"Vukcevich-GiantSteps" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vukcevich Ray)

RAY VUKCEVICH

GIANT STEP

GREGORY FIGURED THE young policeman would hit him tonight, because at some deep
level the policeman knew that but for the grace of god and the fact that people
still paid taxes for prisons and the personnel to put and keep other people in
prisons, he might be homeless and living in a space suit just like Gregory. Just
a paycheck away and frightened with pale blue angry eyes and a goofy cowlick, he
probably had a pretty young wife who sent him off to work with a kiss and a tuna
fish sandwich wrapped in waxed paper, maybe the same waxed paper that blew
across the rainbow oil slick in the gutter puddle by Gregory's feet.

In a sudden flash of inspiration, Gregory knew what to say to him. "Well,
Officer," he shouted through his helmet, "we can't move along, because all
motion is impossible. Zeno proved that thousands of years ago."

Nancy, also suited and sitting on the sidewalk beside Gregory, touched helmets
with him. "Is that logic I smell?" Her seven-year-old granddaughter Kim stood
behind her. Kim's parents had died years ago in the food riots. Like the god of
Amos, the government still guaranteed the people clean teeth. Kim hung out with
Nancy and didn't talk much these days. She wore a silvery suit sized down for
the temporally challenged, and tonight she tapped the side of her helmet with a
white plastic spoon and stared up into the sky.

Silver suited figures of all sizes moved in and out of the street shadows,
dodging sluggish honking cars and tracks and flickering with neon when they
passed under the signs of surviving merchants. The suits had toilet functions,
heating and cooling units, rechargeable batteries, waterbottles, and air tanks,
all the comforts of home. Best of all, supporters of the plan privately claimed,
once you sealed a wino up in a space suit, you couldn't smell him. At curfew you
could pile the people up like cordwood. But hey, skeptics had cried, surely
there can't be enough space suits for what amounts to maybe a third of the
population. No problem. We make more suits, put all those guys who lost their
jobs when we canceled the space program back to work.

The young policeman squatted down in front of Gregory. He unhooked his big
flashlight and shined it in Gregory's face fora few moments. Then he put the
flashlight away. Maybe he had more curiosity than most, Gregory thought, maybe
if the universities had still been funded, he could have been a passable
student. Maybe he wouldn't hit Gregory, after all.

"So what's the story on this Zeno guy, Professor?"

"Yes, tell us, Oh Wise One," Nancy said. "How is it that all motion is
impossible?" Nancy was an out-of-work English professor and tended to scoff at
all things scientific. She pulled Kim around and down on her lap and wrapped an
arm around the child. There weren't many stars to see through the smoggy city