"L. Sprague De Camp - Lest Darkness Fall" - читать интересную книгу автора (De Camp L Sprague)

Lest Darkness Fall
By L.Sprague de Camp
Ebook version 1.0.1

To CATHERINE
LEST DARKNESS FALL
A PYRAMID BOOK
Published by arrangement with the Author
PRINTING HISTORY
Henry Holt and Company edition published 1941 Prime Press edition published 1949 Pyramid edition published February 1963 Second printing
August 1969
This story in a shorter version, appeared in the December, 1939 issue of Unknown.
Copyright, 1939, by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. Copyright, 1941, by Henry Holt and Company, Inc. Copyright, 1949, by L. Sprague de
Camp
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America
PYRAMID BOOKS are published by Pyramid Publications, Inc. 444 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10022, U.S.A.


CHAPTER I
TANCHEDI TOOK HIS HANDS off the wheel again and waved them. "-so I envy you, Dr. Padway. Here
in Rome we have still some work to do. But pah! It is all filling in little gaps. Nothing big, nothing
new. And restoration work. Building contractor's work. Again, pah!"
"Professor Tancredi," said Martin Padway patiently, "as I said, I am not a doctor. I hope to be one
soon, if I can get a thesis out of this Lebanon dig." Being himself the most cautious of drivers, his
knuckles were white from gripping the side of the little Fiat, and his right foot ached from trying to
shove it through the floor boards.
Tancredi snatched the wheel in time to avoid a lordly Isotta by the thickness of a razor blade. The
Isotta went its way thinking dark thoughts. "Oh, what is the difference? Here everybody is a doc-
tor, whether he is or not, if you understand me. And such a smart young man as you-What was I
talking about?"
"That depends." Padway closed his eyes as a pedestrian just escaped destruction. "You were
talking about Etruscan inscriptions, and then about the nature of time, and then about Roman
archaeol-"
"Ah, yes, the nature of time. This is just a silly idea of mine, you understand. I was saying all
these people who just disappear, they have slipped back down the suitcase."
"The what?"
"The trunk, I mean. The trunk of the tree of time. When they stop slipping, they are back in some
former time. But as soon as they do anything, they change all subsequent history."
"Sounds like a paradox," said Padway.
"No-o. The trunk continues to exist. But a new branch starts out where they come to rest. It has
to, otherwise we would all disappear, because history would have changed and our parents might
not have met."
"That's a thought," said Padway. "It's bad enough knowing the sun might become a nova, but if
we're also likely to vanish because somebody has gone back to the twelfth century and stirred
things up-"
"No. That has never happened. We have never vanished, that is. You see, doc-tor? We continue
to exist, but another history has been started. Perhaps there are many such, all existing
somewhere. Maybe, they aren't much different from ours. Maybe the man comes to rest in the
middle of the ocean. So what? The fish eat him, and things go on as before. Or they think he is