"Judith Merril - Stormy Weather" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merril Judith)

Stormy Weather
Thirty days on, thirty days off, and almost all the problems routine for the jobтАФbut the blues
may be an occupational hazard for a woman in space. Startling StoriesтАФSummer, 1954.

The time . . . For three days Cathy had watched and waited. Three days: measured in Earth-hours by
creeping hands around the smug face of the chrono overhead; measured in mood and majesty by the
slow progress of the dark ball of the Earth across the distant bright face of the sun.
Three days: twelve meals out of the chest freeze, duly warmed and eaten, but untasted; as many
snatches at brief sleep that gave no rest; eighteen loggings of the instruments, checking new readings
against prediction data 'from the analog. Three days: four thousand, three hundred and twenty minutes;
how many seconds?
She could figure that out, but she couldn't, wouldn't, count the times she'd tried to call him. Or the
endless stretches in between, waiting for him to call.
Where are you now? her need cried out within her. Darling, I love you!
How could he possibly not hear?
Mike! How could you go away?
She wouldn't call again. Not yet. Cathy moved restlessly under the magneblanket in her bunk, and
wide awake in her renewed determination, sat bolt upright and peeled herself out of its comfortless
clutches. She pushed off from the metal frame, barefoot, and floated in aimless circuit of her small
domain: one round room, three full lengths of her body in diameter; a tiptoe stretch, with arms upraised,
from the light magnetism that held her metal-seeded sandals on the "floor" to the "ceiling" bulkhead that
separated the living quarters here from the storage compartment "above."
She wouldn't call again. She couldn't afford to.
On the ceiling, near the chrono, a green bulb glowed, had glowed for three full periods now, twelve
hours, to remind her that the tiny universe was rapidly becoming a closed system. The bulb went on when
the u-v's did, as soon as solar radiation on the algae-air tank fell below full-activity point. It would keep
burning, tingeing the round room faintly green, as long as the lamps kept working on the tanks outside.
Beside the bulb, green numerals glared from a pale, violet-hued panel, offering the current index activity
in the tank:
89.593.
She couldn't afford to use up oxygen now for anything but real necessities. And even if you stretched
a psychological point to call this need essential, it was insane to draw on her reserves of air and heat
both, trying to send a message he wouldn't even answer.
Wouldn't answer . . . All right, then keep the small reserves until he wants to call. That would be
funny, wouldn't it? Hilarious! If he tried to call later, and she'd run her air too low by calling him to be
able to answer.
Cathy tried to laugh at such absurdity, and found the humor of it was beyond her.
Serve him right!
The thought shocked her; she hadn't realized how angry she was beneath the doubt and worry. Just
the same, she told herself, still trying to be funny, she didn't have to use all her oxygen and power now
just to make sure she didn't answer when heтАФif heтАФcalled.
Besides, it might be useful to be able to answer a call from Control CentralтАФor even make one if
she had to. That's what they were paying her for, after all.
Eat; that's the thing to do. Time, and past time for a meal. One message equals two meals, she told
herself primly in training-school sing-song.
Only she wasn't hungry.
"Ping!" The chrono chime startled her. She hadn't realized it was so late. "Instrument check," it
reminded her softly. "1200 hours. Instrument check." Louder now: "InstrumтАФ"
She switched it off in midword. They were paying her for.this, too, she thought without interest, and
reset the alarm for 1600 hours. She pushed off in the direction of the bunk, slid her feet into her sandals,