"Lee Killough - Symphony for a Lost Traveler" - читать интересную книгу автора (Killough Lee)

their genetic matter sing a different song? And Ashendene offered her the chance to see first.
Breathlessly, she asked, "When may I see a printout of the nucleotide sequence?"
A thin smile crossed his mouth. "Today. I'll have it brought to your room. There's a computer station
and synthesizer already there for you, but if you need anything else, just ask for it. Albert will show you
the way."
***


Her "room" consisted of a large suite, one entire wall of which had been built of the same polyplastic
as the dome and looked out into the crater. Neither Earth nor Ashendene's study were visible from it; just
moonscape, starkly lifeless in patterns of black and silver, with the crater ringwall rising jaggedly into the
velvet-and-diamond canopy of sky.
Staring out, she caught a reflection of the room: the butler entering with an overall-clad young woman
pushing a contra-gee cart piled with computer printout. Cimela lost all interest in the crater. Pulse leaping,
she spun on the cart and fingered the printout in anticipation. "Did you bring holos of the aliens, too?"
The young woman shook her head. "They didn't give me any."
Cimela frowned. She needed them to pick appropriate instruments and tempi, and to build the holo
track. She would have to ask Ashendene for them.
The butler and technician set the printout on the floor while Cimela unpacked her electronic keyboard.
After the door slid closed behind them, she arranged the paper in a circle on the carpet, creating her own
ringwall. Then she sat cross-legged in the center, keyboard in her lap, and began reading through the
nearest stack of printout.
Some corner of her mind remembered a servant serving supper, and that she flung herself on the bed
for awhile, but most of her awareness focused on the nucleotide sequences. She saw nothing else and
heard only the music they made in her head and on the keyboard.
The computer had not printed out the chemical structure, either as formulas or zigzag diagrams, but the
terminology told her the aliens' "DNA" differed from humans': A', G', C', and T' where A, G, C, and T
usually stood for the nucleotides, plus two more named PU-3 and PY-3, indicating an addition purine
and pyrimidine. Six nucleotides! Their genetics must be very complex... but more than that, this time she
had six notes to work with.
Except that a seventh, out of key, kept intruding. She tried to ignore it.
"Ms. Bediako!"
Cimela started with enough force to lift her off the carpet. Turning, she met the keen gaze of moondust
eyes regarding her from the doorway.
Ashendene floated his chair into the room. "I came to check on you. Alfred said you didn't touch
breakfast or lunch and wouldn't answer the door chime."
Meals? Door chime? Oh... the seventh note. She grimaced. "I should have warned you how engrossed
I become when I work."
A brow quirked. "Indeed. However, I didn't bring you here to expire from anorexia. To reassure me
of your nutrition, will you have dinner with me this evening?"
Dinner? That would mean losing two or three hours of working time. Still, it might also give her the
chance to learn where the steely businessman became the lover of fantasy. "Thank you. What time and
where?"
"I take my meals in my room normally. Alfred will be pouring the wine at nineteen hundred hours. It's a
house vintage, from grapes in our hydroponics farm. I think you'll like it."
Spinning his chair, Ashendene sailed it out of the room. Only after the door had closed behind him did
Cimela remember that she had forgotten to ask him for holos of the aliens. Shrugging, she returned to
work.
By eighteen hundred hours she had decided on the length of the symphony, chosen the key, and
decided that the notes from Mi up to Do would comprise her scale. She stood stiffly, stretching, ready