"Clarke, J Brian - The Last Walk" - читать интересную книгу автора (Clark Brian)

Alright, so I was here.
So was the most remarkable visitor in recorded human
history.
And all I could do was complain, "What is going on?"

I do not know what I would have done with my life if
Gail Sovergarde was not part of it. A media personality who
was known on millions of home screens, we met when she
interviewed me on air about my work on shift dispersion. By
the time my team perfected S.D., she and I shared an
apartment. She was with me aboard the converted Mars bulk
carrier Francis Bacon when we shifted to a parallel
continuum and diverted the asteroid which in our continuum
impacted Earth at the end of the Cretaceous and destroyed
the dinosaurs. We remained in that other continuum, time-
shifting in one hundred thousand year increments as the
dinosaurs continued to evolve. We prudently returned to our
own time and space when the dinosaur descendants entered
their industrial revolution--long before they had the
technology to detect our orbiting ship.
That they would eventually develop S.D. themselves and
shift here to satisfy their curiosity as to how life would
develop on a post-impact Aelak, perhaps should have been
anticipated. Now they were here, in a ship resembling a
gigantic soap bubble, which fifty days after it entered
orbit above our world, exuded a smaller bubble which
descended to the Cape and disgorged the being who now sat in
my apartment.
Ottrah waited patiently as Gail explained;
"Freddy, I am just as much in the dark. After you
dropped me at the network, I pulled in every string I could
think of, and for my efforts got no more than I have already
reported from the Cape. I was still sulking when a smarmy
bureaucrat called and told I was about to be picked up and
brought here. When I got into the limo and saw who was in
the back seat--"
"It was I," said our guest, misunderstanding the
nuances of human speech. "I informed your leaders I am here
to converse with the human responsible for the asteroid
diversion which saved my species from extinction. Although I
sensed your leaders were displeased, they agreed to provide
appropriate transportation."
Gail asked, "Why am I along? It is not that I object,
but--"
"Pair bonding is an important characteristic of your
species, is it not? You are a trained observer, are you not?
Together with your mate's talents as a scientist, we deduced
a duality greater than its parts."
I swallowed, slid a hand into my pocket and pinched my
thigh hard enough to make me wince. I did not wake up, so I