"H. Beam Piper - The Edge of the Knife" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piper H Beam)

exists," Weill said.

"I really don't need to. I'm satisfied with knowing that I know. But if you want me to furnish a theory, let's
say that all these things really do exist, in the past or in the future, and that the present is just a moving
knife-edge that separates the two. You can't even indicate the present. By the time you make up your
mind to say, 'Now!' and transmit the impulse to your vocal organs, and utter the word, the original
present moment is part of the past. The knife-edge has gone over it. Most people think they know only
the present; what they know is the past, which they have already experienced, or read about. The
difference with me is that I can see what's on both sides of the knife-edge."

Weill put another cigarette in his mouth and bent his head to the flame of his lighter. For a moment, he sat
motionless, his thin face rigid.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked. "I'm a lawyer, not a psychiatrist."

"I want a lawyer. This is a legal matter. Whitburn's talking about voiding my tenure contract. You helped
draw it; I have a right to expect you to help defend it."

"Ed, have you been talking about this to anybody else?" Weill asked.

"You're the first person I've mentioned it to. It's not the sort of thing you'd bring up casually, in a
conversation."

"Then how'd Whitburn get hold of it?"

"He didn't, not the way I've given it to you. But I made a couple of slips, now and then. I made a bad one
yesterday morning."

He told Weill about it, and about his session with the president of the college that morning. The lawyer
nodded.
"That was a bad one, but you handled Whitburn the right way," Weill said. "What he's most afraid of is
publicity, getting the college mixed up in anything controversial, and above all, the reactions of the
trustees and people like that. If Dacre or anybody else makes any trouble, he'll do his best to cover for
you. Not willingly, of course, but because he'll know that that's the only way he can cover for himself. I
don't think you'll have any more trouble with him. If you can keep your own nose clean, that is. Can you
do that?"

"I believe so. Yesterday I got careless. I'll not do that again."

"You'd better not." Weill hesitated for a moment. "I said I was a lawyer, not a psychiatrist. I'm going to
give you some psychiatrist's advice, though. Forget this whole thing. You say you can bring these
impressions into your conscious mind by concentrating?" He waited briefly; Chalmers nodded, and he
continued: "Well, stop it. Stop trying to harbor this stuff. It's dangerous, Ed. Stop playing around with it."

"You think I'm crazy, too?"

Weill shook his head impatiently. "I didn't say that. But I'll say, now, that you're losing your grip on
reality. You are constructing a system of fantasies, and the first thing you know, they will become your
reality, and the world around you will be unreal and illusory. And that's a state of mental incompetence
that I can recognize, as a lawyer."