Саймон Морден - Equations of Life

“Either of you two worked it out yet?” he asked. “No? Don’t worry: I’m supposed to be a genius, and it took me a week. Hugo, dial up four point eight volts. Watch the current. If it looks like it’s going to melt something, turn it off.”

The student had barely put his hand on the control when the lift returned. A dozen people spilled out, all talking at once.

“ Yobany stos! ” He glared out over the top of his glasses. “I’m trying to conduct an epoch-making experiment which will turn this place into a shrine for future generations. So shut the huy up.”

One of the crowd held up his camera phone, and Petrovitch thought that wasn’t such a bad idea.

“You. Yes, you. Come here. I don’t bite. Much. Stand there.” He propelled the young man front and center. “Is it recording? Good.”

All the time, more people were arriving, but it didn’t matter. The time was now.

“Yeah, Okay. Hugo? Hit it.”

Nothing happened.

“You are hitting it, right?”

“Yes, Dr. Petrovitch.”

“Then why isn’t the little red light on?” He sat back on his heels. “ Chyort . There’s no yebani power down here.”

There was an audible groan.

Petrovitch looked up again at all the expectant faces. “Unless someone wants to stick their fingers in a light socket, I suggest you go and find a very long extension lead.”

Some figures at the back raced away, their feet slapping against the concrete stairs. When they came back, it wasn’t with an extension lead proper, but one they’d cobbled together out of the cable from several janitorial devices and gaffer tape. The bare ends of the wire were live, and it was passed over the heads of the watching masses gingerly.

It took a few moments more to desleeve the plug from the boxy power supply and connect everything together. The little red light glimmered on.

Petrovitch looked up at the cameraman. “Take two?”

“We’re on.”

Petrovitch got down on his hands and knees, and took one last look at the inert black sphere chased with silver lines. In a moment, it would be transformed, and with it, the world. No longer a thing of beauty, it would become just another tool.

“Hugo?” He was aware of McNeil crouched beside him. She was holding her breath, just like he was.

Dominguez flicked the on switch and slowly turned the dial. The digital figures on the multimeter started to flicker.

Then, without fuss, without sound, the sphere leaped off the book and into the air. It fell back a little, rose, fell, rose, fell, each subsequent oscillation smaller than the previous one, until it was still again. Only it was resting at shin height with no visible means of support.

Someone started clapping. Another joined in, and another, until the sound of applause echoed off the walls, magnified.

His heart was racing again, the tiny turbine in his chest having tasted the amount of adrenaline flooding into his blood. He felt dizzy, euphoric, ecstatic even: science elevated to a religious experience. Dominguez was transfixed, motionless like him. It was McNeil who was the first of the three to move. She reached forward and tapped the floating sphere with her fingernail. It slipped sideways, pulling the cables with it until it lost momentum and stopped. She waved her hand under it, over it.

She turned to Petrovitch and grinned. He staggered to his feet and faced the crowd. “ Da! Da! Da! ” He punched the air each time, and found he couldn’t stop. Soon he had all of them, young and old, men and women, fists in the air, chanting “ Da! ” at the tops of their voices.

He reached over and hauled Dominguez up. He held his other hand out to McNeil, who crawled up it and clung onto him in a desperate embrace. Thus encumbered, he turned to the camera phone and extended his middle finger—not his exactly, but he was at least its current owner. “ Yob materi vashi, Stanford.”

Equations of Life

Theories of Flight

Degrees of Freedom

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2011 by Simon Morden

Excerpt from Theories of Flight copyright © 2011 by Simon Morden

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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First eBook Edition: April 2011

ISBN: 978-0-316-13439-2