Eifelheim (Michael Flynn) читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги

Eifelheim by Michael F. Flynn

For God is deaf nowadays and will not hear us,

And for our guilt he grinds good men to dust.

Williman Langland, Piers Ploughman

C’est le chemin qu’on appelle le Val d’Enfer. Que votre Altesse me pardonne l’expression; je ne suis pas diable pour y passer.

Marshal Villars, regarding the Höllenthal, 1702

Preface: Anton

I know where the path to the stars lies. The gate opened once, a long time ago and in a far and unlikely place. And then it closed. This is the story of how it opened and of how it closed and perhaps of what hinged upon it.

You see, Sharon Nagy was a physicist and Tom Schwoerin was a cliologist. That was the heart of the business right there. That was the beginning of it and the end of it and most of what happened in between.

Or perhaps you don’t, for the seeing was not easy. Medieval settlement patterns and multiple brane theory seem worlds apart. Indeed, they are worlds apart, tangent only in that small apartment in Philadelphia that Tom and Sharon shared. But at such close quarters they could not avoid learning a little of each other’s work, and that was the fulcrum on which they turned the world.

But I was into the affair last and least of all, and perhaps it would be best to let the story tell itself.

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