"Kate Wilhelm & Ted Thomas - Year of the Cloud" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilhelm Kate)

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Year of the Cloud
Ted Thomas and Kate Wilhelm
1970


February 28

Dr. Henry Spain looked up at the great barrel of the telescope and shivered. There was a cold
dampness in the observatory that even his heavy jacket could not keep out. He shook his head and
muttered to Charlie Porter, "One thing that should be abolished is the month of February. It's
miserable, does no good for anybody, a totally wasted month of the year, should be abolished." He
looked up at the domed roof and dreaded the moment when the great panels would open and the cold
February night air would rush in and make it colder than it was now.

Charlie Porter shivered too, but he was anxious for the panels to open. He would then be able to
leave this frigid, barren room and go to his warm darkroom and start making the enlargements of
last night's photographic plates. There were advantages in being far down in the hierarchy of the
observatory. As a darkroom technician, no one expected him to put up with the discomforts of
winter observing. He breathed in deeply and coughed a little; he did not like the musty smell of
mouse excrement that always seemed to fill the air out here.

Dr. Peter Yudkin clumped up the metal, circular staircase and came toward them. Both Spain and
Porter turned to face him with the deference that befitted a greeting of the Director. Both of
them immediately felt colder, for Yudkin was dressed in his usual business suit with the coat
jacket open and his stomach protruding, no vest, no sweater, no coat. Yudkin rubbed his hands
together, but it was not to warm them. He said, 'The seeing is good tonight. Some good work we
will do. Let us to begin." Yudkin's accent was an unconscious fraud, assumed because he
instinctively felt that it impressed visitors who always seemed more respectful of foreign
science. In moments of stress he forgot the garbled syntax completely. An assistant threw a
switch, and the panels began to open. The cold night air swept down on them with just enough
moisture in it for maximum discomfort. Yudkin threw back his head and sucked air noisily, while
the other men shivered.

"Well," said Porter. "I guess I'd better go and get to work. You'll have some more plates for me
before too long."

Spain nodded pleasantly at Porter and said, "Don't get overheated in that darkroom of yours now."
And he turned to mount the platform with Yudkin. Porter waved at him and headed for the circular
staircase.

Porter left his jacket on when he entered his warm darkroom. He began to lay out his trays and set
up his bottles of solutions, checking to make sure there was enough in each. With his preliminary
chores done, he hung up his jacket and took down some of the dried plates to look at them. He held
them to the bright fluorescent plate to inspect them. One after another he checked them out,
looking for mechanical flaws in the photographic plate.

Now, Porter had a sensitive eye and a fine sense of composition. He came to a plate that did not
seem quite right. The flaw was so subtle that at first he could not detect it. He made himself