"03.Time Streams" - читать интересную книгу автора (McGough Scott)

emerged. Lamplight glowed from the descending apparatus, ten
times more massive than the silver man himself.
"This is a time field distortion device," Master Malzra
explained. "It is powered by four separate sources of
energy-thermal, mechanical, geomagnetic, and of course,
Thran. The thermal component provides a molecular time
clock, an exact measure of the temporal vector, calibrated
in atomic vibration per second. The mechanical component
rotates the unit about its axis, thus creating beneath the
device a cone of radiation within which the temporal
distortion will manifest. The geomagnetic component provides
precise coordinates of longitude, latitude, and altitude for
the origin and destination points. Thran powerstones, of
course, provide the main drive of the machine."
The silver man wondered aloud, "What is this ...
machine?"
"A time machine," Barrin explained. "Actually, it
provides travel through time and space both. Tonight we plan
to test only the temporal components."
"You wish me to operate this machine?" the probe
guessed.
"We wish you to travel in it," Master Malzra replied.
"The current design plays havoc with biological creatures.
Any organism with a heartbeat, respiration, a sequential
digestive tract, and a network of neural pathways that rely
on chemical reactions is ill-adapted to time-field
distortions."
"They die," Barrin explained. "Metals are much less
susceptible to temporal stresses. Silver, of all metals,
showed the least resistance. That is why you are made of
silver. That is why you were made-to travel through the
portal and report back what you have discovered."
The silver man approached the dangling device. His eyes
traced out a circle on the floor beneath the massive
machine. "Teferi told me about this. Every machine is made
for a specific purpose. Every machine is made to defend you
and the academy against... external foes."
Master Malzra's eyebrows rose. "Teferi knows that much?"
"Everyone seems to," the silver man said.
"Well, then-yes," the artificer said. "This is part of
that defense. You must not divulge the information we are
relating to you-"
"Of course not-"
"We intend, in time, to send you or another probe or
perhaps eventually a person back to the time of the Thran,
to divert them from the path that led to these-external
foes."
"Send me or another probe...." echoed the silver man,
thinking of the fiery furnace, heaps of scrap metal, and
workers with shovels.