"Connie Willis - Schwarzschild Radius" - читать интересную книгу автора (Willis Connie)

A trench mortar roars, and clods of frozen dirt clatter from the roof onto the table. The man brushes the
dirt from the papers and looks up.

"I am looking for Dr. Funkenheld," I say.

"He is not here." He stands up and comes around the table, moving stiffly, like an old man, though he
does not look older than forty. He has a mustache, and his face looks dirty in the red light.

"I have a message for him."

An eight-pounder roars, and more dirt falls on us. The man raises his arm to brush the dirt off his
shoulder. The sleeve of his uniform has been slit into ribbons. All along the back of his raised hand and
the side of his arm are red sores running with pus. I look back at his face. The sores in his mustache and
around his nose and mouth have dried and are covered with a crust. Excoriated lesions. Suppurating
bullae. The gun roars again, and dirt rains down on his raw hands.

"I have a message for him," I say, backing away from him. I reach in the pocket of my coat to show him
the message, but I pull out the letter instead. "There was a letter for you, Lieutenant Schwarzschild." I
hold it out to him by one corner so he will not touch me when he takes it.
He comes toward me to take the letter, the muscles in his jaw tightening, and I think in horror that the
sores must be on his legs as well. "Who is it from?" he says. "Ah, Herr Professor Einstein. Good," and
turns it over. He puts his fingers on the flap to open the letter and cries out in pain. He drops the letter.

"Would you read it to me?" he says, and sinks down into the chair, cradling his hand against his chest. I
can see there are sores in his fingernails.

I do not have any feeling in my hands. I pick the envelope up by its corners and turn it over. The skin of
his finger is still on the flap. I back away from the table. "I must find the doctor. It is an emergency."

"You would not be able to find him," he says. Blood oozes out of the tip of his finger and down over the
blister in his fingernail. "He has gone up to the front."

"What?" I say, backing and backing until I run into the blanket. "I cannot understand you."

"He has gone up to the front," he says, more slowly, and this time I can puzzle out the words, but they
make no sense. How can the doctor be at the front? This is the front.

He pushes the candle toward me. "I order you to read me the letter."

I do not have any feeling in my fingers. I open it from the top, tearing the letter almost in two. It is a long
letter, full of equations and numbers, but the words are warped and blurred. " 'My Esteemed Colleague!
I have read your paper with the greatest interest. I had not expected that one could formulate the exact
solution of the problem so simply. The analytical treatment of the problem appears to me splendid. Next
Thursday I will present the work with several explanatory words, to the Academy!' "

"Formulated so simply," Schwarzschild says, as if he is in pain. "That is enough. Put the letter down. I will
read the rest of it."

I lay the letter on the table in front of him, and then I am running down the trench in the dark with the
sound of the front all around me, roaring and shaking the ground. At the first turning, Muller grabs my