"Damon Knight - Life Edit" - читать интересную книгу автора (Knight Damon)

"No, because it never happened."
"But you can remember remembering."
"That's the way it works."
"What if I don't have anything like that? Anything that bothers me
when I remember it?"
"You may be surprised. Everybody has something. All the way
from horrible crimes to egg on your face."
"I don't. I've had a very tranquil life."
"Happy childhood?"
"Oh, yes. My father-my biological father-"
"Yes?"
"He left us when I was a year old, but he looked me up when I
was grown, and we have dinner every now and then. He's very nice, a
very gentle man. He's very fond of me, in fact. So even that-it's just-"
 He waited.
"Why do I have these headaches?" she said.
He looked down at his keypad. "Been to a doctor?"
"Many doctors. All the tests."
"Well, then that's another good reason, isn't it? Really, I don't see
how you can lose. Either you'll find something to change, like
everybody else, or you won't. And if you don't, that's even better, don't
you think?"
She hesitated. "When you edit your life-"
"Yes?"
"Doesn't that make everything different? Not just for you, for other
people?"
"I'm not sure I follow."
"Suppose, for instance, you had a lover, a woman, and it was a
bad relationship. Now you go back and edit her out of your life, right?"
"Yes." He looked uncomfortable.
"So, after you do that, just suppose she finds somebody else and
they have a child. That child wouldn't have existed before. Or suppose
you kill somebody, and you wish you hadn't. So you edit that, make it
come out differently. So now the dead person is alive, but is she real,
or just-some kind of ghost?"
"As far as I'm concerned, she's real. You know, what they tell us
in training is, you're not creating anything. You're just moving from one
timeline to another. Where you didn't say anything dumb to your
girlfriend, didn't get drunk and fall down the stairs, whatever. So, in this
new timeline, naturally you meet people that weren't in the old one.
They're just as real as you are. Whatever that means."
After a moment, looking at the machine, he remarked, "Your pulse
rate has been holding pretty steady. This isn't an emotional thing with
you, is it?"
"No. And I'm going to do it. Yes. I am. What do I do?"
"Just relax and remember. Start with things that happened today,
then further back, further back. You'll know when you hit something
you need to change, even if it's buried back there."
The machine began to hum and the room darkened gradually, as if
transparent dark petals were closing around her. She closed her eyes,