"Connie Willis - The Doomsday book" - читать интересную книгу автора (Willis Connie)

Mediaeval's place in history, talked to Kivrin for a bit, the tech ran some tests, and then
Gilchrist and Kivrin went through that door. I assume he's still in there with her, getting her
ready."
"Getting her ready," Dunworthy muttered.
"James, do come and sit down, and tell me what's wrong," she said, jamming the muffler back in its
box and stuffing it into the shopping bag, "and where you've been. I expected you to be here when
I arrived. After all, Kivrin's your favorite pupil."
"I was trying to reach the Head of the History Faculty," Dunworthy said, looking at the display
screens.
"Basingame? I thought he was off somewhere on Christmas vac."
"He is, and Gilchrist maneuvered to be appointed Acting Head in his absence so he could get the
Middle Ages opened to time travel. He rescinded the blanket ranking of ten and arbitrarily
assigned rankings to each century. Do you know what he assigned the 1300's? A six. A six! If
Basingame had been here, he'd never have allowed it. But the man's nowhere to be found." He
looked hopefully at Mary. "You don't know where he is, do you?"
"No," she said. "Somewhere in Scotland, I think."
"Somewhere in Scotland," he said bitterly. "And meanwhile, Gilchrist is sending Kivrin into a
century which is clearly a ten, a century which had scrofula and the plague and burned Joan of Arc
at the stake."
He looked at Badri, who was speaking into the console's ear now. "You said Badri ran tests. What
were they? A coordinates check? A field projection?"
"I don't know." She waved vaguely at the screens, with their constantly changing matrices and
columns of figures. "I'm only a doctor, not a net technician. I thought I recognized the
technician. He's from Balliol, isn't he?"


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Dunworthy nodded. "He's the best tech Balliol has," he said, watching Badri, who was tapping the
console's keys one at a time, his eyes on the changing readouts. "All of New College's techs were
gone for the vac. Gilchrist was planning to use a first-year apprentice who'd never run a manned
drop. A first- year apprentice for a remote! I talked him into using Badri. If I can't stop
this drop, at least I can see that it's run by a competent tech."
Badri frowned at the screen, pulled a meter out of his pocket, and started toward the wagon.
"Badri!" Dunworthy called.
Badri gave no indication he'd heard. He walked around the perimeter of the boxes and trunks,
looking at the meter. He moved one of the boxes slightly to the left.
"He can't hear you," Mary said.
"Badri!" he shouted. "I need to speak to you."
Mary had stood up. "He can't hear you, James," she said. "The partition's soundproofed."
Badri said something to Latimer, who was still holding the brass-bound casket. Latimer looked
bewildered. Badri took the casket from him and set it down on the chalked mark.
Dunworthy looked around for a microphone. He couldn't see one. "How were you able to hear
Gilchrist's speech?" he asked Mary.
"Gilchrist pressed a button on the inside there," she said, pointing at a wall panel next to the
net.
Badri had sat down in front of the console again and was speaking into the ear again. The net
shields began to lower into place. Badri said something else, and they rose to where they'd been.
"I told Badri to recheck everything, the net, the apprentice's calculations, everything," he said,