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

"Idealism," Gregory said, making the word sound like another name for utter
nonsense.

"Exactly," Nancy said. "And since all material matters are illusions, we can, in
fact, move along as this nice young man has suggested we do by simply imagining
ourselves elsewhere."

"You are at least half right," Gregory said. "There is a way out of this
conundrum. The answer requires no mysticism, however. It's just simple
materialism. Imagine we've cut our distance down until it is very very small."
Gregory took a nail from his utility pouch and scratched a line in the sidewalk.

X Y Z

"The space between X and Z is the first tiny, tiny distance you must move before
you can move on through the rest of the halves and finally get from here to Mr.
Wilson's store," Gregory said.

"Seems pretty big to me," the policeman said.

"It's a diagram!" Gregory heard the irritation in his voice and added in a
softer tone, "It's blown up."

"Oh," the policeman said. "I suppose you'll say we have to move through Y to get
to Z, and you'll start this whole stupid business all over again."

"No," Gregory said. "That's my point. At some very small scale, there is a point
where we move from X to Z in one discrete step without going through Y. That's
what makes motion possible. We move in tiny little steps. We sort of putt-putt
along through, well, hyperspace, for lack of a better word."

"I'm sure glad you got rid of the mysticism, Gregory," Nancy said, "but your
putt-putting along will be a little slow for the officer, I think. In my scheme
we can move long distances very quickly."

"I don't see why, in principle, we cannot move long distances in my scheme,
too," Gregory said. "If you can move a small discrete step without passing
through any intermediate points, I don't see why you can't move a large distance
in a single step."

"Look out!" Kim cried.

Nancy grabbed his hand, and Gregory looked up in time to see the policeman's
nightstick coming down at his face.

Before the stick could crack his faceplate, the policeman disappeared. In fact,
the whole street disappeared.

Gregory, Nancy, and Kim popped back into existence overlooking a dry red river