"Murray Leinster - A Logic Named Joe" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

Tony was too flabbergasted to even shake his head.
Mr. Emurian laughed. "This man," he explained amiably, "would say that the coin comes from a
country which is not upon our maps because it is unapproachable by any ordinary means. Yet it is wholly
real and actually has a certain commerce with us. It isтАФhmтАФhave you ever heard of worlds supposed to
be like ours, but in otherтАФahтАФdimensions, say, or in parallel but not identical times?"
"I've read Wells' Time Machine," said Tony awkwardly.
"Not at all the same," the dark man assured him. "And notions of startling new machines for traveling
between sets of dimensions or in time itself are quite absurd. Discoveries of that sort are never drastic!
When electricity was discovered, it was your own Franklin who observed that it was no new force, but
quite commonplace. Every thunderstorm since time began had demonstrated it. Similarly, if travel
between worlds or to other times should ever become really practical, it is certain that the discovery will
not be dramatic. It will turn out that people have been doing it for centuries as a matter of course, without
ever realizing it."
"You meanтАФ" Tony stopped.
"The legend," said Mr. Emurian, "suggests that your coin came from a world not our own. That it
came from a world where history quite truthfully denies much of the history we truthfully teach to
children." He regarded Tony zestfully and said, "Ordinarily, two things which are equal to the same thing
are equal to each other. But two places which are exactly equal to each other are identicalтАФare the same
place. Now consider! Suppose that somewhere there existed a world in which Aladdin's lamp existed
and was in good working order. Suppose that upon that world there was a place which was absolutely
identical with a place in this world. It would have to be a place where the working or not working of
Aladdin's lamp made absolutely no difference. Now, according to the legend, those two places, on two
worlds, would actually be one place which was on both worlds, and which would serve as a perfectly
practical gateway between them. Travelers would pass casually through it without ever noticing it. You
and I perhaps, pass through such gateways every day without the least realization."
The dark man seemed to find amused satisfaction in the look of mystified enthusiasm on Tony's face.
He waved a manicured hand.
"Look at this restaurant. Here. Tonight," he said, beaming. "Today, for example, Calcutta could have
vanished in a tidal wave and be sunk forever under the sea. Or it could not. Here and now, we knowing
nothing about it, such an event would still have made no slightest difference. So that from this restaurant
tonight we could walk out into two different worldsтАФyou into the one where such an event had taken
place, and I into the world where it did not. And I might go and live peacefully and die of old age in the
Calcutta which to you was utterly destroyed."
"But we are in the same world!" protested Tony. "We'll stay in the same world!"
"Probably, but are you sure?" Mr. Emurian twinkled through his glasses. "We have never seen each
other before. How do you know that I have always lived in this particular world? How do you know that
the history of the world in which I was born is the same? I was surely not taught the same history! And if
we separate here tonight, and you never see or hear of me again, how will you know that I remain in the
world you inhabit?"
 Tony said painfully, but with his heart beating fast:
"IтАФguess I won't. But there's no proof, either, thatтАФ"
"We agree," said Mr. Emurian, nodding. "There can be no proof. I have told you a legend. It says
that there are other worlds. They are not quite real to us, because we cannot reach them at will. But
according to legend they touch each other at many places, and it is possible to travel from one to another,
and in fact we constantly visit the frontier cities of other worlds without ever knowing it. We do not know
it, because we are a part of our own world, and there is an attraction; a magnetism; a gravitation,
perhaps; which draws us back before we stray far through the gateway of a world which is not our own."
He regarded Tony benevolently through his eyeglasses.
"As for your coinтАФsometimes that gravitation or that attraction is not enough. We stray deep into
other worlds and doubtless we are very unhappy. Or an object from another world strays into ours. But