"Marta Randall - Secret Rider" - читать интересную книгу автора (Randall Marta)

Secret Rider
by Marta Randall
"Foundering between eternity and time, we are amphibians and must
accept the fact."
Aldous Huxley, Theme and Variations

I
She had followed him across the galaxy.
Twice
Always arriving the barest moment too late, always just behind the jet
that left, the ship that sailed, the tauship that taued the day before,
carrying him with it. On Gardenia they told her he had gone to witness the
Rites of the Resurrected; she flew over the face of the globe, pushing the
sled to its limits above the checkerboard jungle, arriving in time to see the
thin contrails of his jets leaving the Awakening Place toward the Port.
Followed him to Asperity, to Quintesme, to Jakob's World; to New Aqaba,
where she thought she saw him entering a sky-blue mosque. But, again,
she was wrong. To Nineveh Down. To Augustine. To Poltergeist. To
Jason's Lift. Past stars as yet unnamed, booking passage on the quickest,
the fleetest, second-guessing his guessing mind.

She had something of his, sewn under the skin of her thigh. Kept warm
and secret, although it demanded neither. Perhaps he no longer needed it,
certainly had forgotten it might have existed, but she had it and wanted to
give it to him. Besides, she loved him.
On Murphy's Landing she shared a hotel with him, unbeknowst to
either of them. Had arrived, body-time at sleepless dawn in the bright
morning light; had registered, slept, woke at planet-noon to ask the
questions she had been too tired to ask before, discovered he had just,
barely, left. And no room on the ship for her. Didn't weep, but wanted to.
What use?
Back home her children grew older and younger, cities failed and
flourished, she herself died many times. On Asperity at 1852 Earth Time,
on Jason's Lift at 3042 E. T ., on Soft Conception 1153 E.T .;
Constantinople toppled while she argued with border guards, New
Jerusalem rose to the stars as she slept exhausted in the arms of a
stranger on Endgame II.

II
Tau travel does not do odd things to time, nor does time do odd things
during tau travel. Were tau a linear projection, a line running without
deviation beside the other straight and infinitely curving lines of the
universe, it would be possible to see a correlation between the Y of tau and
the Z of time, to quantify a correspondence and arrive at a formula for
controlling tau-shift. But there is no correspondence, there are only places
where the Y and the Z lie close enough to touch, almost, with a little help.
On one side of the barrier a place exists, coordinates in space and time
that can be mapped, can be entered into a ship's control banks, can be
relied upon to describe the place now and always. But tau doesn't work
that way. Leave Parnell for Ararat and when you arrive Parnell may not