"Mark W. Tiedemann - Miserond" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tiedemann Mark W)

Ivelor frowned at her. "But you requestedЧ"
"No!" Jesca snapped. She jabbed a finger at Gil. "He made the requests, in my name."
Ivelor looked troubled by that. For a long moment he seemed indecisive, but then shook his head emphatically. "It doesn't matter. One of you has to leave."
"Take her," Gil said. "Do your job, follow your assignment. But go with her."
"I can't."
Jesca sighed. "Can't. Won't. What's the difference? I'm not going."
"You have to," both Gil and Ivelor said simultaneously. They gave each other startled looks.
"There was an accident," Gil said. He frowned, thinking for a moment that Jesca had said the same thing. She watched him, eyes moist and sympathetic.
"We were leaving the C ring. We wanted to stay together."
"Always. Friends, lovers, companions."
"From different times, butЧ"
"That didn't matter. We had each other."
"The gate fluctuated. Some of the transport crates were sucked out of the corridorЧ"
"We'd made a pact. Without each other there wasn't anyone. Nothing leftЕ"
"When I returned to the main ring, thoughЕI don't know, some reassembly of virtual particles, a trick of the time loop. For all I know an illusion."
"Reality is conditional here. Willed imagination may be all that's necessaryЕ"
"But it's a loop," Ivelor said. "I won't pretend to understand it, but whatever happened here continues to happen. The same information has been coming out of the ring, over and over again, since the first request. A fundamental balance has been struck. I can't leave because I'm to stay here to take her place, unbalance the circumstances."
"But," Gil insisted, "if you just send her out without going along to verify her continued existence, then the whole thing may just collapse again."
"I don't think so," Ivelor said. "And you don't either. The effect keeps repeating because the loop is closed here, you're just re-living through each other. Something from the outside had to interrupt that. You must have figured that when you made the requests. You were inviting interference. In any case, it's nearly time."
He stepped outside and waited.
Jesca looked at Gil. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I didn't want to take the risk that everything would repeat again. I didn't know if any act of will would cause the loop to close again."
"Do nothing and maybe it will change on its own?"
"Something like that."
"Come with me."
"It would be safer to go with Ivelor. We don't know how each other's presence might effect everything." She started to speak again. "No, please. I'm offering you existence."
"Transubstantiation?"
He smiled. "Whatever. If I can I'll follow."
"Promise?"
"Yes."
She leaned forward quickly and kissed his cheek. Then she was gone and his door closed.
He sat down and drew his legs up. He had worked this through a hundred times that he knew. He hoped he had it right. He glanced at his box.
"Attention. Ring deceleration will commence in fifteen seconds. Minus C protocols in effect. Stay where you areЧ"
But someone had to go with her. Someone had to witness her escape, to know she had reached the outer ring and the wider universe, and Ivelor would notЕ
Ivelor could request still another person come in from Out There who could. Then all the factors would balanceЧor unbalance, as Ivelor saidЧand Ivelor could remain and Gil could follow.
Gil sprang for the door. It was essential that someone go with Jesca, guarantee her existence by his presence. Otherwise an empty crate would arrive at the outer ring and everything would begin again. He rushed out into the corridor. He had cut the time close, though.
The deck vibrated, numbing shocks traveled up his shins. He ran toward the lock. Faint ghost lights flickered at the edge of his vision.
The corridor snaked as he watched, twisting from the left to the right. The bulkheads seemed to moved toward each other, stretching out and shrinking to a distant point that shifted and flexed. Gil stopped, but felt himself falling. He turned. Faces danced in the wall, countless masks with surprised expressions that reticulated back into the crystal fabric of the hull. His face felt drawn, a scream lost in his throat, but, he knew, resonant with the souls in the circle around him. Thunder rolled through him and his feet slipped. The serpentine corridor writhed behind him, before him, and he crawled.
He reached his door and pounded on the access button. It slid open and he stumbled in.
He sat next to Ivelor on the small cot, the box in his lap. He worked at the sixth face with an awl, driving a hole into its surface with methodical strokes.
The shavings on the floor had gathered themselves together into a shabby ball in the corner. The coils flicked in and out, changing places with each other constantly. He scooped it up, the dancing surface tickling his palms. He twisted out into the corridor again and ran toward the lock.
Jesca stood at the far end, waving to him, and he ran, on and on, hurrying, on and on, waving back to her as she waved to him, on and on and on