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XII


Professor Weidenberg examined the class uneasily. He had a sense of having sometime lived through this same scene before, and once was enough. But he did not care to back down.

The unkempt unruly lot looked back at him with cynical disdain, as if watching a cheap performer at a sideshow.

Weidenberg said quietly, “I am recognized as an expert in two disparate fields, gentlemen. —And ladies. One is subnuclear physics.”

Someone, somewhere in the room, gave a low laugh. “ ‘Disparate.’ Get that.”

Someone else gave a lazy whistle.

The class sprawled in the chairs, watching, waiting, grinning easily.

The professor took off his jacket, revealing chest and shoulders like a gorilla, and a holster under his left shoulder. He tossed the jacket over a chair.

“The other field,” he said judiciously, “is combat.” The gun jumped into his hand, flashed back and forth from hand to hand as if it had a life of its own, and disappeared into the holster. “Now, gentlemen, I dislike narcotic cigarettes. They have a distracting effect. Ladies, extreme skirts and blouses, and—ah—minibikinis—also have a distracting effect, and really aren’t necessary.” He leered, and a kind of hair-raising lustful bestiality radiated from him.

One of the girls attempted a coy giggle, but it turned into a strangled gasp halfway through.

For an instant, there was a kind of live menacing force in the room.

The class sat up.

The professor began to teach, forcefully, demanding total attention, dominating the class.

They went out exhilarated. He sucked in a deep breath, put on his jacket. A colleague, who had come in partway through, approached him in awe.

“Charlie, with what you’ve got—whatever it is—you could do anything—go as high as you want!”

“M’m,” said Weidenberg, with no special enthusiasm. “Thank you, Steve.”

“I don’t know what it is—you seem like anyone else until you get going, and then—I don’t know—something happens!”

“How does this latest batch seem to you?”

“The students?”

“The students.”

His colleague’s eyes shifted. “Brilliant . . . Ah—but—well, to tell the truth, that’s what I wanted to see you about . . . M’m . . . I’m having a little—well, I guess it’s a discipline problem . . . My fault, I suppose, but—”

Weidenberg nodded moodily. Who could expect a generation weaned on electronic miracles to be thrilled by classwork? However, he listened patiently, and groped for an answer.



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Framed