"C. M. Kornbluth & Donald A. Wollheim - The Mask of Demeter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

THE MASK OF DEMETER
The International Scientific Association met once a year in New York City, which made it easy for
members who lectured in Columbia or N.Y.U. Others had, often, to travel thousands of miles to partake
of the delights that comprised the annual meetings. Among these delights were gratuitous insults, given
and taken, violent challenges to debate which never came to anything, and—if it was a lucky year—a fist
fight between two eminent figures in the realm of science.
The convention for 1950 wasn't getting anywhere, it seemed. There had been a number of papers
read, a few desultory impeachments of fact with half-hearted rejoinders from the platform.
Next on the program was the good Dr. Brewster, astronomer from Vernier Tech. His topic was
"Some Recent Observations and Correlations Regarding the Spectrum and Band-Shifts of Demeter,"
which was mysterious. Nobody could think for the moment of a star named Demeter, though there
probably was one. If you look hard enough you could find a star with any name that comes to mind.

Dr. Brewster, with a slight cough, advanced on the stage, smiling. Not yet referring to his notes, he
began with the usual informal comments, intended to be humorous: "Well, gentlemen, I trust I can read a
paper on Demeter without you all being scared out of your wits, eh?"
"Huh?" violently grunted a few of the members of the I. S. A.
"Now why should we be scared of anything he has to say?" demanded an astronomer from McGill
University of a botanist from Yale.
Dr. Brewster chuckled mildly. "To wander a bit," he said, "I was one of those very few who read the
original romance in its first edition. I found it vastly thrilling, of course—and totally improbable. But Orson
Welles had—shall we say—a knack of putting over the totally improbable with a plausibility that is
terrifying to the uninitiate."
The botanist from Yale looked at the astronomer from McGill. "What's the man talking about?" he
asked.
"Damme if I know," said the Canadian.
"In fact," said Dr. Brewster, "this whole business of invasion from Demeter has been badly overdone,
I should say. There was a time when one could scarcely pick up a pulpwood magazine without finding a
story about that theme. Not that I have anything against the pulps, gentlemen. They have done much to
popularize astronomy in their own indirect way.
"To ramble a bit further, Mr. Bonestell, the cover painter, has done some very striking scenes of
Demeter viewed from space—works which might well hang in the corridors of many an observatory
building, I believe."
A large part of the audience looked uneasily at the other part. They read the science fiction pulps, but
it was not considered proper to talk about them. "And furthermore," whispered the astronomer from
McGill, "Bonestell has never done a Demeter cover that I know of—and I've seen practically everything
he's done . . . Coronet to 'Conquest of Space'." He looked dazedly at Brewster, smiling from the
lectern.
"Well," said Brewster briskly, "to get to the point, my observations were conducted until a very short
time before the convention; since then I've been in seclusion—as it were—correlating them and whipping
them into shape for this reading. An ambiguity I trust you will excuse; I had a bit of a shock lately, thought
that as an astronomer I was quite finished. My eyes seemed to have failed me, but fortunately it was only
temporary."
He rattled the papers and began to read off strings of figures. The astronomers in the audience
twisted more and more uncomfortably in their seats. Finally the gentleman from Canada rose and said:
"Excuse me, Doctor Brewster, I'd like to ask a question."
"Certainly."
The Canadian looked a bit uncomfortable, "I'm ah—afraid I don't quite understand. You seem to be
giving atmospheric spectrum readings."
 "Exactly," said Brewster mildly.