"Bruce Holland Rogers - The Krishman Cube" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rogers Bruce Holland)

fun at my expense."
How does one respond to that? I said what I usually say in response Wayne: "Oh?"
He motioned me into his office and pointed at the orange, western sky.
"I was watching the sunset," he told me. "Then there was that tremor. And then... Well, tell me if you
see what I see."
"What's that?"
"Watch the sun."
I did.
It was rising.
The sun was rising in the west.
I won't detail what followed then, Mr. Hammond. No doubt, you know more about the accusations
that we exchanged with the Soviets, the tense hours when hands were poised above the buttons of
holocaust (forgive me if I sound melodramatic). The papers were never very clearly about why both sides
suddenly calmed down, but I suspect that someone must have pointed out to them that if the other side
did indeed have the ability to reverse the earth's spin, that an attack might well be suicide; who knows
what other powers the enemy might possess? And you probably know considerably more than I about
most of the religious revivals, the mass conversions to every faith, the rise of new churches that took
place in Communist states during those first few months. Then everyone finally got used to having the sun
rise in the west and set in the east. The world returned to business as usual. You must admit, it's
surprising what we can adjust to.
Something you probably haven't been as close to, however, is the birth and development of the
Church of the Divine Prankster. As I'm sure you know, Dr. Urvater, Krishman's nemesis in the physics
department, had been one of the few scientists in the world to offer even a remotely reasonable
explanation for what had happened and how it was that we weren't hurled into space because of our own
momentum. It must have been the only creative thought the man had had in his career, because he
delighted so in speaking about it. The idea was simple enough. Since molecules constantly vibrate, the
Spinshift was a matter of every atom in and on the earth vibrating, in unison, in the same direction for a
heartbeat or two. That is, all molecules, due to an incredibly unlikely synchronization of their motions,
moved simultaneously in the direction counter to the earth's spin; we survived the event only through the
happy accident that all things happened to change gears at the same time. It doesn't sound like much of a
theory, but in cases like this one, you take what you can get.
A television reporter asked Urvater once if he meant by all this that the Spinshift was a fluke in the
universal plan, that God was playing a practical joke. Urvater said that, no, the matter was more
complicated than that. But one or two impressionable minds latched on to the reporter's question,
disregarding Urvater's reply. Since people were ready to buy any idea that attempted to explain the
Spinshift, Urvater soon had two followings. The first consisted of scientists who were grateful for an
explanation that at least sounded something like rational science. The second was a cult of crazies who
wore squirting flowers and joy buzzers as the insignia of the Church of the Divine Prankster. The latter
entourage followed him around and called him their "prophet of pranksterism, message bearer for our
giddy God."
To which Urvater would reply, "If you don't buzz off, I'm calling the campus police."
But they stuck with him, and when he did call the police, the best they could do was cite the cult for
trespass. In a day or so, Urvater's unwanted followers would be back, and the police had other things to
do than chase off harmless, if annoying, worshippers.
The church grew. There was something about its name that appealed to the disoriented, and there
were very few people whom the Spinshift had not disoriented. When the CDP boasted a world-wide
membership of five hundred thousand, Urvater called an evening press conference/lecture and invited
several well-known theorists to come and help him explain the hard science behind his theory and dispel
the mysticism that had grown up around it. He wanted to be a scientist, not a pope.
It was at that press conference, held in an auditorium on the campus and under heavy security