"Robert F. Young - Passage to Gomorrah" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

Cross complied. She did not move an inch, and his arm, despite his efforts to avoid touching her,
brushed her thigh. He withdrew quickly. His arm tingled and his hands were trembling. He kept his eyes
averted because he knew what she would read in them. "If you wish anything further, I'll be in my cabin,"
he said. He turned to go.
"Wait," she said.
"Yes?"
"HowтАФhow long will we be in A Priori?"
"A little over four hours, ship's time."
"IsтАФis there any likelihood of a time storm?"
The question surprised him. Passengers, especially passen-gers of the Lady Berenice's status, did not
usually concern themselves with the exigen-cies of space travel. They took it for granted, unless
other-wise apprised, that such ex-igencies did not exist. "There is always a chance of a time storm," he
said. "But don't worry, my lady. If the condi-tions for one are present, we will be contacted by the port
authority in time to avoid it."
"But suppose something should go wrong. Suppose we weren't informed in time and did get involved
in one. What would happen then?"
He could not keep his eyes averted forever, and he forced himself to meet her gaze. He was mildly
shocked to see that a quantity of her composure had left her, that there was a certain diffidence in the
ex-pression on her face.
Presently: "As you may know, my lady," he said, "A Priori is merely the result of the separation of
pure space and pure time from the thing-in-itself, or from basic real-ity. Once separated, pure space can
be contracted to the extent where a parsec equals .59 kilometers. Usually pure time contracts
accordingly, but sometimes there is a slight discrepancy, and certain phases of A Priori contain more
time than space. If we should become involved in one of these phasesтАФor storms if you likeтАФwe would
lose our awareness of our objective reality and proceed to relive a subjective and sporadic play-back of
our pasts. So all that could happen to us, actually, are the things that have al-ready happened to usтАФwith
the difference that we would relive not only our own expe-riences, but one another's as well; in pure time,
individuality does not exist."
"But wouldn't our objective reality be affected?"
He nodded. "It could be," he said, "since, in the absence of any real passage of time, it would be in
temporal ratio to our involvement in our pasts, which might force it into a different time plane altogether."
She dropped her eyes. "ThenтАФthen in spite of what you said before, something could happen after
allтАФsomething that hasn't happened before."
"I suppose so, my lady ... Will that be all?"
"YesтАФfor now."
"I'll be in my cabin ..."

"Cabin" was a euphemism for "cubicle." The cramped compartment adjoining the control room
contained a couch, a desk, a small micro-film library and a well-stocked liquor cabinet, but that was
about all. Cross opened the cabinet and poured himself a generous brandy. He drank it fast, then he lay
down on the couch and tried to sleep. He always slept out the A Priori phases of his runs if they were
under eight hours, but he had a good idea that he was going to have a hard time sleeping this one out. He
was right. The minute he closed his eyes he saw a white towel and a golden sunrise of shoulders; two
breath-taking colon-nades of tanned, glistening fleshтАФThere was no sleeping after that.

He swore aloud. Surely she must realize that an ordinary Pilot like himself couldn't af-ford her. Then
why had she deliberately exhibited her deluxe charms? Why had she deliberately delayed him at the door
with so obviously false an excuse as a discussion on the unstable phase of A priori? He was certainly not
naive enough to think that, just because she was a fallen lady of the stars, she would waive her fee. If
fourteen years space had taught him nothing else, it had taught him that any extraterrestrial act of love was