"Lester Del Rey - Nerves" - читать интересную книгу автора (Del Rey Lester)

concerned only with the health and safety of the men. "I'll have to talk it
over with Emma," he growled at last. "Where'll you be in ten minutes? Home?"
"I'm at the plant."
Doc looked at the clock. Just after six. If Palmer thought things were that
serious . . . Yet it was the last day of Dick's brief visit home from medical
school, and they'd been planning on this day all week! Emma had her heart set
on making it a happy family affair.
A sound from the head of the stairs made him look up. Emma was standing there
in a cotton robe and worn old slippers. Without make-up and with her hair
hanging loose, she looked like a little girl who had grown old overnight
without quite understanding it. Her face was carefully stripped of expression;
she'd learned to conceal her feelings back in the days when Ferrel had
maintained a general practice. But the tautness of her throat muscles and the
way she cinched the belt around her too-thin figure showed that she had heard
and how she felt.
She shrugged and nodded, trying to smile at him as she started down the
stairs, favoring her bad hip.
"Breakfast will take a little time," she said quietly. "Try to get some sleep.
I'll wake Dick and explain it to him."
She was heading for the kitchen as he turned back to the phone. "All right,
Palmer. I'll be out. Nine okay?"
"Thanks, Doc. Nine will be fine," Palmer answered. Emma was already starting
coffee in the kitchen. Doc turned toward her, and then hesitated. She was
right; he needed the extra sleep.
Sleep wouldn't come, though. The resiliency of youth was long gone, and now
even the sound habits of his middle life seemed to be failing. Maybe Blake was
right in his kidding; maybe he was growing old! He had caught himself
wondering as he looked at the firm-muscled figure of his son, so like Doc's
memory of himself at the same age, and so unlike what the mirror showed now.
The situation at plant kept gnawing at his mind. He'd neglected of it, though
aware of the growing tension, this sudden revival of the fear of atomic plants
after so many years. Citizens' protest meetings. Bills submitted to Congress-
bills that would force most atomic plants to move far from inhabited
territory. But he'd put that all down to the normally noisy crackpot fringe.
Still, if Palmer took it seriously, maybe he'd been wrong. Maybe things had
really got worse since the breakdown of the Croton atomic plant a few months
ago. It was only a minor mishap there, really. But it had resulted in a mild
dose of radiation contamination over a hundred square miles or more; it seemed
to be nobody's fault, but it had been a nine-days' newspaper scandal, and it
might have served as a focal point for all the buried superstitions and fears
about atomics.
Ferrel finally gave up and began dressing, surprised at how much time had gone
already. The house was filled with the smell of hot biscuits, and he realized
Emma was making a production of their last meal together on their only
vacation. He heard her waking Dick and explaining the situation while he
shaved. The boy sounded a lot less disappointed over the changed plans than
she did; somehow, children seemed to care less than their parents about such
things.
The boy was already at the table when Doc came down, poring over the pages of
the early edition of the Kimberly Republican. He glanced up and passed over