"Kim Stanley Robinson - Forty Signs of Rain" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Kim Stanley)

тАЬYesтАФbut I mean that, really.тАЭ

Sridar smiled sardonically at CharlieтАЩs discomfiture. тАЬAnd PhilтАЩs the most environmentally aware senator
of all, isnтАЩt that right Charlie?тАЭ

тАЬWell, yeah. ThatтАЩs definitely true.тАЭ

The Khembalis pondered this.
 R
obot submarines cruise the depths, doing oceanography. Slocum gliders and other AUVs (autonomous
underwater vehicles), like torpedoes with wings, dock in underwater observatories to recharge their
batteries and download their data. Finally oceanographers have almost as much data as the
meteorologists. Among other things they monitor a deep layer of relatively warm water that flows from
the Atlantic into the Arctic. (ALTEX, the Atlantic Layer Tracking Experiment.)

But they are not as good at it as the whales. White beluga whales, living their lives in the open ocean,
have been fitted with sensors for recording temperature, salinity and nitrate content, matched with a GPS
record and a depth meter. Up and down in the blue world they sport, diving deep into the black realm
below, coming back up for air, recording data all the while. Casper the Friendly Ghost, Whitey Ford,
The Woman in White, Moby Dick, all the rest: they swim to their own desires, up and down endlessly
within their immense territories, fast and supple, continuous and thorough, capable of great depths, pale
flickers in the blackest blue, the bluest black. Then back up for air. Our cousins. White whales help us to
know this world. The warm layer is attenuating.




THE REST of FrankтАЩs stay in San Diego was a troubled time. The encounter with Marta had put him in
a black mood that he could not shake.

He tried to look for a place to live when he returned in the fall, and checked out some real estate pages
in the paper, but it was discouraging. He saw that he should rent an apartment first, and take the time to
look around before trying to buy something. It was going to be hard, maybe impossible, to find a house
he both liked and could afford. He had some financial problems. And it took a very considerable income
to buy a house in north San Diego these days. He and Marta had bought a perfect coupleтАЩs bungalow in
Cardiff, but they had sold it when they split, adding greatly to the acrimony. Now the region was more
expensive than a mere professor could afford. Extra income would be essential.
 So he looked at some rentals in North County, and then in the afternoons he went to the empty office on
campus, meeting with two postdocs who were still working for him in his absence. He also talked with
the department chair about what classes he would teach in the fall. It was all very tiresome.

And worse than that, a letter appeared in his department mailbox from the UCSD Technology Transfer
Office, Independent Review Committee. Pulse quickening, he ripped it open and scanned it, then got on
the phone to the Tech Transfer Office.

тАЬHi Delphina, itтАЩs Frank Vanderwal here. IтАЩve just gotten a letter from the review committee, can you
please tell me what this is about?тАЭ

тАЬOh hello, Dr. Vanderwal. Let me seeтАжthe oversight committee on faculty outside income wanted to
ask you about some income you received from stock in Torrey Pines Generique. Anything over two