"Joe Haldeman - The Coming" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Joe)

any of this, did you?"
"No, I—I'm afraid I don't pay much attention to the news."
"Me neither, for a reporter. Since I specialize in science stories. My big newsmagazine is Nature."
Rory picked up a beige crystal. "Astrophysical Review Letters. All the latest gossip." She tapped
it on the table, thinking. "So what about this special? What will you want me to do?"
Marya interpreted the gesture as impatience. "Oh, don't worry. No rehearsal or lines or anything. I'll
just be interviewing you the way I did today, but in more depth. Bother you as little as possible."
"But I really do want to be involved. SETI is pretty far from my specialty, but I seem to be thrust
into it. Besides, it was a passion with me thirty years ago, when I was an undergraduate."
"Was that about the time they found the first source?"
 "Five or six years before that, actually. By the time they heard from Signal Alpha, I was pretty much
committed to the physics of nonthermal sources, academically—not much time for little green men."
"Who didn't materialize anyhow." Marya took a leatherbound bookfile from her purse, flipped
through the pages, and pulled out a blue crystal with seti-l printed in small block letters across the top.
"You have the Leon survey book?"
"No. Heard of it." She took the crystal and slipped it into the reader on the desk. It hummed a query
note, copyright, and Rory told it "general fund." It copied the crystal and ejected it. Rory looked at it.
"This has the raw data?"
"All three stars. The reductions, too."
"Well, we might want to redo them. It's been a few years, early forties?"
Marya squinted at the back of the crystal. "Twenty forty-three."
"Don't know how much has happened in eleven years." She asked the desk for the department
roster, and it appeared on two screens. "You'll be talking to Leon, I guess—he's where, Cal Tech?"
"Berkeley. I called his office and left a message asking for an appointment. But who do you have
doing SETI here in Gainesville?"
"No one specializing ... but Parker's pretty sharp. He does our radio astronomy courses, intro and
advanced, and he's kept up on SETI. Keeps the undergrads excited." She wrote his name and number
down on a slip of paper. "Excited as I was ... and will be again, looks like. Mysteries."
"It should be a good show. Network gave me two days to come up with forty-five minutes, though,
so I have to move." She put the crystal back, and hesitated. "Um ... can you sort of assign me someone?
Someone less senior than Parker, some grad assistant I could call at any ungodly hour for information?"
"No, I can't get you a grad assistant," she said, and studied Marya's reaction. "You're stuck with me,
I'm afraid. I wouldn't let anybody else share in the fun. Parker can give us both an update, but I'm your
pet astronomer for the project. Finders keepers."
The elevator bonged. "Well, hablar del diablo. Here comes Parker." A tall man, unshaven and
bleary-eyed but wearing a coat and tie with his kilt, shambled down the hall toward them. He had small
rimless glasses and a goatee.

Pepe Parker
He leaned against the doorjamb, a little out of breath. "Rory ... what the hell?"
"A reasonable question. Pepe Parker, this is Marya Washington."
He peered at the attractive black woman. "I know you. You're on television."
"Not at the moment," she said. "Newsnet asked me to put together a special on this message."
"And I took the liberty of volunteering you."
"Oh, muchas gracias. I had so much time on my hands."
"If you'd rather not—" Washington said.
He raised one hand. "Kidding. Look, I don't have half the story: Lisa Marie had the news on and
recognized your voice; she punched 'record' and woke me up. Or tried to. I was up at the dome till past
three,"
"What on earth for?"