"Simon Hawke - Time Wars 01 - The Ivanhoe Gambit" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawke Simon)

where things get a little sticky.
"To my everlasting sorrow and deep, professional embarrassment, a member of the referee corps has
gone rogue. To be quite blunt, he's gone off the deep end and has decided to live out some sort of
Walter Mitty fantasy. His name is Irving Goldblum and he has succeeded in kidnapping Richard of
England a second time. It's entirely possible that he has even killed him. In fact, it's highly probable, but I
don't know for certain. Needless to say, in so doing, he has endangered history. His intention is to take
the place of Richard Plantagenet and become the king of England. Nothing quite like this has ever
happened before. It's a frightening situation. A highly complex situation, to say the least.
"What we have on our hands at this moment is a threat to the continuity of the timestream. There
could be a massive split, the effects of which are completely unpredictable. Fortunately, we became
aware of Irving's demented plan before he clocked out to Minus Time. He has studied this period
extensively via computer tapes and he has had cosmetic surgery. The necessary preparations he had to
make alerted us. Unfortunately, he was able to clock out before we could stop him. We acted
immediately to organize an adjustment, hoping we could pull it off before any anomalies began to show
up. We, meaning myself and my support team here with me on this desolate piece of rock, have already
undertaken several attempts to rectify the situation."
The ref paused to take a deep breath.
"Our attempts, so far, have failed. We were able to estimate the time of his arrival in this period and
we tried to intercept him. We did not succeed. We also tried to prevent his capture of Richard and we
failed there, as well. He has the odds in his favor. He also has a chronoplate. This makes our job
extremely difficult. He has used his chronoplate to outmaneuver us at every turn.
"We can travel through time, obviously, but that's how things can get completely out of hand. I am
not about to become involved in a leapfrog race through time with him. That's sheer insanity, to say
nothing of the dangers it presents. There is simply no way we could prevail under such circumstances. He
knows it and I know it. Therefore, we must confine ourselves to doing battle, as it were, within this time
period. Irving has gone to a great deal of trouble to set up this scenario and he won't move ahead in time
unless I force his hand. At this stage of the game, we are fighting a limited war. It's our only chance to
preserve the timeline, to prevent the potential split."
"Sir?"
"Yes, Mr. Johnson?"
"I realize that we're probably on a need-to-know basis hereтАФ"
"You are quite free to ask questions, Mr. Johnson. It's imperative for you men to thoroughly
understand the situation within which you must function. What confuses you?"
"Well, we've all heard about adjustments before," said Bobby. "Nothing quite like this, but. . . What
I'm trying to say here is that none of us really understands the process. You say this ref managed to stay
ahead of you so far. What's to prevent you from using your plate to clock back and try to take him out
again?"
"The mechanics of timeline preservation, Mr. Johnson. You see, I'm handicapped by the fact that I'm
the one who's trying to preserve the timeline. Irving is the one who wants to change it. He wants to create
that split. I'll attempt to explain it as simply as possible. The fact that we are here is the result of nothing
less than an amazing piece of luck. We've been able to attempt this adjustment because Irving has not yet
managed to take an action that would result in a timestream split. At this moment, the time from which we
came is in a potential state of flux. You men are the third team to attempt this adjustment. The others
have failed."
He paused a moment to let that sink in. It meant that they were dead.
"Now, remember that I have the not inconsiderable task of preserving the timeline. Suppose, upon
learning of the failure of the last team, I used my chronoplate to go back into the past and try again. That,
in itself, would create a split, a parallel timeline. That must be avoided at all costs."
"Sir?"
"Mr. Priest?"