"Geoffrey A. Landis - Interlulde at the Circus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Landis Geoffrey A)

"A physicist?" said Ciam. "On Earth, what is that?"
"A person who studies physics. Matter, energy, spacetime; and the relationships between them."
"So, you mean a philosopher of nature."
"I guess so." As they spoke, a short, balding man wheeled a yellow cart up between them. In a sing-song
voice (Jill could barely follow one word in four), he extolled the qualities and cheapness of his wares.
Inside his black-iron kettle linguini simmered in a garlic and cream sauce. So much for the belief that the
Italians hadn't heard of pasta until Marco Polo brought it from China, she thought. "Looks like our
languages have diverged a little. I suppose you don't know much about physics--I mean, natural
philosophy, do you?"
"No, of course not. Should a histographer study of unsubtle, lifeless things? Clearly no. Just the Aristotle
that they make all study in the Collegium."
"I thought so." The street vendor tried to get her to taste a sample, pushing a wooden spoonful right
under her nose, all the while continuously talking. She gestured that she had no money, and finally
succeeded in convincing him. He left with a cheerful shrug, to accost the next couple with undiminished
enthusiasm. "Have you ever heard about Wheeler's alternate worlds?"
"Who?"
Jill shrugged. "I suppose it would hardly have been Wheeler where you're from, anyway. Well, it doesn't
matter. You figured you'd pick a place where other time travelers would show up, and just hoped
somebody else would find you, didn't you?"
"Precisely. Rome, New Year's day, Zero A.D. Only they don't think of it like that here, of course. But
you did. God, I'm getting so damn tired of trying to speak this bastardized, garbage tongue they talk here.
You'd think that here of all places they'd speak good Latin, wouldn't you? But I can barely even
understand them. For a while I thought I might have to live here. I certainly haven't the least intention of
going back to those blue savages."
"Well," she said. "you have to realize that we're from different universes."
He laughed. "You're daft, my lady. For how can there be but one universe? The very notion is a
self-contradiction."
"Best sit down." She indicated a marble bench off to the side of the plaza. "Every instant, the universe
changes. It branches off into all the infinite possible futures. Many of these aren't very different from each
other. Two grains of sand are arranged differently, perhaps. But infinitely many are different. By going
back in time, we reach the past common to all the possible presents. When you go forward, you can
reach any of the possible futures. I bet you went further back than anyone from your time ever had,
right?"
"Correct you are. Indeed, mine was the very first jump of more than a month." His voice was proud. "I,
the first time histographer."
"Right. So nobody before could have figured it out, because even if they returned to a changed present it
could have only changed in the most minor ways. But you jumped back far enough that the world had
time to make many, many variations."
"Like the blue people," he said, slowly.
"Right." A bedraggled peacock nudged against her feet, pecking between the cobblestones for dropped
bits of bread. The Romans supposed it good luck to feed them, and often dropped bits of bread on
purpose. She moved slightly to avoid it. "Something happened differently, and the English language never
evolved.
"So you're saying it's not my fault. It's not something I did that accidentally changed the past."
"No. The worlds divide, and thus multiply, by themselves."
"And so the real present is still there? Then I just have to find it. If we keep searching. . . ."
Jill laughed. "Your present, you mean. No. If you searched a billion universes every second of your life,
and lived a billion years, you would not even begin to traverse the infinitude of possible nows."
"You sound so confident. Can you be sure of this?"
She chuckled bitterly. "Oh, it's quite obvious, now. I wish it had been so obvious when I decided to go