 |
 |
|
|
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] longer. It was Orlene's life he was following, backward. Her individual motions were too rapid for him to focus on, but her surroundings had more staying power. A building she had spent time in-perhaps a school- abruptly vanished. It had been unconstructed, and she moved on to a lesser school, more crowded. Trees around her home slowly shrank, their foliage flickering on and off through the seasons, the deciduous trees becoming suddenly clothed in bright leaves which then faded to green and eventually sucked back into the twigs and branches. The lawn grass kept jumping high, then smoothing down till nearly bald, then being mowed high again. The house became brightly painted, then abruptly turned dull. He brought himself to a random halt. He was in a school class, looking at a girl about ten years old. The scene was strange; in a moment he realized this was because he was viewing it backward. He had halted himself, not time, and now was living normally, for him. No one here was aware of him-but if he changed to match the world's time flow, he would become visible, disrupting the scene, so he let it be. This was evidently a cooking class, with the teacher demonstrating how to bake a pie by using pyro- magic. Under her reversed guidance, the demonstration pie proceeded from brown to gold and on into pasty white. Norton watched the young Orlene, a pretty girl even at this age. Alas, she was not paying full attention, but was whispering with a female companion in girlish fashion. Her pie would probably be botched. He turned the sand red and moved a few years into this Orlene's future, then watched her backward again. This time she was lying on her bed at home, in jeans and a man's shirt-what was there about men's shirts that caused girls to prefer them to their own?-chatting into her holophone. It was a boy in the image, tousle-haired, animated, obviously full of the enthusiasm of the moment. Orlene was now about fifteen, and was assuming much of her adult beauty; he recognized some of her little mannerisms, as yet unperfected. He felt a surge of nostalgia; this girl was in the visible process of becoming the woman he had loved. He moved three more years along her life, to her age eighteen. Now she was playing squash with a young man. It was a game that brought the active players into close proximity, since they shared the court as they slammed the ball against the wall, and therefore seemed to be popular for mixed couples. The man was obviously beating her, but the motions of her body as she strove for points were beautiful. The ball rebounded and flew at her, and she swung her racket backward to intersect it, whereupon it flew back from her while she wore a look of expectant concentration. Orlene had matured into a healthy, lovely young woman, and it was sweetly painful for Norton to look at her. Those limbs, that torso, that face with the backward-flying hair-he had known them all intimately, in her present future. Those lips- a a T T n n s s F F f f o o D D r r P P m m Y Y e e Y Y r r B B 2 2 . . B B A A Click here to buy Click here to buy w w m m w w o o w w c c . . . . A A Y Y B B Y Y B B r r he had kissed them, years hence. Orlene-he would love her and loved her still. He followed her through to the beginning of the game, when she was fresh, clean, unglowing, and ready for anything. She bade hello to her opponent-date and strode backward away from him to the female changing room. Norton hesitated, then decided not to pursue her there; he knew what her body was like, but this was inappropriate peeking. He was not doing this just to be a voyeur. He wanted to rescue the woman he loved from her dreadful fate. Now he knew he could do it; his experience in rescuing himself from the Bem in the Glob had proved that. He was immune from paradox; he could change his own past and those of others without nullifying his present. He did not intend to abuse this power, but he did intend to spare her. Where was the best place to act? When was best? Probably before he, Norton, had met her, so he would not have to interfere openly with himself. Would this nullify his association with her? Yes, surely it would-but that would be replaced by a new association, a better one. In fact, he could void the whole ghost marriage and marry her himself. But first he had better make sure of his power. He wanted to interact with her in a noncritical period of her life, not to change anything, just to be sure he knew what he was doing. This was no ordinary person; this was Orlene! He moved back along the thread to her childhood, to the time when she was seven years old, on her summer vacation after her first year of formal school. Now she was not using a holophone, because that instrument had not yet been commercially developed; the old sonic ones were still extant. Anyway, she was too young for social interchanges with interested boys; she was a wild-honeyhaired spirit, running through one of the early city rooftop parks. The trees were still in big pots, and ramparts showed; true wilderness was a thing of future parks. A lot of the bad old pollution and messiness remained in the world; soon the political climate would change, greatly facilitating improvement, but it had not happened at this moment. She was with a party of children, but strayed from them, skipped happily down a bypath, and got lost. Worried, she gazed at the several bifurcations of the paved path, unsure which to take. Norton, having traveled past her immediate future, knew that she would be lost for a good thirty-five minutes, an eternity at that age, and be in tears before a park attendant rescued her from bewilderment and brought her back to her party. This was the appropriate time to approach her. He tuned in to the beginning other isolation and turned the sand green. Now he was in phase with her. "Hello, Orlene," he said gently. He was a grown man and she was a child, but he felt almost shy. She stopped her nervous ambulation and turned quickly to face him. "Oh-I didn't see you!" she exclaimed. "Who are you, mister, in that funny dress?" He was wearing the white robe of his office, of course. "I am-" He hesitated; he hadn't thought this through. He couldn't tell her he was Chronos; she would hardly understand. Neither could he tell her he was her future lover. "A friend." "Can you tell me how to get back?" "I'll try. I think it's this way." He gestured toward the correct path, and they walked along it. "How did you know my name?" Orlene asked brightly. "I've seen you in school." "Oh, you're a teacher!" she exclaimed, as if it were the most important thing in the world. "Well-" But she was already skipping ahead, her piggybraids flouncing. I love her even as a child, he thought, surprised and somewhat awed at the extent of his own a a T T n n s s F F f f o o D D r r P P m m Y Y e e Y Y r r B B 2 2 . . B B A A Click here to buy Click here to buy w w m m w w o o w w c c . . . . A A Y Y B B Y Y B B r r [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |