"Robert F. Young - The Dandelion Girl" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

said. "I imagine the place has grown enormously by then."

"Oh, it has," she said. "It's part of a megalopolis now and extends all the way to there." She pointed to
the fringe of the forest at their feet. "Two Thousand and Fortieth Street runs straight through that grove of
sugar maples," she went on, "and do you see that stand of locusts over there?"

"Yes," he said, "I see them."

"That's where the new plaza is. Its supermarket is so big that it takes half a day to go through it, and you
can buy almost anything in it from aspirins to aerocars. And next to the supermarket, where that grove of
beeches stands, is a big dress shop just bursting with the latest creations of the leading couturiers. I
bought this dress I'm wearing there this very morning. Isn't it simply beautiful?"

If it was, it was because she made it so. However, he looked at it politely. It had been cut from a material
he was unfamiliar with, a material seemingly compounded of cotton candy, sea foam, and snow. There
was no limit any more to the syntheses that could be created by the miracle-fiber manufacturers—nor,
apparently, to the tall tales that could be created by young girls. "I suppose you traveled here by time
machine," he said.

"Yes. My father invented one."

He looked at her closely. He had never seen such a guileless countenance. "And do you come here
often?"

"Oh, yes. This is my favorite space-time coordinate. I stand here for hours sometimes and look and look
and look. Day before yesterday I saw a rabbit, and yesterday a deer, and today, you."

"But how can there be a yesterday," Mark asked, "if you always return to the same point in time?"

"Oh, I see what you mean," she said. "The reason is because the machine is affected by the passage of
time the same as anything else, and you have to set it back every twenty-four hours if you want to
maintain exactly the same co-ordinate. I never do because I much prefer a different day each time I come
back."

"Doesn't your father ever come with you?"

Overhead, a V of geese was drifting lazily by, and she watched it for some time before she spoke. "My
father is an invalid now," she said finally. "He'd like very much to come if he only could. But I tell him all
about what I see," she added hurriedly, "and it's almost the same as if he really came. Wouldn't you say it
was?"

There was an eagerness about the way she was looking at him that touched his heart. "I'm sure it is," he
said—then, "It must be wonderful to own a time machine."

She nodded solemnly. "They're a boon to people who like to stand on pleasant leas. In the twenty-third
century there aren't very many pleasant leas left."

He smiled. "There aren't very many of them left in the twentieth. I guess you could say that this one is sort
of a collector's item. I'll have to visit it more often."