"Howard Waldrop - Winter Quarters" - читать интересную книгу автора (Waldrop Howard)

Everybody knew the IQRA meeting in October (hosted by the podunk portion of the University we
work for) was going to have Big Trouble. The IQRA is the International Quaternary Research
Association -- everything prehistoric since the dinosaurs -- and it contained multitudes, among which are
people in the profession against the retrieval and propagation of extinct species. They were vocal, and
because the meeting was also going to have a large bunch of paleo- and archaeogeneticists there too, the
media had already started pre-coverage on it -- sound bites, flashes of personalities, a fleeting glimpse of
the male mammontelephant in the Baltimore Zoo.
You know. Big Trouble.



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 I know all this because Dr. Bob is the University's host for this Cenozoic shindig, and is calling me
every day or so. Out of nowhere he says, "I got a fax from Arnaud. Can you imagine? His circus plays
up in Raleigh the day before the conference opens, last show of the year before winter quarters." It had
been two months since he'd eaten the cafeteria out of house and home.
"What did he say?"
"That's all. I guess he just wanted us to know. I sure as hell won't have time to see him. I'll be dodging
brickbats, no doubt."



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A week later, Dr. Bob showed up in my office.
"Uh, Marie," he said, "there've been more faxes. Lots more. Something's up. Want to be an unindicted
co-conspirator?"



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The news was full of the IQRA; you couldn't turn on your monitor or TV without seeing people with
placards and signs, or Professor Somebody from Somewhere making speeches. I watched some of it,
switched over to the Weather Shop. There was a guy yammering on about long-term climatic change,
Big and Little Ice Ages; global warming, myth or legend; etc. I ran up their feed and got the forecast:
overcast, maybe some mist, fifteen degrees, just cool enough for a sweater.
There was a cardboard box on the front porch with a note on it -- MARIE: BRING THIS TO MY
LECTURE. SIT ON 3D ROW AISLE. -- and a wristbadge with STAFF stamped on it in deep
holograms.



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