"Andrew J. Offutt - Gone With the Gods" - читать интересную книгу автора (Offutt Andrew J)

Although he wasn't ashamed to admit he wasn't sure how/why it worked, Corrick meanwhile came
up with a means of calibrating the veedub to the Earth's movements. Look, the machine was obviously
somehow "glued" to the planet and thus couldn't get left during Sol/Earth's race through space. Using that
as a premise, Corrick modified things so that the traveler could get from one place in the world to
another, by time-jumping.
I practiced. And practiced some more, until I could bring the veedub down on a dime, in any given
minute of time, and could practically remove a splinter from my finger with the thermal drill. Practically. I
learned how to make little jumps back and then forward, to land in different areas.
It was Ventnor's ball game. He had signed a contract with me, written me out a fat check. His money
covered the drill and a few other little knickknacks I'd be taking with me on my mission into the past.
Yes, I was going. Along with the detailed instructions Mark had written out.
And then the day came, and I slid into that extraordinary VW squareback, and I was off. Into the
past. The distant past. I was equipped with a suit resembling an astronaut's, because certainly I didn't
want to spread any modern diseases among my remote ancestors. Or bring any of theirs forward to our
time!
It was no lark. Using the electron-beam generator and the thermal drill to dig all those smooth-walled
tunnels and caverns was work, and a drag betimes. Too, I had to keep coming back for more fuel:
power source. (My favorite place and time for buying more gasoline was Louisville, in 1961. Very little
attention was paid to my car; there weren't that many VW's around then, for anyone to have seen enough
to realize mine was a later model. And there was more gasoline. Besides, Mary was in Louisville in 1961,
and I deserved those periods of R&R.)
Then back I went, to create more tunnels with floors resembling trinitite. I incised some most
interesting pictures and pictograms on the walls, too, while I was at it.
Then I went in search of pre-man. This time I was tightly suited up, and hopefully sterilized; I didn't
want to be a carrier of something that would wipe out Man before he got off the groundтАФor rather, out
of the trees and caves.
My sudden appearance and strange garb really shook up the first band of hominids I came upon. I
endeared myself to that hairy host, though, after the manner of Dorothy of Kansas and Oz, by
materializing precisely atop their big shaggy leader, who I soon learned had been the meanest sunuvabitch
in the valley.
Bowing and genuflecting hadn't been invented then, but they let me know they were most deferential
and subservient indeed. A bit obscene, that demonstration. Think of a dog, showing his deference and
trust. I was just able to refrain from laughing.
My appearance and simultaneous ending of the tyrannical reign of Grunt made me both god and
savior, which, I mused, would be a fine combination for religion-inventors to bear in mind in a few
thousand years . . .
I made that stooped, stupid, hairy and homely lot understand, eventually and after much agonizing
work that made me reaffirm my high respect for elementary teachers. But I finally got the message across
to those almost-men: I wanted them to continue my drawings and carvings, and to make a few more little
items in my honor. I showed them models.
Their making themselves understood to me took considerably less time. My translation of their reply
goes like this:
"Check, OK, right, whatever you say, god sir."
I rewarded them: taking time out from his busy schedule, god-sir zapped them a nice big critter that
looked like a super-hirsute elephant with a glandular imbalance. A very big meal, and they were most
grateful. I received the homage routine again. Although I didn't need petrol, I jumped straight up to 1961.
I needed Mary.
Back I went, this time dropping in on a happy-enough tribe of considerably more advanced
near-people. Their holy-mackerel-He's-back reaction let me know that stories about my previous visit
had been handed down. They were just about to sacrifice a flagrantly bosomy virgin in my honor, before