"Davis, Jerry - Elko the Potter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davis Jerry)

Elko the Potter

й 1997 by Jerry J. Davis



Franz Kafka looked at his small, elite group of 22nd century
students and tapped on the large text display with his pointing
stick. "The decisive moment in human development is a continuous
one," he said, reading his own words. "For this reason the
revolutionary movements which declare everything before them to be
null and void are right, for nothing has yet happened."
The students fidgeted. One, a young man with so many freckles
it looked painful, raised his hand. Kafka nodded, and the youth
spoke up. "Sir Oscar Wilde said, 'History is merely gossip.'"
Kafka took a step toward the student, pointing the stick
right at him. "Precisely!" he said, his voice betraying only a
echo of his former accent. "That is precisely my point!"

#

A half mile away, Professor Raymond Burns was looking
directly into history.
He was searching for carts.
They came from here, he was sure of it. Raymond had tracked
the carts all up and down the region and they always came from
here. After all, it made sense; the area between the rivers was
famous as being the cradle of civilization. The muddy waters and
the fertile desert land just begged to be mixed, and the local
villages listened. Irrigation was developed, and with it came more
food than the farmers could possibly use. This led to the gift of
idle time. Time to ponder, time to experiment. Villages became
cities, and cities became city-states.
There came kings and gods and law.
The image that was broadcast directly to Raymond's optic
nerves caused a stinging pain. There was a specially developed
endorphin to counter this side effect, but it wore off quickly.
The pain distracted Raymond, but he was perpetually putting off
another dose for just one more minute...
He worked the controls, slowing the temporal scan. It was
right about here. Going forward through time, slowing the rate,
slowing so that he could see the passage of humanity through the
stinging hell of the retinal linkage. There were no carts at all,
and then suddenly they were everywhere! It was like there had been
an explosion of carts.
He reversed the scan, going backwards through time. Below his
disembodied eyes the city deteriorated into a village of mud huts,
and the bronze plow devolved to copper and then to a curved stick.