"Robert Reed - Night Calls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Robert)

As he watched the sky, a tiny artificial moon silently spun its way
overhead.

Later, he roused his lover and led her to their bed, and they made
love again before sleeping longer than they intended. In the morning, they
drove fast until their fuel ran low, and then Ferrum picked a random station
and parked against an empty nipple. Stepping out of his car, he heard a
stranger shouting, тАЬHello,тАЭ to somebody.

Innocently, Ferrum made an agreeable gesture, in case he had met
this fellow before.

But the stranger was talking to Rabiah. He smiled and said her name,
and she smiled back at him, replying, тАЬHello, Ocher.тАЭ

This was the infamous cousin, Ferrum realized: A heavy man worn
down by one or several infirmities. And the woman riding with him looked
very much like his wife would look. She was short and fat, and when she
saw the young woman smiling at her husband, her expression said
everything.

The fat wife turned away, snapping off a few hard words.

But the cousinтАФRabiahтАЩs former loverтАФseemed untroubled. He
invested a few moments staring at his replacement, and then he smiled.
And suddenly Ferrum found himself grinning too. So this was the cheating
husband? The fellow that heтАЩd been jealous of for months? Goodness, he
was just a chubby old fool with a homely, nagging wife.

Really, the situation couldnтАЩt have been funnier.

Ferrum suddenly wished theyтАЩd brought RabiahтАЩs car. What did it
matter? The image of that invalid and his girlfriend doing anything in the
front seat ... well, it was sad, even pathetic, and how could he have wasted
his worries about the two of them...?

****

An acquaintance from work purchased FerrumтАЩs time on the new
telescope. But before he would agree to the asking price, the buyer wanted
to see the equipment and its placement. One evening, the two men drove
out of the city, to the high hill where teams of engineers fiddled with gears
and lenses and the astonishingly large mirrorтАФa highly orchestrated chaos
in full swing. FerrumтАЩs companion didnтАЩt seem especially worried that with
just a month left, nothing was finished. Indeed, he spent remarkably little
time examining the facility or the fancy equipment that would split the light,
directing it into dozens of eyepieces. He didnтАЩt say two words to the experts
who liked nothing better than to break from their labors, explaining their
narrow discipline to any interested face. No, the fellow seemed most
interested in the view behind them. Standing on the highest knoll, on a pile