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

"Alec?"
"Hmm?"
"I don't want to be alone tonight." She looked down, away from him, at the stone
in her hand.
"I have a spare toothbrush."
For the first time, they went to bed together. They lay side by side, comforting
each other's disappointment. They touched, holding, stroking. They kissed again,
and again, and when they made love they achieved a pale sense of what they
thought a Rringg!! must bring the world's few lucky pairs.
At last, they slept, each with a worrystone wrapped in a fist, thrust beneath
the edge of a pillow, close to a dreaming head, praying that closer contact
might bring something more.



III


Golden shards were scattered across Ybarra's lab bench. One rested on the stage
of a binocular microscope near the old-fashioned slate sink. Ellen Young was
delicately adjusting the fine focus, her dark hair fanning forward like wings.
"I see pores," she said as Ybarra pushed the button on the 'scope's camera.
"Fine lines linking them. Rounded bulges. Hexagonal, like a reversed honeycomb.
The pores are at the corners."
Alec absorbed it all as he entered the room. His first class was not until after
lunch, and he had wanted to see what his friends were up to. Now he said, "You
found some time."
Ybarra grimaced. "You might have guessed. I was in here at five."
Alec laughed. Sometimes he wished he had the other's burning curiosity. "Did you
find anything else?"
Ybarra rose from his stool to reach for a small pair of pliers. "Watch." He
picked up a small shard and caught one corner with the pliers. As he squeezed, a
cloud of glittering dust sifted to the bench top. "They said the eggs were
unbreakable."
"But..."
"But. Precisely. Once it breaks itself, the shell is as strong as... as
eggshell."
"Show him the rest." Ellen had turned away from the 'scope. Now she pointed
further down the bench, where a row of small dishes, each half filled with
fluid, sat beside single shards. Some of the fluids looked oily, some watery,
some colored, some clear.
"Reagents," said Ybarra. "Every one I could think of. And the stuff reacts with
the acids. It seems to be a carbonate, again like eggshell."
"What about the worrystones?"
"Haven't got one to try."
Alec produced his own, though not without a moment of hesitation. The other
immediately dipped its end into a dish, examined it, and rinsed it with a squirt
from a bottle marked "Distilled H2O." He repeated the process with each of the
dishes. Finally, he sighed. "Nothing."
"Try the pliers." Ellen held them out. Alec's throat tightened as he quelled the