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قراءة كتاب The Dwindling Years
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
wondering whether he’d left it on or not. He snapped the switch and saw the screen light up, with the people still in the odd, wheelless vehicle on the alien planet.
FOR A long moment, he stared at the picture without thinking, and then bent closer. Harry’s face hadn’t changed much. Giles had almost forgotten it, but there was still the same grin there. And his grandchildren had a touch of it, too. And of their grandfather’s nose, he thought. Funny, he’d never seen even pictures of his other grandchildren. Family ties melted away too fast for interstellar travel.
Yet there seemed to be no slackening of them in Harry’s case, and somehow it looked like a family, rather than a mere group. A very pleasant family in a very pleasant world.
He read Harry’s note again, with its praise for the planet and its invitation. He wondered if Dr. Vincenti had received an invitation like that, before he left. Or had he even been one of those to whom the same report had been delivered by some doctor? It didn’t matter, but it would explain things, at least.
Twenty years to Centaurus, while the years dwindled down—
Then abruptly the line finished itself. “The years dwindle down to a precious few....” he remembered. “A precious few.”
Those dwindling years had been precious once. He unexpectedly recalled his own grandfather holding him on an old knee and slipping him candy that was forbidden. The years seemed precious to the old man then.
Amanda’s voice came abruptly over the intercom. “Jordan wants to talk to you,” she said, and the irritation was sharp in her voice. “He won’t take no!”
Giles shrugged and reached for the projector, to cut it off. Then, on impulse, he set it back to the picture, studying the group again as he switched on Jordan’s wire.
But he didn’t wait for the hot words about whatever was the trouble.
“Bill,” he said, “start getting the big ship into production. I’ve found a volunteer.”
He’d been driven to it, he knew, as he watched the man’s amazed face snap from the screen. From the first suspicion of his trouble, something inside him had been forcing him to make this decision. And maybe it would do no good. Maybe the ship would fail. But thirty years was a number a man could risk.
If he made it, though....
Well, he’d see those grandchildren of his this year—and Harry. Maybe he’d even tell Harry the truth, once they got done celebrating the reunion. And there’d be other grandchildren. With the ship, he’d have time enough to look them up. Plenty of time!
Thirty years was a long time, when he stopped to think of it.