"Michael McCollum - Thunderstrike" - читать интересную книгу автора (McCollum Michael)

Amber Hastings sat in the Farside Observatory Staff Lounge and enjoyed a breakfast of waffles
smothered in strawberry syrup, hot buttered toast, and tea laced with levosugar. She watched the lounge
viewscreen as she ate. Normally it would have been tuned to the newscast from Luna City. Instead,
someone had patched into a view from one of the surface cameras. It showed a large wheeled,
articulated vehicle making its way along the rough track leading from Hadley’s Crossroads. The
undulating crater floor made the transport’s headlamps dance across the screen, leaving phantom trails of
activated phosphors in their wake.

The transport was a TransLuna Greyhound Lines rolligon. It made the 120-kilometer run twice each
month - once at the start of the long lunar night and again just before dawn. Hadley’s Crossroads was
the closest stop on the CircumLuna Monorail Line, and the point through which all of the observatory’s
supplies were shipped.
As she savored her breakfast, Amber considered (not for the first time) the paradox of siting one of
humanity’s most advanced scientific instruments in the wilderness. It was a paradox familiar to
astronomers of all eras. Astronomers on Earth had long fought a losing battle against the encroachment
of civilization. No matter how remote a mountain they chose for their instruments, eventually the sky
would begin to reflect the lights of a nearby city.

Light pollution was no problem for Farside Observatory, but oxygen pollution was. In the airless
environment of Luna, spacecraft exhausts sprayed monatomic oxygen over hundreds of square
kilometers. Monatomic oxygen poisoned the special optical coatings onThe Big Eye ’s mirrors, and any
appreciable amount of it would seriously degrade the telescope’s performance. To protect against such
damage, the director of the observatory had banned all spacecraft within seventy-five kilometers. Thus,
the only way in or out was overland. Amber would be due for leave in another couple of months. She
was looking forward to going home, but not the four-hour rolligon ride to reach the monorail.

“So there you are!” a voice said from behind her.

Amber looked up to discover Niels Grayson standing over her. Grayson was one of the senior
astronomers and Amber’s mentor. Rumor had it that he would be the next Director of the Observatory if
old Doctor Meinz ever decided to retire. She hoped the rumor was correct. The other candidate for the
job was Professor Dornier, who topped Amber’s list of the people she would rather not work for.

“Hello, Niels,” she said. “Looking for me?”

“That I am, my most beautiful assistant.”

“I’m youronly assistant.”

“Which only proves my point. Mind if I sit down?”

“Be my guest.”

Grayson sat on the aluminum bench across from Amber. He cradled a low gravity cup in his hands, and
sipped coffee from it. He gestured toward the screen. “I notice the roll-on’s coming in.”

“Right on time. I wonder if supply remembered to send that new interferometer this time.”