"James Patrick Kelly - The Propogation of Light in a Vaccuum (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

(Other women kept staring at you. You were so handsome and everyone knew
you'd
be famous someday. I didn't like the way you looked back. I wanted you to see
me. Only me.)
I never stay in the fx lounge very long. I want to relax but I can't. I hear
things, even over the ocean soundtrack. The hull creaks under the stress of
whatever is outside. If I rest my head on the floor, I can feel the vibration
of
the ship in my molars. My imaginary wife tries to make conversation, divert
me
with her memories of what might have been. But somewhere on board a
thermostat
clicks and a vent opens. What machine makes a sound like a cough? I have to
get
up and see. Either the ship or my imagination is haunted. I miss Varina.
(I can be her for you. Anyone you want. Where are you going? Wait. At least
get
dressed first.)
Here's a theory. Say you're travelling at 299,792.46 kilometers per second
and
for some unknown reason you want to go faster. You would then exceed the
speed
of light propagated in a vacuum. But what if spacetime does not yield up its
absolute so easily? You attempt to accelerate beyond c to, say, c+v, the
smallest, the most infinitesimal increment in velocity you can imagine.
However,
there's still a little infinity lurking between c and c+v, no matter what
value
you assign to v. What if it takes forever to achieve c+v? What if the speed
of
light is not a limit, only a barrier? You could spend all time crossing it --
probability's revenge.
(But that doesn't explain where everyone went.)
Maybe they realized what was happening. That we were trapped. So they step
into
the airlock, cycle through and leap into eternity.
(All of them? What about you?)
I see them going one by one at first. Later in groups. They ask me; I can't
bring myself to make the leap. Because I have you. Obviously. I'm traumatized;
I
blank it out. And I only am escaped alone to tell thee.
(Very dramatic; it fits you. You've always had a bigger ego than you cared to
admit. But please don't go in there. It always upsets you.)
A typical day, my sweet. This is the control room of a starship. The bridge
between reason and the irrational. Not what you expected? Every surface here
is
a screen, just like in the fx. I can black the entire room out or put on a
light
show of instrumentation. From here I can access the computer, view just about
any corner of the ship, cook pizza for fifty-one, fiddle with the internal