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

vacant silver case jutting from the golem's neck. He reached
up to his own neck, wondering where the catch was that would
allow his skull-piece to be lifted away. His mind, his
emotion, his very essence could be hauled up like a hunk of
coal and displayed. He was a mere amusement for children.
They had called him friend, but in truth he was only
Shovelhead. Without that dark stone, he was not even that.
The silver man stared into the undeniable image of his own
death.
The regression was done. He was suddenly yanked from the
time stream and back again, bathed in that rapacious red
glow. Master Malzra summoned him to the present.
The silver man arrived. The beam skittered and danced
away, withdrawing into the machine overhead. It too
withdrew, trailing gray tendrils of smoke from the temporal
stress it had endured.
Barrin and Malzra stood, blinking, at their consoles.
Tentative, the two scholars released the controls beneath
their fingers and approached the probe.
Barrin spoke first. "Are you well-?"
"Are you capable of rendering a report?" Malzra
interrupted.
"My frame is quite hot," the silver man responded, "but
I am capable, yes."
"How far back did you go?" Malzra asked.
"Back to this morning, to the time of my awakening."
"Excellent," Malzra said as Barrin noted the response on
a sheet of paper. "And did you touch or move anything in
that time?"
"I touched only the floor, with my feet, and moved only
myself."
"Were you approached by anyone, or was there any other
indication that your presence was noted?"
"No."
"What did you observe?"
This answer would not come as readily as the others.
"I observed myself dismantled. I observed the core of my
being removed. I observed the small, dark, fragile thing
that is my mind and self and soul."

Monologue

The first day of life is always the hardest, to be
dragged from whatever warm, safe womb in which one is
conceived and then thrust into the cold glare of the world.
There is much to adjust to- breathing air instead of liquid,
for one; being naked and prodded and scrubbed, for another.
Worst of all, there is that moment when the cord is cut, and
one is suddenly and irrevocably alone.
It is in recognition of such traumas that mothers' arms