"H. Beam Piper - Crossroads of Destiny" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piper H Beam)

to 'appen?"

"Things have been said to have happened that might, if true, be cases of things leaking through from
another time world," the sandy-haired man corrected. "Or leaking away to another time world." He
mentioned a few of the more famous cases of unexplained mysteriesтАФthe English diplomat in Prussia
who vanished in plain sight of a number of people, the ship found completely deserted by her crew, the
lifeboats all in place; stories like that. "And there's this rash of alleged sightings of unidentified flying
objects. I'd sooner believe that they came from another dimension than from another planet. But, as far
as I know, nobody's seriously advanced this other-time-dimension theory to explain them."

"I think the idea's familiar enough, though, that we can use it as an explanation, or pseudo-explanation,
for the program," the television man said. "Fact is, we aren't married to this Crossroads title, yet; we
could just as easily all it Fifth Dimension. That would lead the public, to expect something out of the
normal before the show started."




That got the conversation back onto the show, and we talked for some time about it, each of us
suggesting possibilities. The stranger even suggested oneтАФthat the Civil War had started during the
Jackson Administration. Fortunately, nobody else noticed that. Finally, a porter came through and
inquired if any of us were getting off at Harrisburg, saying that we would be getting in in five minutes.
The stranger finished his drink hastily and got up, saying that he would have to get his luggage. He told us
how much he had enjoyed the conversation, and then followed the porter toward the rear of the train.
After he had gone out, the TV man chuckled.

"Was that one an oddball!" he exclaimed. "Where the hell do you suppose he got that suit?"

"It was a tailored suit," the colonel said. "A very good one. And I can't think of any country in the world
in which they cut suits just like that. And did you catch his accent?"

"Phony," the television man pronounced. "The French accent of a Greek waiter in a fake French
restaurant. In the Bronx."

"Not quite. The pronunciation was all right for French accent, but the cadence, the way the word-sounds
were strung together, was German."

The elderly man looked at the colonel keenly. "I see you're Intelligence," he mentioned. "Think he might
be somebody up your alley, Colonel?"

The colonel shook his head. "I doubt it. There are agents of unfriendly powers in this countryтАФa lot of
them, I'm sorry to have to say. But they don't speak accented English, and they don't dress eccentrically.
You know there's an enemy agent in a crowd, pick out the most normally American type in sight and you
usually won't have to look further."

The train ground to a stop. A young couple with hand-luggage came in and sat at one end of the car,
waiting until other accommodations could be found for them. After a while, it started again. I dallied over
my drink, and then got up and excused myself, saying that I wanted to turn in early.

In the next car behind, I met the porter who had come in just before the stop. He looked worried, and