"Reed, Robert - ShapeOfEverything" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Robert)

ROBERT REED

THE SHAPE OF EVERYTHING

THEY COULDN'T FIND HIM. The party had just become a party, tame scientists
finally imbibing enough to act a little careless and speak their minds, every
mind happy, even ecstatic. That's when someone noticed that the old man was
missing. To bed already? Just when the celebration had begun? But someone else
mentioned that he never slept much, and it still was early. And a little knot of
technicians went to his cabin and discovered that he wasn't there, precipitating
a good deal of worry about his well-being. The next oldest person in the
observatory was barely seventy -- young enough to be his granddaughter -- and
almost everyone feared for his health. His strength. Even his mind. Where could
he be? they asked themselves. On a night like this . . . of all nights . . . ?

Search parties began fanning through the facility, and the security net was
alerted. Cameras watched for a frail form; terminals waited for his access code.
But wherever the man was, he wasn't visible or working. That much was certain
after an hour of building panic.

It was one of his assistants who finally found him. She was a postdoc and maybe
his favorite, although he was a difficult man to read in the best of times. What
she did was recall something he'd mentioned in passing -something about the
cleansing effects of raw light -- and she remembered a certain tiny chamber next
to the hull, built long ago and never used by the current staff. It had a window
to the outside, plus old-style optics, an old-time astronomer able to peer into
a simple lensing device, examining the glorious raw light coming straight from
the giant mirrors themselves.

She found him drifting, one hand holding him steady, the long frail body looking
worn out in the bad light. It looked even worse in good light, she knew. Bones
like dried sticks and his flesh hanging loose, spotted with benign moles too
numerous to count. The cleansing effects of light? She'd always wondered where a
committed night-owl had found time and the opportunity to abuse his skin. More
than a century old, and the postdoc felt her customary fear of ending up like
him. Lost looks; diminished energies. And she wasn't an authentic genius like
him. No residual capacities to lean against, the great long decline taking its
toll --

"Yes?" said the astronomer. "What is it?"

She cleared her throat, once and again, then asked, "Are you all right, sir? We
were wondering."

"I bet you were," he replied. Only then did he take his eye off the eyepiece,
the haggard face grinning at her. "Well, I'm fine. Just got tired of the noise,
that's all."