"Robert F. Young - To Touch a Star" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

term the ancients still hadn't the faintest conception of the true nature of the force at their
fingertips, nor would they guess for another hundred years that ChiMuZeta in its ultimate form is
an Anti-Paradox Manifestation—a force created in a star by the cosmos in order to stabilize the
present by filling in hiatuses—and correcting their accompanying inconsistencies—in the
past—hiatuses occasioned by mankind's unconscious ability to create en masse . . .

WHEN POWERS next saw Mary he was seated before the viewscreen in the chart room wearing
a synthi-lead suit that weighed nearly one hundred pounds. He was looking at the Blue Star, which now
filled the screen and about which the ship would shortly go into orbit.
Mary materialized next to the screen—it was as though she had stepped through the bulkhead. The
photon filter had toned down Extend's brilliance to a gentle hue that almost matched the color of her
uniform.
She asked, "Comfortable, Ben?"
He glared at her through the suit's faceplate.
"I know who you are now," he said into the transmitter. "Keats saw you by the lake. You're La Belle
Dame Sans Merci. You're Death."
"You're jumping the gun, Ben. When Keats saw the lady he was dying. You didn't get anywhere near
enough Beta-Tau radiation to put you in an analogous fix."
"You sound disappointed."
"I am."
"Bitch."
She grinned. "Why don't you take off your suit, Ben? The storm's safely behind us."
It was true and he almost fell for her suggestion. Then he saw that rime was forming on the
viewscreen controls and on all the other metal parts in the room. Cold sweat came out on his forehead
and ran down into his eyes.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" he said. And then: "What's the temperature out there?"
"A cool minus four hundred and ten Fahrenheit and dropping. Come on out, Ben—it's quite
refreshing."
"You opened all the locks?"
"Every one. And that's not all I did, Ben."
He did not need to ask what she meant. For some time now he had been aware of a growing
heaviness in his limbs. Tentatively he tried to raise his right arm, found that he could barely do so. And
when he tried to stand he only half-succeeded, then collapsed back into the chair.
He estimated his weight, suit and all, to be about eight hundred and seventy pounds.
Mary was grinning at him. "Three G's were all I could muster. My artificial-gray unit isn't what it
should be."
How long could he endure three G's? And how much oxygen did he have left? A glance at the
indicator informed him that he had a thirty-five-hour supply. More than enough to see him through two
orbits. As for the suit, it would be no hindrance—it kept out Beta-Tau radiation but not ChiMuZeta.
But what then? How would he reprogram the ship if he couldn't move out of his chair?
But he would be able to move out of his chair. When all of the chips were down, Mary would have
to turn down the grav-unit. If she didn't she, too, would face disintegration.
She hadn't won; then, after all.
From the way she continued to grin at him, though, you would have thought she had.
She said, "In about a day and a half you'll be dead. Why don't you give up the ghost now?"
"In a day and a half," Powers said, "we'll be in our third orbit around Extend. Doesn't that mean
anything to you?"
 "Only that you'll be dead."
Clearly she did not know—probably because her builders, in view of the fact that none of the
commercial routes came anywhere near Extend, hadn't thought it necessary to include the data in her