The Einstein Prophecy by Robert Masello Read Free Book Online Page A

despair. What men could wantonly do to each other, in the name of nation or faith or ideology, was unthinkable.
    In a courtyard outside, students were hanging around, smoking and talking, and killing time before their next class began. A few undergraduates were gathered under a tree, gawking up at a window in Fine Hall, the venerable building that housed the Mathematics Department. Lucas, wondering what was so interesting, followed their gaze and saw, perched in a window seat behind a lead-paned window adorned with a mathematical symbol in stained glass, the indistinct form of a man. He appeared to be writing with great concentration on a pad in his lap.
    Around his head there was a wild corona of white hair, and one hand came up to absentmindedly brush a thick moustache.
    “I saw him getting an ice cream cone in Palmer Square,” one said.
    “I said hello to him, on Washington Road.”
    “Did he say hello back?” a third asked.
    “I don’t think he heard me. I’m not even sure he saw me. He was off in a cloud.”
    Although it wasn’t Lucas’s first sight of Albert Einstein—on one occasion he had seen him strolling through a snowstorm toward the separate office he maintained at the Institute for Advanced Study—it was still thrilling to see the man who had revolutionized physics with equations that challenged, and overturned, the long-accepted ideas of space and time. He had become a celebrity, on a par with Joe Louis, Judy Garland, and Gene Kelly. Who would ever have thought that such a thing could happen to a scientist, much less one whose discoveries were incomprehensible to all but a select few?
    At the faculty lounge in Chancellor Greene, Lucas picked up his mail from the pigeonhole with his name on it in the front foyer—it looked like even more university paperwork to fill out—and then, inside, was greeted with a booming “Hail the conquering hero!” from Patrick Delaney, who bounded up from his leather chair like a man half his considerable size, and wrapped Lucas in a bear hug. Delaney was the one-man Department of Mineralogy and Geophysics, whose research into radio isotopes was about as understandable to a lay audience as Einstein’s work, though his fame extended no farther than the wainscoted walls of the lounge. Lucas had always had the sense that some of Delaney’s research was secretly supported with government funds. Taking in the eye patch, he gave Lucas’s shoulder a consoling squeeze, then said, “You do know, right, that the ladies are going to love that patch? Very dashing.”
    “I’ll let you know how it works.”
    “You won’t need to.”
    “How come?”
    “Have you forgotten that you’re back in Princeton, the only place on earth where news travels faster than the speed of light?”
    “Speaking of which, I just saw the man himself.”
    “Herr Professor?”
    “I see they’ve got him on display, up in the tower of Fine Hall.”
    “Why not—top study for the top dog,” Delaney said, going to the sideboard and pouring two cups of coffee from a dented percolator. “Cream and sugar?” he asked.
    “No, black, thanks.”
    “That’s good. We don’t have any cream or sugar.”
    They both laughed, and Lucas said, “Someone didn’t ration his coupons carefully.”
    “Yeah, if you ask me, that bastard Hitler’s got a lot to answer for.”
    The table in the center of the lounge was cluttered with ashtrays filled with cigarette butts, and newspapers stained with coffee rings. Not a thing had changed here, Lucas reflected, dropping into a worn leather chair opposite Delaney’s. “Where is everybody?” he asked.
    “ ‘Everybody’ isn’t what it used to be,” Delaney said, scratching at the scruffy brown beard he trimmed himself. He also cut his own hair, which was pretty much evident to anyone he met. “Now that the student body’s been reduced, the faculty’s been thinned to a skeleton crew, too. It’s a tribute to your utility that you’ve been taken