idea what he was ordinarily paid to read aloud? Did they know how many millions of Americans tuned in every week to hang on every word? Perhaps he should talk to the manager about lightening the midday meal.
Or perhaps he shouldn't. What did it matter if they were drowsy? If Walter was three-quarters asleep? In a way it was very much better. Certainly the afternoon was proceeding a great deal more smoothly than the morning, when he had been interrupted by one silly quibble after another, on everything from the financing of the La Perouse expedition of 1789 (Anna Henckel) to the dubious correctitude of terminal prepositions (the know-it-all Elliott Fisk). Since lunch, however, they had been logy and unresponsive, which was all to the good. These sessions were their opportunity to take issue with his book, and if they passed it up, that was the end of it. They had no recourse to further objection; so it said quite clearly in the agreement each of them had signed with Javelin Press.
Now that he thought about it, maybe he ought to ask the manager about supplying wine with breakfast, too. He sipped from a glass of Perrier and continued.
More time passed. The glacier-scoured furrow at the foot of the mountains was no longer choked with a barren, mile-thick mass of ice. In its place was a tranquil, surpassingly beautiful estuary of blue-green water studded with icebergs that had calved from the ends of the surrounding glacial tongues. Glacier Bay, the Europeans called it. Adventurers came to explore, and geologists to study, and, eventually, tourists to marvel from the decks of steam-powered excursion boats.
And still the hanging glacier clung precipitously to its mountain aerie. Tlingit Ridge, the white man called this peak now. The long, twisting glacial tongues below had names too. Lamplugh, Tirku, Reid. But the hanging glacier itself, one of the last of its kind, isolated and dying, had no name and would never have a name. By the year 1960 of the Christian calendar its hold was finally loosening. Poised precariously over Tirku Glacier, it had shrunk to just four hundred million cubic meters.
Only ninety million tons.
He sat back with a sigh of contentment. “That,” he said, “is the end of chapter two.” And a damned fine ending it was, complete with masterful narrative hook. Not that any of these undiscriminating boobs would know a narrative hook if it bit them on the ear. “lf there are no questions I'll go directly—"
He gritted his teeth at a barbaric yawp of a snore followed by several snuffles, all of this coming from Walter, who wriggled, rumbled, fussed, and then melted deeper into his chair, his head tipping backwards to the accompaniment of other, indescribable noises from his throat. For Walter, even sleep was a form of theater. Like a big dog he woke himself up with a snort, muttered and fussed some more, and settled into silence if not quite wakefulness. Reflections from the flames danced on his nose.
Tremaine glowered briefly at him—at the others, too, for good measure—and read on:
CHAPTER THREE.
July 26, 1960, 12:04 P.M.
In the United States Geological Survey Monitoring Station near Palmer, the needle of the seismograph stopped its gentle bobbing, hesitated, and then jerked sharply, scratching a series of spiky black lines onto the paper-covered drum.
Ranger Parnell Morgan watched the needle intently, but soon relaxed. As things went in this part of the world it wasn't much of a tremor; 4.1 on the Richter scale. Not the big one they'd been worrying about, just another little jiggle in a part of the world that averaged four a day. There would be no frantic telephone calls on this one, no buckled roadways or twisted bridges, no collapsed buildings or broken water mains.
The epicenter seemed to be somewhere in the Fair-weathers, in the uninhabited area north of Glacier Bay. A good place for it, he thought, and went back to the half-eaten tuna-fish sandwich on his desk.
Tremaine looked up,
Or perhaps he shouldn't. What did it matter if they were drowsy? If Walter was three-quarters asleep? In a way it was very much better. Certainly the afternoon was proceeding a great deal more smoothly than the morning, when he had been interrupted by one silly quibble after another, on everything from the financing of the La Perouse expedition of 1789 (Anna Henckel) to the dubious correctitude of terminal prepositions (the know-it-all Elliott Fisk). Since lunch, however, they had been logy and unresponsive, which was all to the good. These sessions were their opportunity to take issue with his book, and if they passed it up, that was the end of it. They had no recourse to further objection; so it said quite clearly in the agreement each of them had signed with Javelin Press.
Now that he thought about it, maybe he ought to ask the manager about supplying wine with breakfast, too. He sipped from a glass of Perrier and continued.
More time passed. The glacier-scoured furrow at the foot of the mountains was no longer choked with a barren, mile-thick mass of ice. In its place was a tranquil, surpassingly beautiful estuary of blue-green water studded with icebergs that had calved from the ends of the surrounding glacial tongues. Glacier Bay, the Europeans called it. Adventurers came to explore, and geologists to study, and, eventually, tourists to marvel from the decks of steam-powered excursion boats.
And still the hanging glacier clung precipitously to its mountain aerie. Tlingit Ridge, the white man called this peak now. The long, twisting glacial tongues below had names too. Lamplugh, Tirku, Reid. But the hanging glacier itself, one of the last of its kind, isolated and dying, had no name and would never have a name. By the year 1960 of the Christian calendar its hold was finally loosening. Poised precariously over Tirku Glacier, it had shrunk to just four hundred million cubic meters.
Only ninety million tons.
He sat back with a sigh of contentment. “That,” he said, “is the end of chapter two.” And a damned fine ending it was, complete with masterful narrative hook. Not that any of these undiscriminating boobs would know a narrative hook if it bit them on the ear. “lf there are no questions I'll go directly—"
He gritted his teeth at a barbaric yawp of a snore followed by several snuffles, all of this coming from Walter, who wriggled, rumbled, fussed, and then melted deeper into his chair, his head tipping backwards to the accompaniment of other, indescribable noises from his throat. For Walter, even sleep was a form of theater. Like a big dog he woke himself up with a snort, muttered and fussed some more, and settled into silence if not quite wakefulness. Reflections from the flames danced on his nose.
Tremaine glowered briefly at him—at the others, too, for good measure—and read on:
CHAPTER THREE.
July 26, 1960, 12:04 P.M.
In the United States Geological Survey Monitoring Station near Palmer, the needle of the seismograph stopped its gentle bobbing, hesitated, and then jerked sharply, scratching a series of spiky black lines onto the paper-covered drum.
Ranger Parnell Morgan watched the needle intently, but soon relaxed. As things went in this part of the world it wasn't much of a tremor; 4.1 on the Richter scale. Not the big one they'd been worrying about, just another little jiggle in a part of the world that averaged four a day. There would be no frantic telephone calls on this one, no buckled roadways or twisted bridges, no collapsed buildings or broken water mains.
The epicenter seemed to be somewhere in the Fair-weathers, in the uninhabited area north of Glacier Bay. A good place for it, he thought, and went back to the half-eaten tuna-fish sandwich on his desk.
Tremaine looked up,
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