"Jach Williamson - The Ultimate Earth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williamson Jack)

"No time at all." He smiled at our wonderment. "Not in slider flight. Outside of space-time, there is no time. But there are laws of
nature, and time plays tricks that may surprise you. I could fly across a hundred light-years to another star in an instant of my own
time and come back in another instant, but two hundred years would pass here on Earth while I was away."

"I didnтАЩt know." TanyaтАЩs eyes went wider still. "Your friends would all be dead."

"We donтАЩt die."

She shrank away as if suddenly afraid of him. Pepe opened his mouth to ask something, and shut it without a word.

He chucked at our startlement. "WeтАЩve engineered ourselves, you see, more than weтАЩve engineered the Earth."




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 "The Ultimate Earth" by Jack Williamson

Casey turned to look out across the shadowed craters at the huge globe of Earth, the green Americas blazing on the sunlit face,
Europe and Africa only a shadow against the dark. He stood there a long time and came slowly back to stand in front of Uncle
Pen.

"IтАЩm going down to see the new Earth when I grow up." His face set stubbornly. "No matter what you say."

"Are you growing wings?" Uncle Pen laughed and reached a golden arm to pat him on the head. "If you didnтАЩt know, the impact
smashed all your old rocket craft to junk."

He drew quickly back.

"Really, my boy, you do belong here." Seeing his hurt, Uncle Pen spoke more gently. "You were cloned for your work here at the
station. A job that ought to make you proud."

Casey made an angry swipe across his eyes with the back of his hand and swallowed hard, but he kept his voice even.

"Maybe so. But whereтАЩs any danger now?"

Uncle Pen had an odd look. He took a long moment to answer.

"We are not aware of any actual threat from another impacting bolide. All the asteroids that used to approach EarthтАЩs orbit have
been diverted, most of them steered into the Sun."

"So?" CaseyтАЩs dark chin had a defiant jut. "Why did you want to dig us up?"

"For history." Uncle Pen looked away from us, up at the huge, far-off Earth. "I hope youтАЩre try to understand what that means. The
resurfaced Earth had lost nearly every trace of our beginning. Historians were trying to prove that we had evolved on some other
planet and migrated here. Tycho Station is proof that Earth is the actual mother world. IтАЩve found our roots here under the rubble."

"I guess you can be proud of that," Casey said, "but who needs the station now?"