"Madeline L' Engle - Time Quartet 04 - Many Waters" - читать интересную книгу автора (L'Engle Madeleine)

reality. If this was no stranger than their mother's world
of particle physics, it was at least equally as strange-

"Hold onl" Japheth shouted again.

27 "S^K. Virtual particles and virtual unicorns

But Dennys felt himself sliding off the smooth flanks.
He tried to grasp the mane, but it sifted through his fingers
like sand. Was the unicorn becoming less real, or was the
still-blazing sun affecting him?

"Dennys! Don't fall off!" Sandy shouted.

But Dennys felt himself slipping. He did not know
whether il was himself or the unicorn who kept flickering
in and out of being.

Then he felt something solid. Sandy on his unicorn



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pressing against him. Sandy's strong arms shoving him
back onto the unicorn, the virtual particle suddenly real,
not just something in the lab. His head hurt.

Japheth and the mammoth were running beside them,
amazingly swift for such small creatures- "Hurry," Japheth
urged the unicorns. "Hurry."

Sandy, his flannel shirt still draped over his head, was
hardly aware that he was supporting his brother. His arms
felt as fluid as water. He was breathing in great searing
gulps which burned his throat. His head began to swell,
to be filled with hot air like a balloon, so that he was afraid
he was going to float off into the sky.

The mammoth passed Japheth and the unicorns, lead-
ing the way to the oasis, so that his stocky legs were no
more than a blur of motion, like hummingbirds' wings-
Occasionally he would raise his trunk and make a trumpet-
ing noise, urging the unicorns along. Japheth ran along-
side, beginning to breathe, open-mouthed, with effort.

But they were not fast enough for Dennys, who was slip-
ping into unconsciousness, and as the world blackened
before his eyes, his unicorn's horn became dim and the