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

strained voice. "Follow me." He led the way to his office, then
ushered Elko quickly inside and shut and locked the door behind
them. "Okay," he said, "what is this nonsense?"
"I don't belong here with these people," Elko said. "I'm not
one of the great minds of humanity."
"Don't be silly! You belong here more than most of those
other idiots in the Great Hall!"
"I feel like a fraud, Raymond."
"This has something to do with Gibson, doesn't it? What has
he said to you?"
"He knows that I didn't invent the wheel."
"But you did invent the wheel! I saw you do it!"
"No, I recreated something I saw as a child. There was a
group of nomads, and they had an oxen pulling a giant basket which
rolled on wheels. I was five, maybe six years old, and they were
off in the distance. It was a strange sight, and it always stuck
in my mind --- but it never occurred to me to duplicate their cart
until that one day when my potting wheel tipped over."
Raymond was silent for a moment, looking very agitated. "This
is absolute nonsense!" he finally blurted. "This memory of yours
could have been a dream for all we know! A product of your own
imagination. As a matter of fact, it could have been a very recent
dream brought on by post-hypnotic suggestion because of that damn
Steve Gibson!"
"No----"
"Yes, Elko! Yes. Your mind can easily play tricks upon you.
Memories are fragile, unreliable things. Every time you remember
something it gets restored, and every time it gets restored it is
restored slightly different. Every time you remember something you
change your memory. It gets to the point that you're remembering
memories of memories of memories, and it becomes very unreliable.
Things that you swear happened to you as a child are in actuality
memories of dreams. I myself for years swore that as a child I saw
a news report about a giant frog being found during World War
Three, and have vivid memories of photos of this giant frog being
towed into the San Francisco bay by an aircraft carrier. This
never happened! I dreamed it. Don't you see?"
"No," Elko said. "I saw those nomads. That's where I got the
idea for using wheels. I didn't invent it."
"Shut up!" Raymond yelled. "God damn you, you little Sumerian
bastard! What are you trying to do to me? You want to wreck my
career! I don't give a damn about what you remember. History shows
that you invented the wheel, and that's final."
"But----"
"You just forget about it! I swear to god, if you blab this
to anybody, it'll be the hardest on you! You, Elko! I saved your
god damned ass right out of the Euphrates, and I can put it right
back in there. We have a clone of you growing right now, did you
know that? A clone that we have to send back in time to replace
you in your death. It wouldn't be hard at all for me to keep the