"Jack Williamson - Hindsight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williamson Jack)

None of our ships able to undertake rescue. We'll be baked alive."
His hollow eyes stared dully at Brek. "In those two minutes, you destroyed the
Astrarchy." His voice seemed merely tired, strangely without bitterness. "Just two
minutes," he murmured wearily. "If time could be recaptured"
"Yes," Brek said, "I stopped the autosight." He lifted his gaunt shoulders
defiantly, and met the menacing stares of the spacemen. "And they can do nothing
about it?"
"Can you?" Hope flickered in the Astrarch's eyes.
"Once you told me, Veronar, that the past could be changed. Then I wouldn't
listen. But nowtry anything you can. You might be able to save yourself from the
unpleasantness that my men are planning."
Looking at the muttering men, Brek shook his head. "I was mistaken," he said
deliberately. "I failed to take account of the twoway nature of time. But the future, I
see now, is as real as the past. Aside from the direction of entropy change and the
flow of consciousness, future and past cannot be distinguished.
"The future determines the past, as much as the past does the future. It is
possible to trace out the determiner factors, and even, with sufficient power, to
cause a local deflection of the geodesics. But world lines are fixed in the future, as
rigidly as in the past. However the factors are rearranged, the end result will always
be the same."
The Astrarch's waxen face was ruthless. "Then, Veronar, you are doomed."
Slowly, Brek smiled. "Don't call me Veronar," he said softly. "I remembered,
just in time, that I am William Webster, Earthman. You can kill me in any way you
please. But the defeat of the Astrarchy and the new freedom of Earth are fixed in
timeforever."