"Rajnar Vajra - His Hands Pass Like Clouds" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vajra Rajnar)

track down (if it existed) the local version of the Loch Ness monster, the
ultra-elusive "Champie." It was a big job; the _surface_ area of this lake is
over 450 square miles....
Like other such expeditions before them, they found no dinosaurs, giant
sea serpents, or even the prehistoric whales some had predicted, but early
last evening they located something else, something that made my eyes spring
open pre-coffee. One section of Lake Champlain's floor had reflected a unique
sonic "fingerprint." There, buried beneath tons of muck, was evidently a large
oval object, fifty meters across the narrowest part. The scientists weren't
sure what the thing was or what it was made of -- some form of plastic perhaps
-- and they sure as hell had no idea how it got there or where it came from.
But it was clearly something _manufactured_. Naturally, the TV hosts tried to
make someone on Team Champie use the word "spaceship," but none of the
scientists would play along.
From the thickness of silt, one member of the team had estimated that
the object had been sitting on the bottom for two hundred years. There was no
saying how much longer it would keep sitting there. Champlain gets to 400 feet
deep and extracting such a monstrosity and getting it on dry land was a
problem nearly as heavy as the artifact itself.
At the moment, scientists and engineers were modifying the mechanical
arms on the mini-subs, adapting them for goo-removal and cleaning. With any
luck, they'd soon have pictures of the object's surface.
Rich food for thought. Possibly too rich.
****
I wasted an hour in useless speculations before remembering some phone calls
I'd planned to make. First, I cancelled the scheduled grocery delivery for the
day. My legs weren't quite what they'd been the night before, but I could at
least do my own damn shopping now (I'd been able to drive a car for months).
Then I called Dottie Kierkenbart who was this year's Resident Coordinator,
told her my condition had suddenly improved, and asked her to include me in
the "food-bucket brigade." She said she was delighted I was better and that,
starting in two weeks, I could bring Uncle Joe his lunch on Tuesdays and his
dinner on Saturdays if it wouldn't be too inconvenient.
The one person I should have called but didn't was my therapist,
Deborah Bloom. I wanted to see the expression on her face when I danced around
the room. I have to admit it: I had hopes for a different kind of future
relationship with Ms. Bloom.
****
After one last call (to the office to see if the clients had been subjected to
the commercial yet -- they hadn't), I strolled back to the beach. This time
the trip seemed as short as it was.
The weather was sending mixed messages today. It was warm enough when
the wind wasn't blowing, but the frequent gusts seemed to come straight from
the Arctic Circle.
The Cloudman owned several extra layers of clothing he would don in
subfreezing weather, but a mild chill like this was nothing to him. He was
still dressed in the familiar gray pullover that had seen better decades.
In the daylight, I noticed something I'd missed the night before: Joe
hadn't changed much, if at all, in eighteen years. Of course, he'd always
looked about as old as anyone could get...