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

"I was all-New England in prep school," I admitted. "But I'm still not going to do it."

"Why not?"

Oh, Christ, Kelly. "One, I don't want to drown in those damned waterfalls. Two, I don't want to put my
body near that thermal gradient without a boat between me and it. The overflight data suggested ice
layers down there, at the reverse end of the heat rise. That's why we have cameras and instrument
packages."

"Sometimes there's nothing like a first-hand look."

"No."

"You're already exposing yourself to constant radiation," she pointed out, flirting and pleading at the same
time. I hadn't thought her capable of either. "Why worry about a simple mascon?"

This time I said it out loud. "Christ, Kelly."

She let loose a lovely peal of laughter and took my elbow. "Besides, it's not like you have anything else to
do this summer."
When Kelly realized I wasn't going to get into that water for her anytime soon, she decided we needed to
build a "dimple observatory." We spent several days hauling lumber from the park's maintenance shed to
a beautiful old rock maple right up by the water with just the right spread of branches. Kelly's big laugh
echoed between the trees and the mountains more often than I had ever heard it as we messed with
ropes and nails, building our tree fort.

I had thought I was lost in love before, but I hadn't known how charming, how fun she could be.

Our Mountie showed up while we were up there hammering away. He regarded us-seriously for a
moment from his big bay mare, like a critical parent.

Kelly took the nail out of her mouth and called down to him. "Come on, Sergeant Perry. Don't you want
to work on a tree fort again?"

He cracked a smile and gave us a few hours of his time. I finally thanked him for his help when I noticed
him watching his dosimeter more carefully than he was watching the hammer in his hand.

One night Kelly and I were grilling hot dogs over a campfire next to our "observatory" when she gave
me that look again. "Bruce, won't you at least take me out to the surface of the dimple? I want to see it
for myself."

"Christ, Kelly." I pulled my dog out of the fire and tried to brush off some of the burned spots. What the
hell. I'd already signed up for cancer for her sake, had been throwing away red-lined dosimeters for a
while. "Sure."

She tackled me with a squeal that made it all worthwhile.

I hoped.