"Daniel Keys Moran - Armageddon Blues" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moran Daniel Keys)

DATELINE 712 A.B.C.


One step, and then two, and Jalian stood for a frozen timemoment on the concrete of the Big Road itself.

Then the paralysis broke, and, shivering slightly, Jalian walked to the center of the road, where the
melted ruin of a lane divider stood a lonely vigil.

The freeway ran away from her, straight and true and clean, protected as though by the gods. (The
winds, here, were too sporadic to erode much. Plants, which in other places grew up through the asphalt
and crumbled the manmade structures, here stood no chance against the radioactive Burn. The freeway
itself, cambered from the center, was regularly cleaned of the dirt that built up on its surface by the
summer rains.)

At the age of six, to Jalian d'Arsennette, it made sense that the Big Road was protected by the gods. (Or
the demons, perhaps, although Jalian did not like to think about that.)

For how long Jalian simply stood on the Big Road, the sun burning down on her, her eyes seeking into
the distance for the end of the Big Road, she never knew. She came back from infinity, slowly, with the
thoughts in her mind:Mountains beside me, desert behind me. Forest and hills and sun, and the Big
Road far ahead тАж

That moment, her thin body touched with the ecstasy of a dimly perceived greater reality, Jalian
remembered for the rest of her life.

The moment ended and she ran.

Jalian had not made it to the end of the Big Road when she was five because she had squandered her
lead time. This time she would not make that mistake.

Run and run and runтАж

The freeway stretched before her; a road of possibilities.

Georges Mordreaux is an interesting man. Aside from the fact that entropy tends to decrease in his
vicinity, there are eight of him.
 Yes, eight. Not all on the same timeline, of course. (It is a shame, but Georges will not admit to any of
the eight having been present during the explosion of a thermonuclear weapon. He may be lying, of
course; humans are notorious liars. Evidence suggests that he may be engaging in this common human
pastime. For reasons too lengthy to go into here, asking any of the other seven directly would beтАж
difficult.)

(Georges Mordreaux; of the base timeline that led to divergence 1962, did once meet Einstein. This is
not the same as being present when a thermonuclear weapon is exploded, but it is the closest that
Georges is willing to admit to. The author, commenting in a negative fashion on the subject, has been
blessed with the response, "Ah, well.")

(There are times when the author agrees with Georges that he is in some ways a very shallow fellow.)

(All eight of him.)