"Kim Wilkins - Giants of the Frost" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilkins Kim)

"There are raincoats in the storeroom," Gunnar said, noting my efforts to shrink back toward shelter.

"It's all right. It's only drizzle."
He raised his arm and I caught a whiff of his musty sweater. "It pays to take a walk out east through the
forest. It's very quiet and beautiful and brings you to the beach on the other side in about forty-five
minutes. The beach can be really cold if the winds change; sometimes they come straight off the Arctic,
but the prevailing winds are westerlies and the cliffs protect us from them. The lake is nice too, though
that's where the ghosts live."

"I'm not bothered by ghosts," I said, annoyed that he was continuing with the prank.

He smiled at me. "No? You don't believe in ghosts?"

"I don't believe in anything. And I don't scare easy. Save it for the next trainee."

The door opened behind us and Magnus stepped out. "Awful weather, isn't it?" he said.

"Sure is," I replied.

"We don't make it, we just forecast it," he said. "It's 8:00 a.m. Time to start work."

Gunnar backed away, apologetic hands in the air. "I'll leave you with Magnus. If you need anything, just
let me know. I'm in the cabin directly in front of yours."

I spent the day doing little more than filling out forms.

Magnus was obsessive about administration. The last form he gave me was a questionnaire about
meteorological instrumentsтАж well, he called it a questionnaire. To me it looked like one of those
multiple-choice exams I'd left behind in my undergraduate years. It asked me to list the daily jobs in a
weather station in their correct order.

"I don't know anything about the daily work," I said. "My degrees are in math and geophysics. I've never
used any of the instruments. I have no idea what kind of reporting relationships are set up here."

Magnus smiled his charming smile. "Go on, just fill it out. See how you go. You might surprise yourself."

I got two items out of ten right. Magnus thought this was funny. I thought it was a unique way to
embarrass me. By the end of the day, I'd had enough of him and everybody else. I stopped by the galley
and asked Maryanne if I could take dinner back to my cabin, and I holed up there in my pajamas and got
really, really homesick.

Someone knocked on the door around seven. I resisted the urge to shout, "Go away."

Gunnar again.

"Sorry," he said.

"Stop saying 'sorry' every time you see me."