"Damon Knight - Beyond the Barrier" - читать интересную книгу автора (Knight Damon)

their recording equipment and sliding out of their seats.

Naismith turned and fumbled for the duplicator control. The
round brownish-black knob was hard to see, like a floating
shadow on the tabletop. He found it at last, and turned it
clockwise.

At once the half-empty classroom vanished. He was in the
tiny, circular control room, alone except for the duplicator
apparatus. His knees suddenly weak, he leaned against the
demonstration table. Discordant memories swarmed through
his head—nine sets of them, all at once, like interfering video
broadcasts. It was hard to take, just for a moment, but after
two years of it he was an experienced multiple-class teacher,
and the nine sets of memories settled quickly into place in his
mind.

As he prepared to leave, he became aware of an odd thing
that had happened. The demonstration itself had been exactly
the same in all nine classrooms, of course; it was only the
questions afterward that had been different, and even those
followed a familiar pattern.

But one of the students in—which was it? classroom 7—had
stepped up to the platform just as he was about to leave, and
had said something extraordinary.

He stood still, trying to bring the memory into sharper focus.
It was a dark-skinned girl who sat in the second row: Lall was
her name, probably Indian, although it was odd that she sat
apart from the whispering, giggling group of Indian girls, bright
in their saris and gold earrings, who perched at the top of the
classroom. She had looked up at him with her oddly disturbing
amber eyes, and had said in a distinct voice: "Professor, what is
a Zug?"

Nonsensical question! It had nothing to do with the demon-
stration, or with temporal energy at all—in fact, he was sure
there was no such word in the vocabulary of physics. And yet
it was odd what a shock had gone through him at her words: as
if, deep down in his subconscious, the question did mean
something—and something vital. He could remember snapping
to attention, all his senses taut, a cold sweat beading on his
forehead. . . .

And then what? What had he replied?

Nothing.

At that moment, the action of turning the control knob had