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

Still, there might be something special about this eclipse. Some by-effect, some related phenomenon
she didn't know about. It was also quite true that she hadn't heard from Control Central since she entered
the shadow. Hadn't tried to call them, either. She could try now, of course, and then she'd know. But if
she didn't try, she could keep the illusory comfort in her mind; a feeble sort of straw to cling to, but in the
absence of anything more solid, she hesitated to let it go.
Besides, it was just as wasteful to make an unnecessary call to Control as to Mike. One message
equals two meals.
Oxy at 88.974. One meal equals two cigarettes. And she still wasn't hungry.
Ought to sleep, then. She was afraid to sleep. . . . Read a good film, then. She didn't feel like reading.
She wanted a cigarette.
Four cigarettes is one message. A message is only a message, but a good cigarette is a smoke.
Where did that come from?
And where are you now, my darling? Mike! Please, Mike. . . .
Sharply, she shut off the thought, and beneath it ran the thread of lonely melody again.
Gloom an' misery everywhere . . . Since my man an' I ...
Cathy reached over to the calcker and fingered the roll of tape that wound out of its answend, as if
she could find with her fingers some piece of information that her eyes missed when she read it through
before. Something, maybe, to tell her why Mike and the sun had gone away together.
But the calcker didn't know about Mike. If she asked it, Where is he now? Why won't he answer
me? it would buzz and click unevenly, and in the end tap out one terse rebuking symbol on the tape:
Insufficient data.
Well, that was her problem, too. A scream in a dream, and the shadow of the sun; that was all she
had to work with. Plenty of data about everything else, though: a wall full of it all around her, and a roll of
it, neatly digested, right in her hand.
And the warning on the ceiling: 88.899.
You don't take chances on a Station!
One cigarette, that's all, she promised herself. After all, she'd missed a meal. It was taking more of a
chance, really, getting into this kind of state than using the extra little bit of air and heat.
Algae's not at top efficiency, but neither am I. Go ahead; pamper yourself a little. Better to have it
now while the tank's still fairly high, still getting some solarays. If you're still wanting it tomorrow, you'll
just be out of luck ...

CATHY kicked off her sandals and floated over to her personal storage cabinet. She got out a
cigarette, hesitated, and, holding it, made a quick automatic check of radar screen and indicator dials. No
change; with everything quiet outside, she could watch for a while. She threw a switch to open the
sunward port, retrieved her shoes, and walked back across the room to a padded piece of bulkhead
from which she could keep both screen and view-port comfortably within her angle of vision.
Curled up against the foampad on the 'floor," her metal soles and metal-seeded tunic were enough to
keep her "sitting," even if she moved ' a bit from time to time. It took some conscious effort of the
muscles to pull free from the light magnetism of floor, chair, and bunk. Settled into a reasonable facsimile
of gravity-sitting, Cathy listened to the purring of the motor fade away as the heavy metal hatch slid off
the port, filling the room with deep-empurpled light.
If things go on this way, ole rockin' chair will get me. . . . With one long, angry inhalation, she lit
her cigarette. Then she relaxed and watched the solar spectacle outside. Watched with an added guilty
pleasure in her own delinquency through a thin veil of smoke that fanned out from the tip of fire in her
fingers to the wide slits of air ducts round the room. . . .
She had watched at least a little while each day since it began. First a wedge of darkness, nothing
more, nudging into the edge of the sun. Then a round black mallet squeezed at the giant ball of butter
floating in fluid ice of space: shaped it into a fat crescent, then a thin and thinner one.
This time she found an almost total sphere of darkness cuddled inside the scant embrace of a