A Calculated Risk by Katherine Neville (best time to read books .txt) 📗

Tavish looked at me and started to laugh.

“You’re joking, of course,” he said.

“Translation please,” said Pearl. “Does this mean the gray flannel mind’s come up with something outré?”

“She’s bonkers, all right,” agreed Tavish. “Those are ‘virtual’ machines down there: they have hundreds of peripheral devices running on-line, all shooting data in and out like gangbusters—and hundreds of partitions open, paging and thrashing at nanosec speed—”

“Hold on,” said Pearl. “I meant a translation into people-friendly English.”

“Basically,” he said with exasperation, “it’s like the Harlem Globetrotters from hell—juggling a million basketballs at once, and all at the speed of light. Going into a machine like that to make changes would be like trying to do brain surgery on a kangaroo while using a stopwatch.”

“A pretty fair description,” I complimented him. “Do you think you can do it, if I can get you on?”

Tavish shook his head, and looked at the floor.

“I’m crazy—but not that crazy,” he told me quietly. “Besides, there’s no way to get on the system from a dial-up terminal like this.”

“I wasn’t suggesting you phone in the changes,” I said with a smile, “I thought we’d install them in person.”

“You mean—inside the machine room itself?” gasped Pearl.

Tavish leaped to his feet and tossed his napkin to the floor.

“No. No. No—and again no!” he cried. “It’s completely impossible!” He seemed slightly hysterical, and I could certainly see why.

If we made even the slightest error while a complex mass of machines like that was running, the entire system could come crashing down—with that sickening death rattle that gives computer types nightmares. Once you’ve heard it, even a flickering brownout in a supermarket makes you wince. In this case, it would be even worse than crashing a machine—since if we screwed up here, we’d bring down production for the entire worldwide processing of the Bank of the World.

But finally—if something like that happened while we were on premises—we’d be locked deep within the bowels of the data center, inside concentric circles of mantraps and guard posts. We’d be trapped for good and all, with no way out.

“You’re right,” I admitted glumly to Tavish. “I can’t ask something that dangerous of you. I was mad to even think of doing it myself.”

“You’ve been carried away with this wager of yours,” he agreed, calming down a bit and taking a seat. “Of course, if your friend Dr. Tor were here, things might be different. He could certainly do what you’ve asked—he’s written books on the subject.”

Terrific—and I hadn’t bothered to return his message at all. But Tor would hardly have been anxious to jet to the coast in my aid—even if I’d known what aid I was going to need. After all, we were competing, as he loved to point out.

Just then, the phone rang. And though I knew it would be stretching synchronicity too far, I had the oddest feeling who it might be as I nodded to Tavish to pick it up.

He put his hand over the mouthpiece. “Chap by the name of Lobachevski,” he told me. “Says it’s rather urgent.”

I smiled with a grimace, went over and got the phone. It was all over but the shooting now. Tor had somehow sensed from three thousand miles away that he’d won the bet.

“Why, Nikolai Ivanovich,” I said sweetly, “what a joy to hear from you. Haven’t seen any treatises of yours on Euclidean math since—when was it—1850?”

“Eighteen thirty-two, to be precise,” said Tor. “You never returned my call.”

“I’ve been tied up,” I assured him. “In knots—to be precise.”

“If I send you an urgent message, I expect at least the courtesy of an inquiry into my situation. It’s the very least I’d do for you.”

“You didn’t ask for an inquiry. You wanted me to hop on a plane—because you snapped your fingers—and fly to New York!” I protested hotly. “Have you forgotten I’ve a job to do? Not to mention a bet to win.”

Tavish was looking at me with big eyes as he realized who it must be.

“As I say—it’s the least I’d do for you,” Tor repeated testily. “Now, may I get out of this blasted fog and come upstairs? Assuming, of course, that your guest or guests wouldn’t mind.”

I stopped breathing for an instant.

“Where are you?” I asked in hushed voice.

“At the newsstand down the block,” he told me. “I’d never before seen this city of yours—and I still haven’t. Are you sure there’s a town around here? All the way from the airport it was socked in just as now—we were fortunate the plane could land at all.”

I closed my eyes, put my hand over the mouthpiece, and whispered, “Thank you, God.” Then I shot a wink at Tavish.

“What a coincidence,” I told Tor over the phone. “We’ve just had one of those psychic transmissions of yours—so we’ve been expecting you.”

I’d never been so glad to see anyone in my life.

When I buzzed Tor into the building, and finally saw him ascending the last flight of steps from the elevator to the penthouse—bundled in his elegant cashmere overcoat, his coppery curls illuminated by the hall lamp—I wanted to rush out and embrace him. But that might have been ill-advised, considering what I wanted to ask of him the minute he walked in the door. So I took his coat instead.

After brief introductions—Tavish was quite stricken dumb by this first-time meeting with his idol—I settled them all in the living room so Pearl and Tavish could fill him in on our last eight hours of trauma; I went off to the kitchen to start the ball rolling.

“Charming place,” Tor called after me. “Virginal white—reminds me of that chapter in Moby Dick. Quite appropriate to your personality, though.”

Regardless of his cynical brand of humor—always at my expense—I knew that even if Tor hadn’t been my mentor all these years, even if he hadn’t suckered me into this bet, even if he didn’t need a favor urgent enough to pry him from the bosom of his beloved New York, he’d still never