"Geoffrey A. Landis - Elemental (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Landis Geoffrey A)

outlines of the tenements and weighed down the branches of the evergreen that
struggled to grow in the building's entrance courtyard. He cursed softly.
Perfect Christmas weather-in April. Some bureaucrat at the weather service
must have thought it a good April fool's joke. More likely, he reflected,
they'd
needed a blizzard here as the best way to equalize a water imbalance elsewhere
in the world. Africa or Antarctica or Alabama or somewhere. Maybe it had been
announced and he'd just missed it.
He dug through the cluttered drawers of his desk and came up with a usable
piece of blue chalk and a battered secondhand hardcopy of the Handbook of
Thaumaturgy, 2052nd edition. He cleared the accumulation of dirty clothes and
half-written papers from a one-meter circle on the floor, then carefully
chalked a pentacle, copying exactly the diagram in the book. He chanted the
book's recommended spell sequence and stepped inside. Spell completed, he
grabbed his data microdisc and headed outside.
As he entered the snowstorm, a circle of warm air formed around him. Although
by now the snow was nearly twenty centimeters deep over the walk, where he
stepped and for a one meter circle around him the snow vanished, reappearing
magically behind him again as he walked onward.
Modern thaumaturgy-usually simply called "magic"-was the logical outgrowth of
quantum field theory. The basic premise of thaumaturgy is that "reality" is
merely an abstract mathematical construct. Therefore, it can be controlled by
the manipulation of abstract symbols-provided that the correct symbols can be
chosen. The snow ward which Ramsey took for granted was only one of many
changes wrought by the consequent technology.
Protected by his home-made ward, Ramsey ignored the snowstorm swirling about
him. As he walked under the low hanging branch of the evergreen in the
courtyard he ducked his head instinctively. Anyone as tall as Ramsey quickly
learns to duck without ever really noticing it. As he walked under the tree,
the snow on the branch above vanished, exorcised by the snow ward. Freed, the
branch sprang up, smacking the branch above it and shaking loose a new mound
of snow. In a chain reaction of unleashed branches, the whole tree shook
itself free of its burden of snow.
Ramsey's low-power spell had been designed to protect against a pretty heavy
snowstorm, but it had never been intended to stop an avalanche. The spell
overloaded with a loud pop. He abruptly found himself up to his armpits in
snow.
Ramsey heard a giggling somewhere behind him, and whirled around to see who
was laughing. Unfortunately, the snow was rather more slippery than he'd
anticipated. His feet skidded out from under him, and he landed flat on his
back in a flurry of snow. Helpless, he heard the giggling rise into a robust
laugh. ,
He pulled himself carefully to his feet. "Have you no respect for the mortally
wounded?" He shook himself off and glanced surreptitiously at the girl
standing on the sidewalk laughing.
"Oh!" The girl rushed over. "I'm sorry! Are you hurt? Where?"
"My dignity, woman, my dignity's taken a mortal wound. I may never recover. "
"Oh, poor baby!" she replied in mock seriousness. "Shall I kiss it and make it
better?"
"Hey, that's the best offer I've had all day," said Ramsey. He looked up at