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guaranteed the College a Master of outstanding distinction. It rang the changes effectively
between the arts and the sciences, and it also avoided cabals of Fellows seeking to
organize the ejection of a Master, such as happened in other places from time to time. In
short, it was a system most other Colleges would have been better with, if such
arrangements made general had been a practical matter, which they weren't because of the
impossible strain that a widespread application would have had on Prime Ministers.
The Master was currently a famous novelist and playwright, a solidly-built man of middle
height in his middle sixties with a shock of white hair and blessed with a deep, powerful,
resonant voice.
'Don't tell me, don't tell me. I can see it in your eye, Newton. You are the bringer of bad news.
Bad-News Newton shall henceforth be thy name,' the Master greeted Isaac Newton after he
had been shown upstairs to a large room on the first floor.
'Coffee, or can you manage sherry at this hour of the day?'
'Coffee, please.'
The Master moved in a kind of gliding padding motion, as if he were
wearing slippers, to a sideboard on which there was a hot-plate. He reached out for a finely
chiselled bright metal pot on the stand in an absent fashion and let out an agonised yell.
'Silver!' he roared. 'Whoever would have thought of making a coffee-pot out of silver? The
trouble in this College is that every damned thing is made of silver. I've sent out search
parties seeking heat-resistant steel but they always return empty-handed. Very well, Newton,
tell me the worst. Was it murder or was it suicide?'
'Probably suicide, but others will think murder, because to believe in suicide you have to
look into the darker aspects of the human personality, but to believe in murder you have only
the stuff of a spy thriller.'
'Did you say spy?'
'I did, deliberately, Master. Which is why I came to see you.'
'Good God, no. Not more spies in Trinity? Ah ha! I have it. This spy, this Howarth, is from St
John's, from over the wall. So he comes into Trinity seeking to trade on our reputation.'
'Howarth chanced on what may have been a closely-guarded secret, a technological
breakthrough in very long-wave radio transmission.'
'Why would it be important?'
'Because it would give satellite-to-satellite radio communication that was completely
undetectable from ground-based stations. You probably know, Master, that current thinking
among the military of both superpowers is tending towards satellite warfare. It doesn't need
a genius to realise that command of space is going to become what command of the air
was in the past.'
'You mean if one side wipes out the other's satellites then it would be like wiping out the
other's air force?'
'Yes,' nodded Isaac Newton, sipping his coffee. 'You don't need too much imagination to
build quite a case - for the murder picture, I mean,' he explained.
'I'm not liking the sound of this,' boomed the Master. 'But go on. I've got a hardy constitution.'
'Looking at it from the point of view of an investigative journalist, shall we say?'
'It's those fellows I fear most.'
'Within a short time of Howarth making his discovery, the Research Council stopped his
contract.'
'How did they do that?'
'On legal grounds. They had a point, you might say, but it could have been taken care of
otherwise.'
'So if you were an investigative journalist you'd argue that the
Research Council stopped the grant to prevent Howarth meddling any further. How would
they know to do that?'
'They have all manner of committees - committees to the right of them, committees to the left
of them, committees coming out of their ears - with all manner of scientists as members.'
'So somebody in the know hears about it and moves to put a stop to it. You can just see
them storming along the corridors of power, can't you?' the Master growled with his eyes
hooded, as if he were scanning the windy corridors himself. 'I can hear their voices moving
the necessary motions,' he added.
'The next step involves my own position,' Isaac Newton went on. Til ask you to keep this
strictly confidential, but recently I was involved in a security investigation myself, on behalf of
the Prime Minister's office. This was well known to the Foreign Office, and doubtless to
others. So when I returned to Cambridge and began to discuss matters with Howarth, and
especially when I took up the cudgels on his behalf, to some extent, it might have been seen
as a storm signal. At least, an investigative journalist might see it like that.'
'I see. So Howarth was removed, and in a fashion that would throw you into . .what should I
call it?'
'A peculiar light, shall we say?'
'Is this all surmise or is there anything solid to support it?'
'The police are in contact with somebody or other, probably MI6 or whatever number they go
by these days. Whether the police are happy about the situation, I don't know.'
'How d'you deduce that?'
'Howarth's office was stripped and my own office has been searched.'
'For papers?'
'Papers, disks, tapes.'
'Did they get them? More coffee?'
'Yes, please. No, they didn't get them.'
The Master padded once more to the sideboard with its hot-plate and silver coffee-pot. He
did so absently again, and once more there was a yell of agony.
'You should wear oven-gloves, permanently,' Isaac Newton told him.
'It interests me very much,' the Master said, as he padded back from the sideboard carrying
two cups of coffee, 'that we are still talking about our imaginary, but dreaded, investigative [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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