"Jay Lake & Ruth Nestvold - The Canadian Who Came Almost All the Way Back from the Stars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lake Jay)

by the bootlace loop I'd slipped over a cleat, rocking our little boat. I stared down at the rippling black
water beneath which lay the mascon.

"Don't think too hard," said Kelly. "You won't do it."

I checked the knot of the lifeline on my ankle. I was only doing it for her, and she was doing it for her
husbandтАФshe was right, I'd better not think too hard. "Count to thirty, then start pulling up, as fast as you
can." I slipped my hand through the loop on the gunwale cleat, pulled the pole free with the tether around
my wrist, and fell in headfirst, clutching the wheel rim to my chest.

The water wasn't any colder than I expected, but it pushed up my nose in a way that seemed stronger,
sharper than reasonable. Venting a little air from my lips, I released the wheel rim; I was getting enough
downward pull from the weighted aspen pole.

My ears throbbed with mild pain. The breathing panic started, but I ignored it, letting the pole drag me
down past the visible light.

The water got cooler as I sank. I wondered how deep I was, wondered if Kelly had tossed my line over,
sending me off to meet her husband. My ankle jerked up short, and I almost lost my grip on the pole, but
the bootlace loop around my wrist held.

I bobbed head down for a moment, the pole pulling me down, the rope holding me back. I worked my
hands to get a firmer grip on the pole. With my eyes open, there was a vague greenish quality to the
darkness. The water pressure on my body was like a giant fist slowly closing.

That was when I realized my fingers were cold, way too cold. I brought my free hand up in front of my
face, but there wasn't enough light to see it. I touched my fingers to my lips тАФice scum. I knew what the
reports had said, but stillтАж water froze from the top, not the bottom.

Then the pole jumped in my hands. The downward pull was gone, the pole floating slowly upward. What
had happened to the weight? My chest tightened with anoxia and fear. The water felt much colder.
Where the hell was Kelly? I tried to turn my body, but with the pole in the way, I started to get trapped
in the rope.

My ankle jerked.

Kelly.

Thank God.

I held the pole while she tugged the rope from somewhere inside the blue sky far above. I followed my
heart toward the bright air.

Kelly wrapped me in two blankets when I rolled into the boat, and I shivered in their scratchy depths. I
didn't have the strength to swim to shore yet.

She examined the aspen pole. "Looks like it snapped off."

I shook my head. Now that I wasn't panicking, it was easier to figure out what might have happened to
the pole. "No applied pressure тАФI would have felt that."