Black Easter by James Blish Read Free Book Online Page A

morning for his appointment to be shown Ware’s workroom and equipment. Greeting him with a professional nod – ‘Coals to Newcastle, bringing Mitford and me up here for a tertiary,’ Hess found himself quoting in silent inanity – Ware led the way to a pair of heavy, brocaded hangings behind his desk, which parted to reveal a heavy brass-bound door of what was apparently cypress wood. Among its fittings was a huge knocker with a face a little like the mask of tragedy, except that the eyes had cat-like pupils in them.
    Hess had thought himself prepared to notice everything and be surprised by nothing, but he was taken aback when the expression on the knocker changed, slightly but inarguably, when Ware touched it. Apparently expecting his startlement, Ware said without looking at him, There’s nothing in here really worth stealing, but if anything were taken it would cost me a tremendous amount of trouble to replace it, no matter how worthless it would prove to the thief. Also, there’s the problem of contamination – just one ignorant touch could destroy the work of months. It’s rather like a bacteriology laboratory in that respect. Hence the Guardian.’
    ‘Obviously there can’t be a standard supply house for your tools,’ Hess agreed, recovering his composure.
    ‘No, that’s not even theoretically possible. The operator must make everything himself – not as easy now as it was in the Middle Ages, when most educated men had the requisite skills as a matter of course. Here we go.’
    The door swung back as if being opened from the inside, slowly and soundlessly. At first it yawned on a deep scarlet gloom, but Ware touched a switch and, with a brief rushing sound, like water, sunlight flooded the room.
    Immediately Hess could see why Ware had rented this particular palazzo and no other. The room was an immense refectory of Sienese design, which in its heyday must often have banquetted as many as thirty nobles; there could not be another one half as big in Positano, though the palazzo as a whole was smaller than some. There were mullioned windows overhead, under the ceiling, running around all four walls, and the sunlight was pouring through two ranks of them. They were flanked by pairs of red-velvet drapes, unpatterned, hung from traverse rods; it had been these that Hess had heard pulling back when Ware had flipped the wall switch.
    At the rear of the room was another door, a broad one also covered by hangings, which Hess supposed must lead to a pantry or kitchen. To the left of this was a medium-sized, modern electric furnace, and beside it an anvil bearing a hammer that looked almost too heavy for Ware to lift. On the other side of the furnace from the anvil were several graduated tubs, which obviously served as quenching baths.
    To the right of the door was a black-topped chemist’s bench, complete with sinks, running water and the usual nozzles for illuminating gas, vacuum and compressed air; Ware must have had to install his own pumps for all of these. Over the bench on the back wall were shelves of reagents; to the right, on the side wall, ranks of drying pegs, some of which bore contorted pieces of glassware, others, coils of rubber tubing.
    Farther along the wall towards the front was a lectern bearing a book as big as an unabridged dictionary, bound in red leather and closed and locked with a strap. There was a circular design chased in gold on the front of the book, but at this distance Hess could not make out what it was. The lectern was flanked by two standing candlesticks with fat candles in them; the candles had been extensively used, although there were shaded electric-light fixtures around the walls, too, and the small writing table next to the lectern bore a Tensor lamp. On the table was another hook, smaller but almost as thick, which Hess recognized at once: the
Handbook of Chemistry and Physics
, forty-seventh edition, as standard a laboratory fixture as a test tube; and a rank of quill