Science Fiction: The Year's Best (2006 Edition). Аластер Рейнольдс

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ and protective. “Is that the mother?” Gretta asked.

      “That one’s male,” Everett said. “You can tell by the horns.” He launched into an explanation, which I didn’t listen to, having read the book.

      On the way back to the house, Gretta grumbled, “I suppose you want the number for my insurance company.”

      “I guess,” Everett said.

      They disappeared into her house for maybe twenty minutes and then Everett got into his clunker and drove away. Afterwards, I said to Delia, “I thought the whole point of the picnic was you and I were going to finally work out where we were going on vacation.” She hadn’t even brought along the travel books I’d bought her.

      “I think they like each other.”

      “Is that what this was about? You know, you’ve done some damn fool things in your time—”

      “Like what?” Delia said indignantly. “When have I ever done anything that was less than wisdom incarnate?”

      “Well…you married me.”

      “Oh, that.” She put her arms around me. “That was just the exception that proves the rule.”

      * * * *

      So, what with one thing and the other, the summer drifted by. Delia took to luring the Triceratops closer and closer to the house with cabbages and bunches of celery and such. Cabbages were their favorite. It got so that we were feeding the trikes off the back porch in the evenings. They’d come clomping up around sunset, hoping for cabbages but willing to settle for pretty much anything.

      It ruined the yard, but so what? Delia was a little upset when they got into her garden, but I spent a day putting up a good strong fence around it, and she replanted. She made manure tea by mixing their dung with water, and its effect on the plants was bracing. The roses blossomed like never before, and in August the tomatoes came up spectacular.

      I mentioned this to Dave Jenkins down at the home-and-garden and he looked thoughtful. “I believe there’s a market for that,” he said. “I’ll buy as much of their manure as you can haul over here.”

      “Sorry,” I told him, “I’m on vacation.”

      Still, I couldn’t get Delia to commit to a destination. Not that I quit trying. I was telling her about the Atlantis Hotel on Paradise Island one evening when suddenly she said, “Well, look at this.”

      I stopped reading about swimming with dolphins and the fake undersea ruined city, and joined her at the door. There was Everett’s car—the new one that Gretta’s insurance had paid for—parked out front of her house. There was only one light on, in the kitchen. Then that one went out too.

      We figured those two had worked through their differences.

      An hour later, though, we heard doors slamming, and the screech of Everett’s car pulling out too fast. Then somebody was banging on our screen door. It was Gretta. When Delia let her in, she burst out into tears. Which surprised me. I wouldn’t have pegged Everett as that kind of guy.

      I made some coffee while Delia guided her into a kitchen chair, and got her some tissues, and soothed her down enough that she could tell us why she’d thrown Everett out of her house. It wasn’t anything he’d done apparently, but something he’d said.

      “Do you know what he told me?” she sobbed.

      “I think I do,” Delia said.

      “About timelike—”

      “—loops. Yes, dear.”

      Gretta looked stricken. “You too? Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell everybody?”

      “I considered it,” I said. “Only then I thought, what would folks do if they knew their actions no longer mattered? Most would behave decently enough. But a few would do some pretty bad things, I’d think. I didn’t want to be responsible for that.”

      She was silent for a while.

      “Explain to me again about timelike loops,” she said at last. “Ev tried, but by then I was too upset to listen.”

      “Well, I’m not so sure myself. But the way he explained it to me, they’re going to fix the problem by going back to the moment before the rupture occurred and preventing it from ever happening in the first place. When that happens, everything from the moment of rupture to the moment when they go back to apply the patch separates from the trunk timeline. It just sort of drifts away, and dissolves into nothingness—never was, never will be.”

      “And what becomes of us?”

      “We just go back to whatever we were doing when the accident happened. None the worse for wear.”

      “But without memories.”

      “How can you remember something that never happened?”

      “So Ev and I—”

      “No, dear,” Delia said gently.

      “How much time do we have?”

      “With a little luck, we have the rest of the summer,” Delia said. “The question is, how do you want to spend it?”

      “What does it matter,” Gretta said bitterly. “If it’s all going to end?”

      “Everything ends eventually. But after all is said and done, it’s what we do in the meantime that matters, isn’t it?”

      The conversation went on for a while more. But that was the gist of it.

      Eventually, Gretta got out her cell and called Everett. She had him on speed dial, I noticed. In her most corporate voice, she said, “Get your ass over here,” and snapped the phone shut without waiting for a response.

      She didn’t say another word until Everett’s car pulled up in front of her place. Then she went out and confronted him. He put his hands on his hips. She grabbed him and kissed him. Then she took him by the hand and led him back into the house.

      They didn’t bother to turn on the lights.

      * * * *

      I stared at the silent house for a little bit. Then I realized that Delia wasn’t with me anymore, so I went looking for her.

      She was out on the back porch. “Look,” she whispered.

      There was a full moon and by its light we could see the Triceratops settling down to sleep in our backyard. Delia had managed to lure them all the way in at last. Their skin was all silvery in the moonlight; you couldn’t make out the patterns on their frills. The big trikes formed a kind of circle around the little ones. One by one, they closed their eyes and fell asleep.

      Believe it or not, the big bull male snored.

      It came to me then that we didn’t have much time left. One morning soon we’d wake up and it would be the end of spring and everything would be exactly as it was before the dinosaurs came. “We ever did get to Paris or London or Rome СКАЧАТЬ