"Robert Reed - Due" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Robert)

first...where is she....?She's not in the middle of the lovers, which is
unlike her.Hearing a stranger's voice, I walk up the polished aisle, coming
across a secondgroup of people doing something unexpected.They are sitting
quietly, listening as the stranger speaks calmly, describingthe true shape of
the world."We live on a great sphere," he says. "What seems perfectly flat to
little usactually falls away in every direction, equally and always. Without
end."I know that voice but not the handsome face.Due."Pick a line," says the
newborn, "then walk it. Provided you stay true to thatline and live long
enough, you will walk around the world. But of course thattrip takes trillions
of shifts. By the time you return home, this facility willbe gone, its atoms
scattered over that enormous world, and not so much as singlememory of us will
persist."His audience murmurs quietly.Mollene sits in front, eager to absorb
the lesson."And our round world is part of another, still larger world," the
newborncontinues. "A trillion trillion times larger and several times older.
Andinfinitely stranger. That world is a ball, too, but in its own
peculiarfashion."I find myself listening. The voice compels me to do nothing
but."Think of a black cold emptiness," says Due. "That larger world is carved
fromthat blackness, and within it are an uncountable sprinkling of little
worldslike ours."Mollene leans closer to him, begging to be noticed.Due grins
at his largest admirer, then asks, "What's the shape of an atom?""It's round,
too!" Mollene exclaims.Not exactly, I remind myself. The furious wanderings of
electrons can make around shell, but it's too easy to call them balls.Yet Due
agrees with Mollene. His new eyes are bright and gray, his smile
nearlyguileless. "What if I tell you that Creation -- all there is and all
there canbe -- is always built from spheres? Round atoms become round worlds,
and thoseworlds become the rounded universe, and there is no end to the round
universesthat make up Creation .... "I work hard to say nothing, to let this
useless noise vanish on its own.But Tannie, standing at the back of the
audience, asks the obvious: "How do youknow these things?"Due expects the
question. He welcomes it. Nodding, he waits for a moment as ifin reflection,
then confesses, "I don't know how I know. I was born thinkingthese things, the
same as I was born with these simple hands."What could I say to that?Keeping
silent, I try to look unimpressed. There's no easy way to wrestleMollene away
from her new love. Instead, I slip behind the others, approachingTannie and
whispering, "A moment? I need to talk to you."She seems glad for the
distraction."Have you ever heard such talk?" I ask the old woman.I expect her
to say, "No," but instead she tells me, "When I was a newborn, theold
discussed strange things.""Like worlds within worlds?""Sometimes. Yes."The
audience is asking questions. How big is the world in standards? And
exactlyhow much bigger is the blackness beyond? But the dimensions aren't part
of Due'sspecial knowledge, it seems. "You and I can't comprehend these
distances," hewarns. "We're too tiny. Too limited by a long ways."Too stupid,
he means.In a careful murmur, I ask Tannie what I meant to ask her partner.
"Did thatnewborn come close to you? While you were working, I mean. Did he
ever, even fora moment, touch the oven?"She looks at me, a worn hand wiping at
her patched forehead."Mollene must have flirted with him," I add. "I've seen
the symptoms.""I never saw him near the oven," she assures me. "He was
returning to thewarehouse for supplies, and he paused for a moment, just to
see what new bonelooks like.""And to flirt?"She shakes her head. "I know what
you want, but I can't give it to you."I'm not sure what I want, yet I feel