"Paul Levinson - Loose Ends (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Levinson Paul)

infected -- and inspired -- by time travellers. Despite all of
our attempts at curbing possible cultural contamination from the
future, it can't be done. You've seen that. Some leaks out --
and causes massive cultural upheavals."
"John Lennon was a time traveller?" Jeff asked.
"I don't know, maybe," Laura said. "Maybe that's why he
was murdered. At very least I'd say he was touched by time
travel."
Jeff's head was reeling. Someone else who didn't deserve
to die, whose death he'd like to prevent if he could. Surprise
Chapman in that Dakota alley, break his goddamn gun-hand... Was
Jeff bound to spend his whole life now as a shackled witness to
history? "How'd you find me?"
"Wasn't too hard," Laura said. "Once I got back here,
realized I was stranded, I figured I might as well see if you
landed back here too. We knew you were a teacher. You had to
live, earn money somewhere. So I went around to every school in
the area, saying I wanted to be a sociology major, and asking
for information about the faculty. This was my plan for 1985,
so I had some good credentials ready, made them just right with
a little alteration. And when I talked to your Chair at City
College, I knew I hit pay dirt -- he showed me your outline, and
its emphasis on McLuhan. McLuhan's been well known in Canada
for over a decade, but not down here."
"Why didn't you tell me who you were?" Jeff asked.
"I didn't want to spook you -- have you run away on me,
where I couldn't find you again."
"Good you succeeded at least at one thing," Jeff smiled
tiredly.
"Yeah."
"With all the people who came back to save Kennedy, not a
single one succeeded at that, did they?" Jeff asked.
"No," Laura, "at least not as far as we know in our
universe of knowledge." She shook her head. "I really do think
that there's something about history that resists attempts to
change it."
"Hawking's Chronology Protection Conjecture?" Jeff said.
"Thorne and his colleagues claimed to have refuted that, though
I admit the math was a bit beyond me."
"Refuted in theory -- with the assumption of clean loops
with no causality interference -- but loops are much dirtier in
practice, especially with big events affecting so many people
like assassinations," Laura said. "Attempts to change those
either fail completely, or maybe just change the events a little
bit -- or cosmos forbid, maybe even ironically set up the events
to happen in the first place."
"Not to mention that they're hazardous to the health of the
time travellers," Jeff added.
"You really think we're in danger?" Laura asked.
"Obviously. My guess is the universe sort of cleans up