"Martin, Michael A - AtTheCavern" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin Michael A)

"Your John Lennon is a rock star?" I asked incredulously.

Dusk lay over the English seaport town like a thin, cold blanket. My Other and I
found ourselves in a small booth in yet another dockside pub. Two live pints of
Guinness, amid several dead soldiers, lay on the table between us. By now we'd
decided to trust each other enough to exchange our palmtop computers as we
exchanged stories and agendas. After fifteen minutes or so of this, I handed his
palmtop back to him and he returned mine.

"So you're saying," I slurred, "that after Lennon's mother dies he becomes
embittered and devotes himself entirely to this . . . music."

"That's right," he said, lighting a cigarette. I wished he'd quit that. "He was
never the same after Julia Stanley was taken from him."

"On my timeline," I said, "she nearly outlived him. And Lennon himself lived to
a ripe old age. How long does he live on your timeline?"

"He'll be shot to death just after turning forty," he said sadly. "A crazed
fan."

I shook my head. "He'd be a lot better off on my timeline."

He sloshed his mug absently, the cigarette dangling from his lip. "So we not
only have the same Subject to protect, but the same Critical Incident to
oversee."

"Then we have a huge problem," I said. "Julia Stanley must survive whatever you
think is supposed to happen to her on Tuesday, July 15, 1958. Otherwise, my
Subject will never have the opportunity to write all the books he's responsible
for back on my timeline."

"On Tuesday night a drunken off-duty cop is going to drive down her street just
a little too fast," he said deliberately, meeting my eyes and holding my gaze as
though trying to make his sincerity absolutely convincing. "She's going to be
walking home that night from her sister's house. The cop won't see her, and
she'll be killed. If you change that, Lennon's adolescence will cascade into
completely different and unrecognizable channels."

"I recognize them," I said belligerently.

"The world will never hear about a rock band called the Beatles."

I shrugged. I could see that this meant a great deal to him. But stacked next to
Lennon's literary output on my timeline the events my counterpart described on
his seemed rather frivolous. After all, I'd never heard of the Beatles, or the
Silver Beetles, or whatever the hell those noisy, posing thugs had called
themselves. On the other hand, my Other had never had the pleasure of reading
The Sun Kings. It made sense that he would be as resolute as I was, given his