Read Online Eye in the Sky (1957) by Philip K. Dick - Free Book Online Page A

one thumb after another. No thumb
was even slightly singed.
    “You next,” Brady said
sanctimoniously. “Be a man, Hamilton. Remember you’re not a wallowing
beast.”
    “Go to hell,” Hamilton
retorted hotly. “And keep that lighter
away from me.”
    “You refuse to subject yourself
to ordeal by fire?” Brady inquired
significantly.
    With reluctance, Hamilton extended
his thumb. Perhaps, in this world, cigarette lighters did not burn. Perhaps,
without realizing it, he was immune to fire. Perhaps—
    “Ouch!”
Hamilton shouted, jerking his hand violently away.
    The technicians shook their heads
gravely. “Well,” Brady said,
putting away his lighter with a flourish of tri umph. “That’s
that.”
    Hamilton stood impotently rubbing
his injured thumb. “You sadists,”
he accused. “You God-mongering zealots. All of you belong back in the
Middle Ages. You—Mos lems!”
    “Watch
it,” Brady warned. “You’re talking to a Cham pion of the One
True God.”
    “And don’t forget it,” one
of his assistants chimed in.
    “You
may be a Champion of the One True God,” Ham ilton said, “but I
happen to be a top-flight electronics man. Think that over.”
    “I’m thinking,” Brady
said, undisturbed.
    “You can stick your thumb into
the arc of a welding torch. You can dive into a blast furnace.”
    That’s
so,” Brady agreed. “I can.”
    “But
what’s that got to do with electronics?” Glaring at the young man,
Hamilton said, “Okay, wise guy. I challenge
you to a contest. Let’s find out how much you know.”
    “You challenge a Champion of
the One True God?” Brady demanded,
incredulous.
    “That’s right”
    “But—” Brady gestured.
“That’s illogical. Better go home,
Hamilton. You’re letting your thalamus get hold of you.”
    “Chicken,
eh?” Hamilton taunted.
    “But
you can’t win. Axiomatically, you lose. Consider the premises of the situation.
By definition, a Champion of the One
True God triumphs; anything else would be a denial of His power.”
    “Stop
stalling,” Hamilton said. “You can put the first question to
me. Three questions for each of us. Pertain ing
to applied and theoretical electronics. Agreed?”
    “Agreed,”
Brady responded reluctantly. The other tech nicians crowded around
wide-eyed, fascinated by the turn of events. “I’m sorry for you, Hamilton.
Evidently you don’t comprehend what’s going on. I’d expect a layman to behave
in this irrational fashion, but a man at least partly disciplined in scientific—”
    “Ask,”
Hamilton told him.
    “State
Ohm’s Law,” Brady said.
    Hamilton
blinked. It was like asking him to count from one to ten; how could he
miss? “That’s your first ques tion?”
    “State Ohm’s Law,” Brady
repeated. Silently, his lips began to move.
    “What’s
happening?” Hamilton demanded suspiciously. “Why are your lips
moving?”
    “I’m praying,” Brady
revealed. “For Divine help.”
    “Ohm’s
Law,” Hamilton said. “The resistance of a body to the passage of
electrical current—” He broke off.
    “What’s
wrong?” Brady inquired.
    “You’re distracting me.
Couldn’t you pray later?”
    “Now,” Brady said
emphatically. “Later would be of no
use.”
    Trying to ignore the man’s twitching
lips, Hamilton went on. “The resistance
of a body to the passage of elec trical current can be stated by the
following equation: R equals …”
    “Go
on,” Brady encouraged.
    An odd, dead weight lay over
Hamilton’s mind. A series of symbols fluttered, figures and equations. Like
butterflies, words and phrases leaped and danced, and refused to be pinned
down. “An absolute unit of resist ance,”
he said hoarsely, “can be defined as the resistance of a conductor in
which—”
    “That doesn’t sound like Ohm’s
Law to me,” Brady said. Turning to his group, he asked, “Does that
sound like Ohm’s Law to you?”
    They
shook their heads piously.
    “I’m licked,” Hamilton
said, incredulous.