"Severna Park - The Three Unknowns" - читать интересную книгу автора (Park Severna)

She'd cut her long, silky black hair into a practical bob which only accented her pointy chin, and she'd
apparently dispensed with makeup. Trying to look seasoned, Althea thought, or intrepid, or like a person
who'd survived in the face of great odds, or something like that. Poor Hoshi, thought Althea without a bit
of sympathy. She tapped the play button and let the clip run.
I'm glad you could make it, Althea. I know it's a sacrifice for you to come all the way out here. I
appreciate it тАж considering.

Hoshi looked away for a moment, and Althea grinned at the screen. What theater. What a humble role
this was compared to those dress-up days at Oxford, back when Hoshi was a pretty little thing in a new
blue suit and four-inch heels, defending her dissertation and not-so-secret ambitions in Althea's gloomy,
wood-paneled office. Hoshi'd had her hair and nails done that day, mostly to show her sponsoring
professor, Elliot Fontaine, how fabulous she'd look as the next Chair of Archaeology. Elliot, full of
cancer, had dragged himself out of the hospital and down to Althea's office, nurse and oxygen tank in
tow. He was supposed to listen to the dissertation, make a decision about who would succeed him, and
fade quietly away, but things were never so straightforward in the battles of academia. His Chair should
have been a lock for Althea. She had seniority, experience, and publications in spades. But in four years
at Oxford, Hoshi had managed to fortify herself with allies on the faculty, like Elliot, and to Althea's
horror, her name began to surface in discussions about who might succeed Elliot when his lymphomas
finally killed him. Althea began doing everything she could think of to get Hoshi out of the way. She
challenged Hoshi's dissertationтАФher sources, even the date of her presentation. Outside of Oxford, it
wasn't hard to find others who agreed that Hoshi's ideas were too speculative and her sources suspect,
but none of that seemed to matter. It only mattered that Elliot thought Hoshi was the most brilliant thing
ever to get off a plane in Britain, and he had plans for her.

I just want to make sure the air is clear between us. I took this project so I could prove myself to
you and the rest of the academic community. I won't ask you for your blessing until you've seen
the site in person, but I think you'll agree that it's more than anyone could have hoped for.

Althea laughed out loud. Just as the fight over Elliot's successor was about to become loud and
embarrassing, the archaeological site at Candor was discovered by robots excavating for minerals.
Reports of alien walls made of alien bricks had barely been confirmed when Althea arranged for a grant
to be issued by the Oxford School of Antiquities and volunteered Hoshi to lead the expedition. Elliot
couldn't object. Even he had to admit that Hoshi's field experience was limited. It was the chance of a
lifetime for any decent archaeologist, and who but Hoshi deserved it more? Who was more promising?
Elliot was furious, sicker even in his fury, but in no shape to go to the mat with Althea, and Hoshi could
hardly refuse her own exile. She got her Doctorate the day Elliot was buried and got on a ship to Mars as
Althea moved her things into Elliot's old office. Althea sipped her tea. Clear the air with "Dr. Noh"? It
was a James Bondian name, with about as much academic respectability. Mars was just where Hoshi
belonged, especially if the dig turned up the odd ray gun.

Here's some footage you haven't seen before тАж we've made a lot of progress.

The image on the screen changed to the pinkish landscape around the dig. Actually, Althea had seen it
before. Hoshi'd been sending pictures to OxfordтАФto the Office of the Chair of ArchaeologyтАФon a
regular basis ever since she'd arrived. First it was just sand, sand, and more red sand spilling in at the
edges of a great big hole in the ground, and then finally the edge of a wall, then another and another until
the hole in the ground embraced some kind of structure. From what Althea'd seen so far, whoever had
built the thing could barely lay one alien brick on top of another, but it was hard not to be surprised,
excited, and awed at the evidence of life somewhere other than Earth, and the fact that Hoshi was out
there gamely shoveling away to expose it. Well, that thrill had worn off after a whileтАФparticularly when