intuited a final figure, but it was still something of a shock to see the

results come up in hard green. It was big. The hobby market could pay very well if the item was right. And this was. It had a thousand potential uses. Morriss schooled his face. He was first and foremost a businessman. When he had said he wasn't in the habit of passing the buck he had spoken truly. He grasped the nettle firmly now.
"All right," he said, meeting Smith's stare. "How much?"
Smith leaned back in his chair and chuckled. "Comes the hard part. I'm as big a fool as the next man in some ways, Mr. Morriss. One of my follies is that I like to kid myself I'm a fair judge of character. 'So when you say 'How much like that, we both know what you mean. Only, I'm not selling anything. What you have there is -all your own property. Even the paper and ink of the diagram is company stock. It's all yours anyway. Free!"
Morriss took two full minutes and several deep breaths and still his voice came out shrill. "You can't do that! Man, do you know what this thing is worth?"
"Don't tell me, I don't want to know. I'm no good at that kind of figuring, never was. No, it's a gift. If handing you back your own property can be classified as a gift. No sale, anyway."
Morriss shook his head helplessly. He wanted to get up and stride about, and shout, and do something. But Smith just sat there, serene and unmoved.
"There has got to be more to it than that," he insisted. "Three months you've worked here. In your own time, out of establishment components, you have produced something that will sell by the million. Yes, million! And now you're giving it away, to me. Smith, there has to be a string somewhere!"
"Well now," Smith nodded slowly, "there is a place where you could tie a string or two, if you want to. There are things you could do for me, again if you feel you want to. This is where it comes in, am I a judge of character?"
"Ali!" Morriss began to feel more comfortable. "What . . . a job?"
"Hah!" Smith laughed openly now. "You run true to pattern. Mr. Morriss. No, no job. Hell, what do I want with a job?"
"But, man, at a salary at least ten times what we've been paying you. And worth every cent of it, for a man who can do this kind of trick . . . " He saw that Smith was still grinning, still shaking his head. "No?"
"No. I don't have a lot of use for money."

That statement was so outrageous that Morriss could only gape.
"What you can do," Smith murmured, "if you want to, three little things. First, clear my wage check to the end of the month."
"No problem." Morriss stretched out his hand. "A word to the cashier. "
"And while you're doing that, the second thing. Have him fix up an unlimited credit account on you, in the name of Magruder Smith."
Morriss drew his hand back sharply, all his instincts screaming against such a deal. He hoped it didn't show on his face, but Smith had sharp eyes.
"You don't like that? You're thinking I might walk out of here and run up a few bills to take you for maybe half a million or some such figure? Now why would I do a thing like that? How good a character judge are you, Morriss?" Smith wrinkled his brow in curiosity. "Can I eat more than one meal at a time, wear more than one outfit, sleep in more than one bed at a time? Who can? As I said, I have little use for money. So long as I have enough fare to the next place, I'll get by."
"But . . ." Morriss hesitated, "a checking account! What for?"
"Just a thought. I might be back this way sometime, who knows? Still, forget that. Do it this way. Your word that if ever I have need of money, or a favor of some kind, I can call on you. Call it an obligation. How's that?"
Morriss looked down at the gadget, then at his figure estimates, then back to Smith, and felt foolish. "You'd accept just my word?"
"I'll take that chance, sure."
"You said that I run true to form. Like Harvey Bander? You made this kind of deal with him?"
"And a few more, yes. I move around a lot. And that's the third thing you -can do for me. You have other friends, Mr. Morriss. Write me a letter or two, like the one Harvey Bander wrote. That's all. That's it. I'd like to be moving on again."
This time Morriss took three minutes of baffled thought, then stretched his hand again to the intercom. "You'll have your wages, and your credit account. And three letters. I'm willing to take a chance on you, Smith. But there's a thing you can do for me, in a moment. Ah, Willmot, Morriss here. I'd like you to raise a new credit account. Yes, the name is Magruder Smith . . ." It took only a few minutes. As Morriss released the switch and sat back the unusual forename rang a long-forgotten bell in his mind. "Magruder Smith?" he murmured. "I have heard that name before, haven't IT'

"Maybe. You want to know why I choose to live this way, right? Well, that's part of it. A long time ago now, full of bright and shiny ambition, I started up my own business. This line, but nothing this size . . . "
"This was a shoestring outfit once," Morriss interrupted. "and it took a lot of damned hard work to build it up to what you see now."
"I appreciate that. I know. I had ideas, and they worked. I made a lot of money fast. And then, it seemed like all at once, there I was at a desk, dealing, trading, arguing, trying to tell other people what to do, and how to do it, watching them do it, and worrying . . . a load on my back all the time, ulcers getting a grip on my guts. All that, while I paid men on the shop floor to do what I wanted to do. It was no good. I sold out. I quit. Money wouldn't buy me what I wanted, and I can't be idle. I need problems, but I like to be free to pick my own. This way . . . I can. That's it. "
"You'd be worth a lot to me," Morriss murmured, scribbling hurriedly. "Your own office, work your own hours, all the facilities, references . . . "
"On an income I'd have to pay taxes, file returns. And it can get lost or stolen. You realize if I got mugged in a dark alley tonight I wouldn't lose a thing? I have nothing to lose. I'm rich enough, in the only way inflation can't touch. I know eight or ten people like you who owe me, should I ever be in need. Who can steal that?" He rose and stood by the desk as Morriss finished the last letter and folded all three into an envelope. "You better have this, too." He produced a card with a circuit diagram on it. "That's my bug-finder. My own. It works. You can get yourself one made up. But, take my advice, don't sell it. Let a professional bugman get a good look at that and he'll figure out a bug to beat it. I could. And one last thing. " This was another paper with a long screed on it. "You have pretty good security arrangements here, but there are a few weak spots. That's a list of them, and how to tighten them up a bit. All right? Thanks for everything. See you around sometime, maybe. "
For a long while after Smith had gone Morriss sat still at his desk, deep in thought. The man was smart obviously. But crazy, too. No home, no roots, no money in the bank, no security, not even an automobile! Just a bum, wandering from job to job. It was no way for a man to live. So why, Morriss demanded of himself savagely, why was he so achingly envious?