"H. Beam Piper - The Edge of the Knife" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piper H Beam)

faculty member in the state. In any state where there's a tenure law."

Leonard Fitch, the psychologist, took an opposite attitude. As Chalmers was leaving the college at the
end of the afternoon, Fitch cut across the campus to intercept him.

"I heard about the way you stood up to Whitburn this morning, Ed," he said. "Glad you did it. I only wish
I'd done something like that three years ago.... Think he's going to give you any real trouble?"

"I doubt it."

"Well, I'm on your side if he does. I won't be the only one, either."

"Well, thank you, Leonard. It always helps to know that. I don't think there'll be any more trouble,
though."




He dined alone at his apartment, and sat over his coffee, outlining his work for the next day. When both
were finished, he dallied indecisively, Weill's words echoing through his mind and raising doubts. It was
possible that he had been manufacturing the whole thing in his subconscious mind. That was, at least, a
more plausible theory than any he had constructed to explain an ability to produce real knowledge of the
future. Of course, there was that business about the Kilroy. That had been too close on too many points
to be dismissed as coincidence. Then, again, Weill's words came back to disquiet him. Had he really
gotten that before the event, as he believed, or had he only imagined, later, that he had?

There was one way to settle that. He rose quickly and went to the filing-cabinet where he kept his
future-history notes and began pulling out envelopes. There was nothing about the Kilroy in the
Twentieth Century file, where it should be, although he examined each sheet of notes carefully. The
possibility that his notes on that might have been filed out of place by mistake occurred to him; he looked
in every other envelope. The notes, as far as they went, were all filed in order, and each one bore, beside
the future date of occurrence, the date on which the knowledgeтАФor must he call it delusion?тАФhad come
to him. But there was no note on the landing of the first unmanned rocket on Luna.

He put the notes away and went back to his desk, rummaging through the drawers, and finding nothing.
He searched everywhere in the apartment where a sheet of paper could have been mislaid, taking all his
books, one by one, from the shelves and leafing through them, even books he knew he had not touched
for more than three years. In the end, he sat down again at his desk, defeated. The note on the Kilroy
simply did not exist.

Of course, that didn't settle it, as finding the note would have. He rememberedтАФor believed he
rememberedтАФhaving gotten that item of knowledgeтАФor delusionтАФin 1970, shortly before the end of
the school term. It hadn't been until after the fall opening of school that he had begun making notes. He
could have had the knowledge of the robot rocket in his mind then, and neglected putting it on paper.

He undressed, put on his pajamas, poured himself a drink, and went to bed. Three hours later, still
awake, he got up, and poured himself another, bigger, drink. Somehow, eventually, he fell asleep.