The Two Worlds Read Online Free
ESP-and-pyramid bunch?"
"Right. They're all excited because they've got a superpsychic going there tonight. He predicted everything about Minerva and the Ganymeans years ago. It has to be true— Amazing Supernature magazine said so."
Hunt knew she was teasing but couldn't suppress his irritation. "Oh for Christ's sake . . . I thought there was supposed to be an educational system in this bloody country! Don't they have any critical faculties at all?" He drained the last of his coffee and banged the mug down on the bar. "If he predicted it years ago, why didn't anybody hear about it years ago? Why do we only hear about it after science has told him what he was supposed to predict? Ask him what the Shapieron will find when it gets to the Giants' Star and make him write it down. I bet that never gets into Amazing Supernature magazine."
"That would be taking it too seriously," Lyn said lightly. "I only go there for the laughs. There's no point in trying to explain Occam's Razor to people who believe that UFOs are timeships from another century. Besides, apart from all that, they're nice people."
He was becoming too serious, he decided, and dismissed the matter with a wave of his hand and a grin. "Come on. We'd better do something about sending you on your way."
Lyn headed for the living room to collect her shoes, bag, and coat, then met him again at the front door of the apartment. They kissed and squeezed each other. "I'll see you later, then," she whispered.
"See you later. Watch out for those crazies."
He waited until she had disappeared into the elevator, then closed the door and spent five minutes clearing the kitchen and restoring some semblance of decency to the rest of the place. Finally he put on a jacket, stuffed some items from the desk into his briefcase, and left in an elevator heading for the roof. Minutes later his airmobile was at two thousand feet and climbing to merge into an eastbound traffic corridor with the rainbow towers of Houston gleaming in the sunlight on the skyline ahead.
Chapter Two
Ginny, Hunt's slightly plump, middle-aged, meticulous secretary, was already busy when he sauntered into the reception area of his office, high in the skyscraper of Navcomms Headquarters in the center of Houston. She had three sons, all in their late teens, and she hurled herself into her work with a dedication that Hunt sometimes thought might represent a gesture of atonement for having inflicted them on society. Women like Ginny always did a good job, he had found. Long-legged blondes were all very nice, but when it came to getting things done properly and on time, he'd settle for the older mommas any day.
"Good morning, Dr. Hunt," she greeted him. One thing he had never been able to persuade her to accept fully was that Englishmen didn't expect, or really want, to be addressed formally all the time.
"Hi, Ginny. How are you today?"
"Oh, just fine, I guess."
"Any news about the dog?"
"Good news. The vet called last night and said its pelvis isn't fractured after all. A few weeks of rest and it should be fine."
"That's good. So what's new this morning? Anything panicky?"
"Not really. Professor Speechan from MIT called a few minutes ago and would like you to call back before lunch. I'm just finishing going through the mail now. There are a couple of things I think you'll be interested in. The draft paper from Livermore, I guess you've already seen."
They spent the next half-hour checking the mail and organizing the day's schedule. By that time the offices that formed Hunt's section of Navcomms were filling up, and he left to update himself on a couple of the projects in progress.
Duncan Watt, Hunt's deputy, a theoretical physicist who had transferred from UNSA's Materials and Structures Division a year and a half earlier, was collecting results on the Pluto problem from a number of research groups around the country. Comparisons of the current Solar System with records from the
"Right. They're all excited because they've got a superpsychic going there tonight. He predicted everything about Minerva and the Ganymeans years ago. It has to be true— Amazing Supernature magazine said so."
Hunt knew she was teasing but couldn't suppress his irritation. "Oh for Christ's sake . . . I thought there was supposed to be an educational system in this bloody country! Don't they have any critical faculties at all?" He drained the last of his coffee and banged the mug down on the bar. "If he predicted it years ago, why didn't anybody hear about it years ago? Why do we only hear about it after science has told him what he was supposed to predict? Ask him what the Shapieron will find when it gets to the Giants' Star and make him write it down. I bet that never gets into Amazing Supernature magazine."
"That would be taking it too seriously," Lyn said lightly. "I only go there for the laughs. There's no point in trying to explain Occam's Razor to people who believe that UFOs are timeships from another century. Besides, apart from all that, they're nice people."
He was becoming too serious, he decided, and dismissed the matter with a wave of his hand and a grin. "Come on. We'd better do something about sending you on your way."
Lyn headed for the living room to collect her shoes, bag, and coat, then met him again at the front door of the apartment. They kissed and squeezed each other. "I'll see you later, then," she whispered.
"See you later. Watch out for those crazies."
He waited until she had disappeared into the elevator, then closed the door and spent five minutes clearing the kitchen and restoring some semblance of decency to the rest of the place. Finally he put on a jacket, stuffed some items from the desk into his briefcase, and left in an elevator heading for the roof. Minutes later his airmobile was at two thousand feet and climbing to merge into an eastbound traffic corridor with the rainbow towers of Houston gleaming in the sunlight on the skyline ahead.
Chapter Two
Ginny, Hunt's slightly plump, middle-aged, meticulous secretary, was already busy when he sauntered into the reception area of his office, high in the skyscraper of Navcomms Headquarters in the center of Houston. She had three sons, all in their late teens, and she hurled herself into her work with a dedication that Hunt sometimes thought might represent a gesture of atonement for having inflicted them on society. Women like Ginny always did a good job, he had found. Long-legged blondes were all very nice, but when it came to getting things done properly and on time, he'd settle for the older mommas any day.
"Good morning, Dr. Hunt," she greeted him. One thing he had never been able to persuade her to accept fully was that Englishmen didn't expect, or really want, to be addressed formally all the time.
"Hi, Ginny. How are you today?"
"Oh, just fine, I guess."
"Any news about the dog?"
"Good news. The vet called last night and said its pelvis isn't fractured after all. A few weeks of rest and it should be fine."
"That's good. So what's new this morning? Anything panicky?"
"Not really. Professor Speechan from MIT called a few minutes ago and would like you to call back before lunch. I'm just finishing going through the mail now. There are a couple of things I think you'll be interested in. The draft paper from Livermore, I guess you've already seen."
They spent the next half-hour checking the mail and organizing the day's schedule. By that time the offices that formed Hunt's section of Navcomms were filling up, and he left to update himself on a couple of the projects in progress.
Duncan Watt, Hunt's deputy, a theoretical physicist who had transferred from UNSA's Materials and Structures Division a year and a half earlier, was collecting results on the Pluto problem from a number of research groups around the country. Comparisons of the current Solar System with records from the
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