"George Alec Effinger - Everything But Honor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Effinger George Alec)

“All right with me,” said Fein. They dropped the subject for the moment, but Placide was sure that it
would come up again soon.
Two years later, in November 1938, Dr. Placide was selected to make the first full-scale operational test
of the Cage. He liked to think it was because of his contribution to the project. His journey through time
would be through the courtesy of the Placide-Born-Dirac Effect, and neither Max Born nor Paul Dirac
expressed any enthusiasm for the chance to act as guinea pig. In Berlin and Gottingen, there was a great
deal of argument over just what the Placide-Born-Dirac Effect was, and the more conservative theorists
wanted to limit the experiments to making beer steins and rodents disappear, which Placide and Fein had
been doing for over a year.

“My point,” said Placide at a conference of leading physicists in Gottingen, “is that after all this successful
study, it’s time for someone to hop in the Cage and find out what’s happening, once and for all.”

“I think it’s certainly time to take the next step,” said Werner Heisenberg.

“I agree,” said Erwin Schrodinger.

Dirac rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Nevertheless,” he said, “it’s much too soon to talk about human
subjects.”

“Are you seriously suggesting we risk a human life on the basis of our ill-fated and unproven theories?”
asked Albert Einstein.

Zach Marquand shrugged. “It would be a chance to clear up all the foggy rhetoric about paradoxes,” he
said.

Edward La Martine just stood to one side, sullenly shaking his head. He obviously thought Placide’s
suggestion was unsound, if not altogether insane.

“We have four in favor of using a human subject in the Cage, and four against,” said Fein. He took a
deep breath and let it out as a sigh. “I’m the project director, and I suppose it’s my responsibility to settle
this matter. God help me if I choose wrong. I say we go ahead and expand the scope of the experiment.”

Placide looked relieved. “Let me volunteer, then,” he said.

“Typical American recklessness,” said La Martine in a sour voice.

“You mean,” said Placide, “that you’ll be happy if I’m the one in the Cage. Not as a reward for my
work, of course, but because if anybody’s alternate history is going to be screwed up, better it be
America’s than Germany’s.”

La Martine just spread his hands and said nothing.

“Then I volunteer to go along,” said Fein. “As copilot.”

“There’s nothing for a copilot to do,” said Placide. Even then, it may have been that Fein didn’t have
complete faith in Placide’s motives.

Placide had his own agenda, after all, but he kept it secret from the others.