"S. M. Stirling - Sea of Time 01 - Island in the Sea of Time 484" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stirling S. M)

harbor. They're sort of babbling, ma'am."

"Ms. Rosenthal, I'm really rather busy." Cofflin's long bony
face was set in implacable politeness; he ran a hand through his
thinning blond hair as he spoke, his blue eyes bloodshot with
sleeplessness. Most of Nantucket had gone home and gone to
sleep, but the ones still awake were slowly realizing that the
island was still cut off from all communication with the outside
world. Pretty soon the rest would wake up, and try to turn on the
TV and find out what CNN had to say. Then we will be well and
truly fucked. Normally he wasn't much of a swearing man,
hadn't been since the Navy, but nowтАж

"Chief Cofflin, I know what happened."

That brought him up. Doreen Rosenthal was a coof, but she
wasn't one of the flake-and-nut brigade, the artists and artisans
and neo-hippies who were much of the island's permanent
population. She was a student of astronomy, good enough to get
an internship at the MM, and Cofflin had a solid Yankee respect
for learning.

"What?" he said sharply.

"I wasтАж I was taking observations. When it happened. I kept
the, well, I kept the video going. I got a good shot when theтАж
whatever it was stopped."

Cofflin looked at her.
 "I got a good shot of the stars, Chief Cofflin," she went on,
pushing her thick-lensed glasses back up her nose.

Cofflin took her elbow. "Look, we've all had a rough nightтАФ"
he began.

She pulled away. "The stars are wrong."

Her voice was shrill but not hysterical. Not by tonight's
standards, at least.

"How are the stars wrong?" he prompted.

"They're in the wrong places." She fumbled in the big canvas
carrying bag beside her chair, one with University of Mass.
Amherst on it, and pulled out a printout. Spreading it on the
desk, she pointed out circles and lines drawn around the white
dots of stars. "See, the polar orientationsтАФ"

Cofflin swallowed. "Give me the gist, please, Ms. Rosenthal."