"Charles L. Harness-George Washington Slept Here" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harness Charles L)

"No, no ship."
"Well, okay, no ship. We're in court, the judge is in the very act of handing down his decision, when
suddenly the room is filled with this blazing radiance. It means their bridge has joined up. They call to
you. You're not sure you want to go. You explain to them, you want to stay with me, to talk, and dance,
and make love. They say, Sena, you can't stay. You must come with us, for we love you, and we have
come a long way for you. You give me an agonized backward glance, and I think for a minute I might go
with you. But we both know it wouldn't work. And the next moment you are gone, and the light is gone."
"And the bridge, and the Rock, and my house and everything in it. And the coins."
"Everything. Judge Roule is going to be a mite upset, not to mention Barton Badging."
"When I die I would like to dream. I will dream of you."
"Sena, stop talking like that. You're not going to die."
She ignored him. "But I don't know how to dream. I sleep when I want to, but I don't dream. I don't
know how. It's a thing that only you humans do. If I could dream, I couldn't really die, could I?"
He thought, Somnio, ergo sum. I dream, therefore I am.
 "Perhaps," she said moodily, "it would have been better if I had never met you. It would have been
much easier to die. I would have had no regrets. It was cruel of you to come."
"Now you are reasoning like a woman."
"Am I really? A genuine flesh-and-blood woman? Perhaps I'm changing into a human being. You
know, just as Pinocchio changed into a real live boy. Then I'd be safe, wouldn't I?"
He thought of lines from Andrew Marvell. 'The wanton troopers riding by / Have shot my fawn, and it
will die.' He said, "you're already safe."
"You can spend the night, can't you?"
He squeezed her hand.
***


Several hours later, as he was drifting away in sleep, he managed to rouse himself. He tapped her on
the shoulder. "Are you awake?" he whispered.
"What is it?"
He hesitated. Still, something had been nibbling at the analytic lawyer-lobe in his cerebral cortex. Out
with it, Potts. "Sena, do you remember your radiation level in 1750-- when you first met him."
In the darkness he sensed her wakening astonishment. "It was still pretty high. George may have
picked up several hundred rem. Oh, my..."
He tried to recall the relevant numbers. Yes, recommended maximum dose for the general public,
one-half rem per year.
"I sterilized him, didn't I?" she murmured in a very small voice.
"Go to sleep, Sena." (It's all ancient history now.)
He lay there thinking. She had sterilized the youthful George. And since he could not have sons of his
own, the young officers of the Continental Army became his sons: Hamilton, Lafayette, Greene, Wayne,
Fitzgerald, Benjamin Lincoln... All of them. Small wonder he could dissolve mutinies with a gesture. Small
wonder the men in epaulettes wept when he bade farewell at Fraunces Tavern. And as President he
adopted the entire population as his family. Of course he was the Father of His Country-- which he
would never have been if he had had children of his own body. So curious the chain of causation! This
woman, lying here beside me, made a great man greater, thereby winning a long and desperate war for
independence, and ensuring the successful birth and infant years of the new nation. Without you, "Low
Land Beauty," we might still be vassals of Great Britain. Or worse.
And so thinking, he smiled and went to sleep.
***