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

dreamed about the scent of her every night.

It was a warm day in late August when I finally asked the question. "So, why are we still here?"

Kelly and I sat in front of the lodge on a little pebbled strip of land too modest to call a beach. The
dimple punctuated the lake in front of us, and the mountains loomed high in the sky around it. For a
change it was warm enough that I didn't have to wear a jacket.

"Why are you still here?"

I shrugged. "You're my job." You and Nick, I thought, but I tried to say his name as little as possible.
"According to my boss, they don't have anything else for me."

She placed her left hand on my right forearm, a rare moment of physical contact between us. "Oh, surely
there's more for you to do than wait by a lake. You Americans, you always have some mess to go fix. Or
make."
I didn't move a muscle, afraid to dislodge her touch. "I wouldn't have to be here all the time just to
oversee the security of the site. Your husband achieved something no one ever did before him, and there
are a lot of people who want to know what he didn't tell us." What you're not telling us. "Marge sent
me here to find out why you're still keeping such a sharp eye on the dimple."

Kelly smiled, one eyebrow arched. "Marge?"

"Sure. Not everyone is as afraid of first names as you are."

She moved her hand away. Me and my big mouth. My arm still tingled where her fingers had been.

"Actually," she said, "I'm waiting for another message from him."

I couldn't help laughing. "Another phone call?"

She grinned. "No, no. Nick promised to set a sign in the heavens." Despite her grin, I had the strange
feeling that she was serious.

After the snows melted the next spring, Kelly started bugging me to go into the center of the dimple with
her, a squint of worry around her eyes. The thing had never frozen over, even as the ice crusted around
the edges. A heavy snow could cover it for a day or so, before the snow blanket sagged into the warm
water beneath. The dimple was there like a great blind eye in the water, staring at the sky, trapping us in
its unseeing gaze.

I studied the curious phenomenon that had become such an everyday part of life. "How do you propose
we get back out if we go down in there?"

Kelly gazed at me speculatively. "How good a swimmer are you, Bruce?"

I shook my head. "No, no way."

She gave me her wide smile. I could almost believe I had imagined the worryтАФ but only almost. "If we
had a long enough rope with us, you could belay the boat back for sure. You're strong. I bet you're a
good swimmer."