Having thrown down the binoculars to his chest, Artiom tried to decide where it was colder — here or on Sekirka. But the cold didn’t give him a chance to compare. His thoughts were also frozen and sharp-edged. They couldn’t line up properly, like sheared-off and slippery blocks.
The boat turned sideways. Galia fell asleep.
He climbed over to her bench and took the rudder himself, not knowing where to go, aiming at the thorniest star he could see.
Galia wasn’t waking up.
“Galia! Over there! Look! Can you see it? Over there…! s**t!” He looked in the binoculars, then started to take it off his neck, almost tearing his ears off with the strap in his hurry. “Look, there…”
The snow had long ago ended, but the sense of its presence remained in the air, as though the snow had only just been i
