[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

unpleasant smoke, Sanders began to speak. As he did, air filtration clicked
on, drawing the smoke up and to his rear, out of their own nostrils. It was a
nice touch.
 As Madame An has most certainly told you, I am Norman Sanders. I already know
who you all are, and I ve
gone over what you accomplished and I m impressed. I m not much of a man of
action, and I draw most of my courage from good whiskey, but that s why I m
looking to hire people. That s what a producer does, you know. He s kind of an
entrepreneur. He finds a project, gets control of it, then he puts it into
action by hiring the best people for the job and giving them the best tools he
can within a budget that will be adequate but realistic. For that, he gets a
share of the payoff, sometimes the biggest share. It s not fair, maybe, but if
he does his job right he s doing something others can t do. I realize that
this isn t cyberspace, we re not talking about jacking in customers in a safe
and secure place to experience the thrills of whatever we dream up, but the
basics are the same anyway. I didn t come here looking for any of you, but
synchronicity seems to have put me here looking for just such people at the
time when those people show up here. I have a project. If it comes off, it ll
make me one of the richest people in creation and one of the most powerful. I
won t mince words on that. Your shares will be tiny for assuming the risk and
doing the labor, but they ll still be enough so that you ll never have to work
again and can do pretty much what you want forever. Interested?
 We re here, aren t we? Jerry Nagel responded.
 Let me start at the beginning. I m a collector. Antiques, mostly, but
historical stuff, and stuff that inspires or stimulates. I go to a lot of
auctions, or send representatives there who know my tastes, and I wind up with
a lot of stuff. Some of it is junk, some of it is truly wonderful, and some of
it is blind speculation. I went to one where they were auctioning off the
personal effects of Dr. Oscar McGraw. Anybody ever hear of him?
Most had not, but Randi Queson knew the name.  He was a brilliant physicist.
Said to be on a par with Einstein, Newton, that league. Is that the one you
mean?
 The very one.
 I thought he held a research professorship on Marchellus.
 He did, but he passed away about six months ago. It was a tragedy to science,
maybe, but the guy was like almost two hundred and fifty years old and had
every kind of rejuvenation process and youth serum you can name.
They say he was sharp to the end. Looked like a prune, confined to a
wheelchair, but he taught a class the day he died.
 Anyway, Sanders continued,  the doctor was superfamous, had been since he
was a kid. He d lived a long time, knew or met everybody famous in our end of
the universe, and had accumulated every honor and prize there was. I
figured the historical stuff alone would be amazing, and it was. He d been
alone for years, after his sixth wife died, and there were no heirs this side
of the Great Silence, so he willed his papers to his university and a bunch of
stuff to various libraries, and the rest he said to put up on the block and
Page 62
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
use the proceeds to endow scholarships in physics and mathematics for bright
kids who needed them. There was a ton of stuff to go up, and lots of
interested, well-
heeled bidders, but I managed to get a lot, including some trunks and such
that turned up in his attic. Lots of personal stuff, so they let it go. I had
people go through it and catalog it, and I began to notice some interesting
names I would never have associated with him. The one that really got to me
was Dr. Karl Woodward.
 The evangelist who disappeared a ways back? Lucky Cross asked.
He seemed surprised that the knowledge had come from this quarter.  Yes,
indeed. How do you know about him?
 Oh, my mom used to be a real regular with him. Sent him money and stuff
almost all the way to the end of her days. He was her kind of preacher. Cussed
like a sailor, smoked, hated most other preachers. We used to get videos from
him now and then. He was a real stem-winder.
 He was indeed. He was also a doctor of astrophysics, and had been a classmate
and university research partner with McGraw until something caused a big
change in Woodward and he dropped out of science and got religion. Not
sure of the story there, and McGraw never understood it, but they stayed
friends, or so it appears from the notes. I
have a ton of voice diary reminiscences by McGraw of old Doc Woodward, but it
was their last meeting that suddenly got me to sit up and take notice.
Woodward, it seems, had come across a stuck pirate band and a derelict old
ship that pointed him directly to the Three Kings. How to get there, that is.
Woodward wanted McGraw to run the physics and get it exact as possible. McGraw
wanted to talk Woodward out of it. He didn t; he did the figures and gave  em [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

  • zanotowane.pl
  • doc.pisz.pl
  • pdf.pisz.pl
  • alwayshope.keep.pl

    •