"Charles L. Harness-O Lyric Love" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harness Charles L)

 "This is it. We make things here, such as electronic gadgets for NASA, and we have several classified
government research projects. All this exists because you gave me an A in Eng Lit 205."
"Which you did not earn. You still owe me a Robert Browning."
"I'm coming to that." We stood before a locked door, which I opened with a signal from a pen-light.
We stepped inside. "The transmission room."
"What in the world?"
I could understand her wonder. It didn't look like much. Just a big room, nearly empty. It held a
couple of tables, a computer console, and a chair or two. A few books and some apparatus lay on one
of the tables, which also carried a switch panel. Soft shadowless radiants provided anonymous
illumination.
I looked at my watch. I had it timed well. If it worked. And I knew it would. "Look at the table," I told
her. "A book will appear on the dais in the center." As we watched, a paperback volume did in fact
materialize on the raised area.
I heard her sharp intake of breath. "How did you do that?"
"It wasn't easy." I walked over and picked the book up. "It's the undergraduate catalog." I peeked into
the Eng Lit section. I hesitated very briefly as a truly astonishing entry struck my eye. Then I closed it up
quickly and handed it to her. "Care to check?" She flipped the pages at random, then looked up. "So
what's the point?"
"Just a little preliminary test demonstration." I picked up another volume from the table. "This is the
identical catalog. At three P.M., one hour from now, as we leave, I shall put it here on the dais-- we call
it the Feynman plate-- and it will be sent into the past, which is of course here and now, at two P.M. It
materializes-- has materialized-- on the table. In a word, it time-travels."
She just looked at me. I couldn't tell whether she believed me or not. She said noncommittally: "Go
on."
"The plate is capable of transmitting up to one kilo of matter, backward in time, up to two hundred
years, and to anywhere in the world."
She had to think about that. She temporized. "I suppose it's silly of me to ask if this has something to
do with Robert Browning." It wasn't really a question. It was almost as though she was thinking out loud.
"We're going to send him something." I watched her face. She was not completely successful in
masking her thoughts, which said, you are crazy. She asked politely, as though we were assembling a
seminar agenda, "Just exactly what are you going to send him? The college catalog?"
"No." I took the catalog from her and handed her a second book. "This."
She put it in her lap and opened the stiff vellum-veneered cover. Her eyes widened. "Well now, what
have we here? Title page-- handwritten. And in Italian! Concerning the trial of Count Guido Franceschini
and four confederates for murder, and their conviction and execution." Very carefully she turned a few
more pages. "Now we get into printed Latin. Paper old, very old, edges crumbling. Depositions...
dated... good heavens!... 1698!" She peered up at me a moment, intrigued, puzzled, then continued
leafing through the book. "And finally, more handwritten pages." She closed the volume cautiously.
"Bernard, what is it? What is this all about?"
"That," I said, "is the keystone in our campaign to rehabilitate your friend Robert Browning. The
people really lived. The godawful things reported there really happened. May I tell you the story?"
"Please do."
"Well, there was this Guido Franceschini, a bachelor, and a sort of second-class Italian nobleman, and
he was broke, and looking for a bride with money. A middle-aged bourgeois couple by the name of
Camparini had a young and beautiful daughter, Pompilia, and the parents had a big block of treasury
bonds. The bond income was to continue for the life of their children-- which meant during Pompilia's life.
The Camparinis wanted the prestige of being in-laws to nobility. Besides which, Guido claimed to be rich
in his own right. And so the marriage was duly arranged and the income assigned over to Guido. Then
came trouble. Mama and Papa Camparini visited the newlyweds at the gloomy Franceschini castle in
Arezzo, near Rome, and there their eyes were opened. The Franceschinis were at the bottom of the list