"Charles L. Harness-The Alchemist" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harness Charles L)

Metallurgy on an emergency job when it was discovered that he had worked summers on a barytes
washer in Missouri. When he finished the emergency case, M & M refused to release him.
And that was when Patrick stopped revising the chart. From then on he kept everything in his head,
like a general in the midst of shifting battle lines. He developed an exquisite facility in matching attorney to
project, project to attorney, attorney to inventor. His manning assignments never failed. Except for Pierre
Celsus. Nobody could understand Celsus. His few cases had been written personally by Patrick.
Bleeker discovered all this in slow fragments. Then he put in a call for Patrick.
***


After ten minutes in Bleeker's office, Patrick finally convinced him he knew no more about silamine
than the research director. Following which, point by point, sentence by sentence, they went through the
Project Report together.
"And listen to this," groaned Bleeker. "He's proposing some kind of dispersant for the residual silica."
"Why would he need a dispersant?" asked Patrick. "Why not just flush it direct to solids disposal?"
"I haven't the faintest idea. But that's not my point. Listen to what's in it:
Vitriolated tartar
Butter of antimony
Libavius' fuming liquor
Sal mirabile
Magnesia nigra...
And the whole thing, he calls"-- Bleeker looked at the report-- "the alkahest." He looked up
helplessly at Patrick. "What is the man talking about?"
"Alkahest?" Patrick looked troubled.
"Maybe I'm not pronouncing it right."
"No, you had it right. Except-- I thought..."
"You thought what?"
"The term hasn't been used in earnest in over five hundred years. It's an alchemical term. It means
'universal solvent.' It dissolves anything you put it in."
"Alchemical? Solvent?" Bleeker looked blank.
"It might really dissolve the silica," ventured Patrick. "although I can't see any reason why it would be
necessary, technically."
"Alchemy..." muttered Bleeker. "What century does he think this is?" His chair began to swing slowly.
"That man needs help. He ought to see Siegfried Walters."
"I understand he's been in therapy with Walters for some months," said Patrick. He added quietly:
"Does this mean you won't approve the bench run?"
"No. It doesn't mean that. I'm going to approve it. In fact, the Board of Directors insists that we
develop a process we can sell to the People's Republic. That twenty-five-cent royalty has them
hypnotized. Anyhow, the new Fluidizer Bay will be finished in a few days. The runs can start then. Put
one of your best men on it. If it works, get a case file as soon as you get that madman translated into
basic English."
"Of course, Andy."
"And now," said Bleeker, "what do I do with Celsus?"
"Nothing," said Patrick. "Leave him alone. Maybe you and I don't have what it takes to understand
him."
"Nor does anyone else," declared Bleeker. "And that's the whole problem. Any chemist in corporate
research has got to be one hundred per cent clear to the rank and file that have to translate him into a
tonnage plant. His thinking has to be something our run-of-the-mill people can take and break down into
its elements, its unit processes."
"I think he's some kind of a genius," said Patrick stubbornly.