"Henry Kuttner - The Time Axis" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kuttner Henry)

Ea. . ..

The room spun around me.

"Here," Dr. Essen's voice murmured at my shoulder. I looked up dizzily, took the glass of brandy
she offered. I'm not sure now whether or not I had a moment of uncon-sciouness. I know my eyes
blurred and the room tilted before me. I drank the brandy gratefully.

Ill

THE VISION OF TIME

DE KALB SAID, Tell us what you saw."

"YouтАФyou've seen it too?" The brandy helped but I wasn't yet steady. I didn't want to talk about
what had flashed through my mind in that unending, dissolving glimpse which was slipping fragment
by fragment out of my memory as I sat there. And yet I did want to talk.

"I've seen it," De Kalb's ponderous nod was grim. "Letta Essen has seen it. Now you. Three of us.
We all get the same thing and yetтАФdetails differ. Three witnesses to the same scene tell three
different stories. Each sees with a different brain. Tell us how it seemed to you."

I swirled the brand around in my glass. My thoughts swirled with it, hot and potent as the liquor
and as volatile. Give me ten minutes more, I thought, and they'll evaporate.

"Red sky," I said slowly. "Empty landscape. AndтАФ" The word stuck in my throat. I couldn't name it.

"The Face," De Kalb supplied impatiently. "Yes, I know.

Go on."

"The Face of Ea," I said. "How do I know its name? Ea and timeтАФtimeтАФ" Suddenly the brandy splashed
across my hand. I was shaking with reaction so violent I could not control it and I was shaking
because of time. I got the glass to my lips, using both hands, and drained what was

left.

The second reaction passed and I thought I had myself

under control.

"Time," I said deliberately, letting the thought of it pour through my mind in a long, cold, dark-
colored tide that had no motion. Time hasn't, of course. But when you see it as I did, at first
the concept makes the brain rock in your skull.

"TimeтАФahead of our time. Uncountable thousands of years in our future. It was all there, wasn't
it? The civilizations rising and falling one after another untilтАФthe last city of all. The City of
the Face."