"Card, Orson Scott - Pastwatch - The Redemtion of Christopher Columbus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Card Orson Scott)

"Probability of coincidence?" she murmured. "I was just thinking that it seemed as though she could see us."

"If I go back and we watch the scene again," said Hassan, "then it will be four times, not three."

"But it had been three times when we first heard her say how many. That will never change."

"The TruSite has no effect on the past," said Hassan. "It can't possibly be detected there."

"And how do we know that?" asked Tagiri.

"Because it's impossible."

"In theory."

"And because it never has."

"Until now."

"You want to believe that she really saw us in her nicotine dream?"

Tagiri shrugged, feigning a nonchalance she didn't feel. "If she saw us, Hassan, then let's go on and see what it means to her."

Hassan slowly, almost timidly, released the TruSite to continue exploring the scene.

"This is prophecy, then," Baiku was saying. "Who knows what wonders the gods will bring in forty generations?"

"I always thought that time moved in great circles, as if all of us had been woven into the same great basket of life, each generation another ring around the rim," said Putukam. "But when in the great circles of time was there ever such horror as these white monsters from the sea? So the basket is torn, and time is broken, and all the world spills out of the basket into the dirt."

"What of the man and woman who watch us?"

"Nothing," said Putukam. "They watched us. They were interested."

"They see us now?"

"They saw all the suffering in your dream," said Putukam. "They were interested in it."

"What do you mean, interested?"

"I think they were sad," said Putukam.

"But ... were they white, then? Did they watch the people suffer and care nothing for it, like the white men?"

"They were dark. The woman is very black. I have never seen a person of such blackness of skin."

"Then why don't they stop the white men from making us slaves?"

"Maybe they can't," said Putukam.

"If they can't save us," said Baiku, "then why do they look at us, unless they are monsters who enjoy the suffering of others?"