"Thomas A. Easton - Alien Resonance" - читать интересную книгу автора (Easton Thomas A)

"That's Abrams, in Math," said Ellen. "Do you think he'll turn it in?"
Ellen laughed as the man used a shoulder to block a student who wanted a closer
look and then brushed by them without a word. Others along the path went quiet
too, staring after him.
They observed only a few other discoveries that afternoon and made none of their
own. Eventually they gave up on their search, though others didn't.
Over dinner at Ellen's apartment, Di finally let her feelings speak: "Our
group... Do you think it can last?"
Ellen eyed her carefully. "You like Alec, don't you?"
"I'd like to... to know him better."
Ellen nodded. "I feel that way about Walter, a little."
Di looked up from her plate, amused and slightly startled. "But--Franklin?"


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"Him!" The other snorted, not delicately at all. "He's a nuisance. Sometimes I
want to grab Alec or Walter just to discourage him."
"But wouldn't that break us up?"
Ellen shrugged. "I don't think so. Couples can be friends, too."
"Even with an odd man out?"
"Would it matter? He could always bring another woman in. Or leave."
Di thought that Ellen had harder edges than she did herself. She enjoyed more
certainties, could be more definite, could judge with fewer reservations. In
that way, she was like Ybarra, both of them physical scientists. She, on the
other hand, was a biologist. And her field had as much in common with the
humanities--with English--as with chemistry or geology. Franklin shared her
field, but she did not find him at all as appealing as she did Alec. He could be
only a friend, never...
When Di later said she still had work to do for her classes, Ellen offered to
drive her home. She declined, saying the distance was not great, the evening was
not cold, and who knew? Perhaps she would find her egg on the way.
Di had about a mile to walk. Ellen lived in town, in the upstairs half of a
frame house long emptied of the large family for which it had been built. That
mile followed streets lined with similar houses, few less than a century old,
their lawns edged with hedges and dotted with shrubbery and the fairy lights of
searchers.
As she walked, she realized that home held few attractions at the moment. Her
classes had been an excuse. The week's lectures, all of them, were tucked into
her texts. What waited for her now were only the two issues of Science that had
come while she had been off fishing. There were three letters she should answer,
too.
She didn't know what she wanted to do until she stood before her building,
staring at her own dark windows.



Somehow, Alec was not surprised to find Di standing on his stoop. Her presence
eased the itch that had not left him even as he worked, and he grinned at her.