planted untidily on the polished top of Frazier’s desk, thinking. When the colonel attempted to reclaim his office, Haskins waved him away irritably.
He was wondering if Major Bowden Karvel was one of the kinds of people who interested him.
He telephoned Washington again. “About Karvel,” he said. “I want him recalled to active duty and assigned to me. Never mind the medical problem. I know the man is missing a leg, and I also know that he’s hospitalized at this moment, but I want him. Immediately. Just have the order issued, and if there are any repercussions I’ll probably be finished with him before they catch up with us.” He hung up.
He doubted that Bowden Karvel would ever be able to tell him anything he wanted to know. The man’s appetite for general knowledge was too rapacious, and his interests too volatile. Haskins did not disparage those qualities, but neither did he patronize them. He knew from experience that when he wanted information a brilliant amateur was a poor substitute for a well-schooled professional.
Neither could he think of any job that Karvel might be qualified to do for him. His immediate concern was to put the major under military control, so he could order him to keep his mouth shut. If a man with his qualifications and background ever started spouting to the press about future butterflies and bricks of time, there’d be the devil to pay. To keep his mouth shut, and to keep a firm check on his awesome flights of imagination—those would be the problems.
“Though it is odd,” Haskins mused, “that his theory is the only one without an obvious inconsistency.”
Chapter 4
Professor Charles Zimmer was a mathematician, and he was expounding some obscure theory of numbers to Gerald Haskins. Bowden Karvel, seated nearby in a wheel chair, listened absently and wondered if Haskins understood what the professor was talking about. Karvel did not.
In Karvel’s lap lay a stack of photographs of the U.O’s interior. Uppermost was a close-up of the central feature of a strange, bafflingly simple instrument panel.
“How about ‘positive’ and ‘negative’?” Karvel asked suddenly.
The professor’s smile spread over his plump face in concentric wrinkles. He took the photograph. “If that were so,” he said, “the symbols on either side of the norm could be reasonably expected to exhibit similarities. In fact, they should be identical. I consider these symbols as representing a scale of regularly changing values, but whether it should be read from left to right, or vice versa, I would not even hazard a guess. Without some understanding of the function of this gadget, I am not even prepared to state positively that the symbols relate to numerical values.”
He returned the photograph to Karvel.
“In that case,” Karvel said, “how do you account for the fact that the central symbol is the largest, with the other symbols decreasing in size in either direction?”
“That’s why I referred to the central symbol as the ‘norm.’ Such an interpretation is reasonably obvious. Consider the temperature gauge on an automobile. Between the two extremes of hot and cold there is some kind of mark to indicate the normal operating range. I would consider that this central symbol serves a comparable purpose.”
Karvel looked at Gerald Haskins. He had come to think of him as a personification of the Anonymous Man. He was so average in every way that he was almost invisible in a crowd. Everything about him was medium: his height, his build, the color of his hair, the price of his suit—even his age, though the wrinkles around his eyes suggested that he might be older than he looked. Only the ever-present cigar struck a jarring note. It was expensive, and Haskins was a heavy smoker.
It had occurred to Karvel that such a consistent mediocrity had to be deliberate.
Now Haskins was delivering a warning shake of his head with moderate firmness, as he always did when Karvel seemed about
He was wondering if Major Bowden Karvel was one of the kinds of people who interested him.
He telephoned Washington again. “About Karvel,” he said. “I want him recalled to active duty and assigned to me. Never mind the medical problem. I know the man is missing a leg, and I also know that he’s hospitalized at this moment, but I want him. Immediately. Just have the order issued, and if there are any repercussions I’ll probably be finished with him before they catch up with us.” He hung up.
He doubted that Bowden Karvel would ever be able to tell him anything he wanted to know. The man’s appetite for general knowledge was too rapacious, and his interests too volatile. Haskins did not disparage those qualities, but neither did he patronize them. He knew from experience that when he wanted information a brilliant amateur was a poor substitute for a well-schooled professional.
Neither could he think of any job that Karvel might be qualified to do for him. His immediate concern was to put the major under military control, so he could order him to keep his mouth shut. If a man with his qualifications and background ever started spouting to the press about future butterflies and bricks of time, there’d be the devil to pay. To keep his mouth shut, and to keep a firm check on his awesome flights of imagination—those would be the problems.
“Though it is odd,” Haskins mused, “that his theory is the only one without an obvious inconsistency.”
Chapter 4
Professor Charles Zimmer was a mathematician, and he was expounding some obscure theory of numbers to Gerald Haskins. Bowden Karvel, seated nearby in a wheel chair, listened absently and wondered if Haskins understood what the professor was talking about. Karvel did not.
In Karvel’s lap lay a stack of photographs of the U.O’s interior. Uppermost was a close-up of the central feature of a strange, bafflingly simple instrument panel.
“How about ‘positive’ and ‘negative’?” Karvel asked suddenly.
The professor’s smile spread over his plump face in concentric wrinkles. He took the photograph. “If that were so,” he said, “the symbols on either side of the norm could be reasonably expected to exhibit similarities. In fact, they should be identical. I consider these symbols as representing a scale of regularly changing values, but whether it should be read from left to right, or vice versa, I would not even hazard a guess. Without some understanding of the function of this gadget, I am not even prepared to state positively that the symbols relate to numerical values.”
He returned the photograph to Karvel.
“In that case,” Karvel said, “how do you account for the fact that the central symbol is the largest, with the other symbols decreasing in size in either direction?”
“That’s why I referred to the central symbol as the ‘norm.’ Such an interpretation is reasonably obvious. Consider the temperature gauge on an automobile. Between the two extremes of hot and cold there is some kind of mark to indicate the normal operating range. I would consider that this central symbol serves a comparable purpose.”
Karvel looked at Gerald Haskins. He had come to think of him as a personification of the Anonymous Man. He was so average in every way that he was almost invisible in a crowd. Everything about him was medium: his height, his build, the color of his hair, the price of his suit—even his age, though the wrinkles around his eyes suggested that he might be older than he looked. Only the ever-present cigar struck a jarring note. It was expensive, and Haskins was a heavy smoker.
It had occurred to Karvel that such a consistent mediocrity had to be deliberate.
Now Haskins was delivering a warning shake of his head with moderate firmness, as he always did when Karvel seemed about
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