"John DeChancie - Skyway 1 - Starrigger" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dechancie John)

before... or that the skywayman who held up the Stop-N-Shop off Interstellar 95 last week was in fact
their time-tripping doppelganger, not them. Sometimes, reports such as these make the news feedsтАФas
silly-season fillers. Up till now, I had thought this was all the credence they deserved. But now I was
confronted with the possible reality of a situation which, according to the commonly accepted version of
The Way Things Are Supposed to Work, was an out-and-out impossibility. My choices were either to
accept it as a fact, or to try resolving the contradiction with every measure of rationality at my disposal.
But there were problems with the latter option. Aside from waiting until I could catch Darla in a lie,
there was little I could тАЬdo to assure myself she was telling the truth. What were the alternatives?
Chinese watertorture? Tickle her mercilessly until she тАШfessed up? And just how does one go about
tripping up a liar when one has no facts to throw in her path?
It seemed I really had but one choice: to accept the paradox as real... until proven otherwise. I was
hearing a reprise of a love theme that should have been very familiar. But it was strange and new.
Bassackwards is not the way I like to do things, but Paradox does not grant dispensation from its crazy
laws. тАШNor does Skyway. If you ply her paths, you take the risk. You pay the toll. The Roadbuilders,
whoever or whatever they were, must have realized the consequences of a hyper-spatial highway that
spans enormous distances instantaneously. They were excellent physicists, consummate engineers, but
whether they could have avoided the тАЬpathologicalтАЭ aspects (interesting, the way scientists choose their
words) of such a device is a matter for conjecture, since our knowledge of these matters needs jacking
up a quantum or two before we could begin to understand.
My task, then, was to find a causal lever to move objects around to my liking in a deterministic
system. Estimated chances of accomplishing objective: those of fart in monsoon. But volition is a
delusion we sorely need, a habit we can break. I had to act. It was necessary for me to lose Darla now in
order to gain her тАЬlater,тАЭ lest two Darlas appear where one had gone before. Or something like that.
Deadly possibilities loomed. A knock at the door. My squib was out more quickly this time, even
though Wilkes would not bother to knock. It was a small Oriental man who wore a crisp straw planterтАЩs
hat and a loosely fitting vanilla tropical suit. He didnтАЩt look friendly, but acted it.
тАЬExcuse me, sir. Have you seen... ? Ai, there you are! What are you doing here. Cheetah?
Guests! Guests! Excuse me, sir. She is lazy, always going off somewhere.тАЭ Cheetah got off the bed
and scampered toward us, slowed and slunk past her master, then broke across the small balcony to the
rope bridge.
тАЬPardon me, sir. She is harmless, but she will take advantage.тАЭ
тАЬNo problem. Mister... ?тАЭ
тАЬPerez.тАЭ
тАЬPerez. She just got back from an errand for my LC.тАЭ
тАЬAh. Enjoy your stay. Sir, Madam.тАЭ
A tip of the hat, and he was gone. I went to the window and watched him cross the bridge. He yelled
for Cheetah cursed her in Spanish. She did not look back, disappearing in the foliage. Darla was behind
me, watching over my shoulder. тАЬWhat did you two talk about?тАЭ I asked.
тАЬQuite a lot. Your question about why she worked here intrigued me. So I asked her.тАЭ
тАЬAnd?тАЭ
 тАЬShe stays here because she doesnтАЩt have a home. Read тАШspace,тАЩ тАШterritory,тАЩ or what you will. From
what I could get out of her, her home was destroyed. ThereтАЩs a jungle-clearing project near here, it
seems, and what was once her home is now bare earth.тАЭ
тАЬShe couldnтАЩt move? Find a new spot? There are millions of square kilometers of jungle left. Most of
the planet is virgin still.тАЭ
тАЬNo, she couldnтАЩt move, nor could her clan, tribe, or whatever. Once such a group, an extended
family sort of thing, loses its stamping grounds, it has no life. Extreme territoriality, attachment to one
traditional area, probably passed down for generations. Most of the displaced cheetahs work in the city.
Not for long, though. They die off very quickly.тАЭ
тАЬYou got all this from her?тАЭ