"Dan Simmons - Phases of Gravity" - читать интересную книгу автора (Simmons Dan)

'I've been here for three months,' she said. 'Scott rarely has time to see me, but I'm there if he
does. In Poona, I mean. I found a job as governess . . . not really governess, I guess, but sort of a
tutor . . . with this nice doctor's family there? In the old British section? Anyway, I was with
Scott last week when he got your cable.'
'Oh,' said Baedecker. He could think of nothing else to say for several seconds. Overhead, a
small jet climbed for altitude. 'Is Scott here? I mean, I thought I'd see him in . . . what is it . . .? in
Poona.'
'Scott's at a retreat at the Master's farm. He won't be back until Tuesday. He asked me to tell
you. Me, I'm visiting an old friend at the Education Foundation here in Old Delhi.'
'The Master? You mean this guru of Scott's?'
'That's what they all call him. Anyway, Scott asked me to tell you, and I figured you wouldn't
be staying long in New Delhi.'
'You came out before dawn to give me that message?' Baedecker looked carefully at the young
woman next to him. As they moved farther away from the glaring spotlights, her skin seemed to
glow of its own accord. He realized that soft light was tinging the eastern sky.
'No problem,' she said and took his arm in hers. 'My train just got in a few hours ago. I didn't
have anything to do until the USEFI offices opened up.' They had come around to the front of the
terminal. Baedecker realized that they were out in the country, some distance from the city. He
could see high-rise apartments in the distance, but the sounds and smells surrounding them were
all of the country. The curving airport drive led to a wide highway, but nearby were dirt roads
under multitrunked banyan trees.
'When's your flight, Mr. Baedecker?'
'To Bombay? Not until eight-thirty. Call me Richard.'
'Okay, Richard. What do you say we take a walk and then get some breakfast?'
'Fine,' said Baedecker. He would have given anything at that moment to have an empty room
waiting for him, a bed, time to sleep. What time would it be in St. Louis? His tired mind was not
up to the simple arithmetic. He followed the girl as she set off down the rain-moistened drive.
Ahead of them the sun was rising.
The sun had been rising for three days when they landed. Details stood out in bold relief. It
had been planned that way.
Later, Baedecker remembered very little about actually descending the ladder and stepping off
the LM footpad. All those years of preparation, simulation, and expectation had led to that single
point, that sharp intersection of time and place, but what Baedecker later remembered was the
vague sense of frustration and urgency. They were twenty-three minutes behind schedule when
Dave finally led the way down the ladder. Suiting up, going over the fifty-one-point PLS
checklist, and depressurizing had taken more time than it had in the simulations.
Then they were moving across the surface, testing their balance, picking up contingency
samples, and trying to make up for lost time. Baedecker had spent many hours composing a short
phrase to recite upon first setting foot on lunar soil — his 'footnote in history' as Joan had called
it — but Dave made a joke after jumping off the footpad, Houston had asked for a radio check,
and the moment passed.
Baedecker had two strong memories of the rest of that first EVA. He remembered the damned
checklist banded to his wrist. They never caught up to the timeline, not even after eliminating the
third core sample and the second check of the Rover's guidance memory. He had hated that
checklist.
The other memory still returned to him in dreams. The gravity. The one-sixth gee. The sheer
exhilaration of bouncing across the glaring, rock-strewn surface with only the lightest touch of
their boots to propel them. It awakened an even earlier memory in Baedecker; he was a child,
learning to swim in Lake Michigan, and his father was holding him under the arms while he
kicked and bounced his way across the sand of the lake bottom. What marvelous lightness, the