"Jerry Oltion - Salvation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Oltion Jerry)

run it—that is to say, Congress—have a considerable investment in the
status quo,” said William. “And you will because the same equipment that
opens up the spatial dimensions can be used to open the temporal
dimension,” said William.

None of the regents, including Billy, wanted to touch that statement.

“I’m talking time travel,” William went on. “You could go back in time
and meet Jesus. Assuming he existed.”

****

Billy remembered that day in the boardroom with the clarity of a car
wreck. The pandemonium that erupted after the physicist’s statement was a
thing to behold. Three of the regents had begun shouting at once, accusing
him of blasphemy, chicanery, and outright flim-flammery, while two more
rose from their chairs and stalked out of the room. Old Roland had giggled
like a schoolgirl. And Billy had watched the scientist clench his jaw and
glower like a man who had played his last card and lost, but who had
expected every one of those reactions from such Philistines as these.

He couldn’t say why he invited William into his private office and
poured him a two-finger glass of his finest bourbon. Perhaps it was God
directing his will, or perhaps it was simple curiosity, or maybe even a touch
of admiration for this misguided sinner who nonetheless believed what he
believed with an intensity that rivaled Billy’s own faith in the Lord. Whatever
the reason, the two of them were soon talking like old fraternity buddies,
and William was telling Billy how his theories predicted time travel as an
almost inevitable consequence of dimensional transfer.

“Why did you come to us with this?” Billy asked him. “You don’t really
believe that we could go back in time to meet Jesus, do you? You don’t
even believe in Jesus.”

William swirled the last of his bourbon around the bottom of his glass.
“I believe there was probably a man named Jesus. Perhaps a very
remarkable man. But I believe he was just a man. And frankly, I would like
the chance to prove it to one of you true believers. Maybe if you saw what
he really was, you’d put your effort into reality instead of promoting a
fantasy.”

“Reality,” Billy snorted. “Like time travel.”

“Like time travel,” said William.

The man would have made an excellent televangelist. He believed
what he was saying with such intensity that he nearly made Billy believe it,
too, but that didn’t happen until the sheet of paper appeared in the air about
a foot above Billy’s desk and fluttered down to drape itself over the
telephone.