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- Исаак Азимов
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- Стр. 1/248
The end of Eternity
Andrew
Harlan
stepped
into
the
kettle
.
Its
sides
were
perfectly
round
and
it
fit
snugly
inside
a
vertical
shaft
composed
of
widely
spaced
rods
that
shimmered
into
an
unseeable
haze
six
feet
above
Harlan
’
s
head
.
Harlan
set
the
controls
and
moved
the
smoothly
working
starting
lever
.
The
kettle
did
not
move
.
Harlan
did
not
expect
it
to
.
He
expected
no
movement
;
neither
up
nor
down
,
left
nor
right
,
forth
nor
back
.
Yet
the
spaces
between
the
rods
had
melted
into
a
gray
blankness
which
was
solid
to
the
touch
,
though
nonetheless
immaterial
for
all
that
.
And
there
was
the
little
stir
in
his
stomach
,
the
faint
(
psychosomatic
?
)
touch
of
dizziness
,
that
told
him
that
all
the
kettle
contained
,
including
himself
,
was
rushing
upwhen
through
Eternity
.
He
had
boarded
the
kettle
in
the
575th
Century
,
the
base
of
operations
assigned
him
two
years
earlier
.
At
the
time
the
575th
had
been
the
farthest
upwhen
he
had
ever
traveled
.
Now
he
was
moving
upwhen
to
the
2456th
Century
.
Under
ordinary
circumstances
he
might
have
felt
a
little
lost
at
the
prospect
.
His
native
Century
was
in
the
far
downwhen
,
the
95th
Century
,
to
be
exact
.
The
95th
was
a
Century
stiffly
restrictive
of
atomic
power
,
faintly
rustic
,
fond
of
natural
wood
as
a
structural
material
,
exporters
of
certain
types
of
distilled
potables
to
nearly
everywhen
and
importers
of
clover
seed
.
Although
Harlan
had
not
been
in
the
95th
since
he
entered
special
training
and
became
a
Cub
at
the
age
of
fifteen
,
there
was
always
that
feeling
of
loss
when
one
moved
outwhen
from
"
home
.
"
At
the
2456th
he
would
be
nearly
two
hundred
forty
millennia
from
his
birthwhen
and
that
is
a
sizable
distance
even
for
a
hardened
Eternal
.
Under
ordinary
circumstances
all
this
would
be
so
.
But
right
now
Harlan
was
in
poor
mood
to
think
of
anything
but
the
fact
that
his
documents
were
heavy
in
his
pocket
and
his
plan
heavy
on
his
heart
.
He
was
a
little
frightened
,
a
little
tense
,
a
little
confused
.
It
was
his
hands
acting
by
themselves
that
brought
the
kettle
to
the
proper
halt
at
the
proper
Century
.
Strange
that
a
Technician
should
feel
tense
or
nervous
about
anything
.
What
was
it
that
Educator
Yarrow
had
once
said
:
