The Practice Effect Read Online Free Page B

set of physical laws than hold sway on Earth!”
    By now the hatch had half closed. The timer was running.
    This was ridiculous. Dennis wasn’t going to let Brady get to him. “Stuff it, Bernie,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t believe a word of your blarney.”
    “Oh? Remember those purple mists you found last year, where gravity repelled?”
    “Those were different entirely. No major difference in physical law could endanger me on Pix’s world—not when the biology is so compatible.
    “But if there’s something
minor
you haven’t told me about,”Dennis continued, stepping forward, “you’d better spill it now or I swear I’ll …”
    Strangely, Brady’s antagonism seemed to fall away, replaced by apparently genuine puzzlement.
    “I don’t
know
what it is, Nuel. It had to do with the instruments we sent through. Their efficiencies seemed to change the longer they were there! It was almost as if one of the thermodynamic laws was subtly different.”
    Too late, Dennis realized that Brady wasn’t
just
egging him. He really
had
discovered something that honestly perplexed him. But by now the hatch had closed almost all the way.
    “Which law, Brady? Dammit, stop this process until you tell me!
What
law?”
    Through the bare crack that remained, Brady whispered, “Guess.”
    With a sigh the seals fell into place and the hatch became vacuum tight.
    In the zievatronics lab, Dr. Marcel Flaster watched Brady turn away from the closed hatch of the anomaly machine. “What was that all about?”
    Brady started. Flaster could have sworn the fellow grew even paler than normal.
    “Oh, it was nothing. We were talking. Just something to pass the time while the hatch closed.”
    Flaster frowned. “Well, I hope there won’t be any surprises at this late stage. I’m counting on Nuel to succeed. I need Flasteria badly with my confirmation hearings coming up next month.”
    “Maybe hell manage to pull it off.” Brady shrugged.
    Flaster laughed. “Indeed. From what I’ve seen around here, he’s sure to succeed. In the last few days he’s really got this place humming. I should have brought that young fellow back into this lab months ago!”
    Brady shrugged. “Nuel might succeed. Then again, maybe he won’t.”
    Flaster smiled archly. “Ah, well. If he fails, we’ll just have to send somebody else, won’t we?”
    Brady swallowed and nodded. He watched the lab Director turn and walk away.
    I wonder if I did the right thing
? Brady thought,
giving Nuel the wrong modules for fixing the return mechanism
.
    Oh, he’ll figure it out eventually and fix them up. All he has to do is swap the right chips around. I made it look like a factory error so they’ll never trace it to me—though he’ll probably suspect
.
    By the time he’s fixed the modules, I’ll have had time to work on Flaster. And Nuel’s stock won’t be so high when the delay stretches into weeks, whatever his excuse!
    Brady felt a little guilty about the stunt. It was kind of a nasty trick to play. But all indications showed that Flasteria was a pretty tame place. The robots hadn’t seen any big animals, and anyway, Nuel was always talking about what a champion Boy Scout he had been. Let him camp out in the wild for a while, then!
    Maybe he’d even figure out what had been happening to the robots, too … that strange alteration in their efficiency profiles.
    Oh, Nuel would come back in lather, all right. But by then he, Brady, would have had a chance to win his way back into the Director’s good graces. He knew, by now, what buttons to push.
    Brady looked at his watch. Gabriella had made a luncheon date with him, and he didn’t want to be late.
    He straightened his tie and hurried out of the lab. Soon he was whistling.
5
    “Which law
? you sonova—” Dennis pounded on the door.
    He stopped. It was useless. By now the sending probe had activated. He was already
on
the anomaly world—already on …
    Dennis stared at the blank door. He