Перевод текста. . только без переводчика. ) we had been planning the move for more than a decade. it was realized that earth was no more place for an astronomical observatory. our observatory could still be used for training purposes, but the research had to move out into space. i had to move with it, i had already been offered the post of deputy director. in a few months i had to leave. it was quite impossible of course to take laika with me. the only animals on the moon were those needed for experimental purposes; it must be another generation before pets were allowed, and even then it would cost a lot of money to carry them there - and keep them alive. the choice was simple. i could stay on earth and abandon my career. or i could go to the moon — and abandon laika. after all, she was only a dog. in ten years she would be dead, while i should be reaching the peak of my profession. no sensible man would had hesitated over the matter; yet i did hesitate, and if by now you do not understand why, no further words of mine can help. up to the very week i was to leave i had made no plans for laika. when dr. anderson said he would look after her, i agreed with almost no word of thanks. the old physicist and his wife had always been fond of her. and i am afraid that they considered me cruel and heartless. we went for one more walk together over the hills; then i gave her silently to the andersons, and did not see her again. , the spaceship was already over the moon but i took little interest in my work. i was not really sorry to leave earth; i wanted no recollections, i intended to think only of the future. yet i could not shake off the feeling of guilt; i had abandoned someone who loved and trusted me, and was no better than (hose who had abandoned laika when she was a puppy beside the dusty road to palomar. the news that she was dead reached me a month later. nobody knew why she died. the andersons had done their best and were very upset. ii seemed that she had just lost interest in living. for a while i did the same, but work is a wonderful remedy, and my programme was just under way. though i never forgot laika, by the course of time the memory of her stopped hurting me. then why had it come back to me five years later, on the far side of the moon? i was thinking about it when the metal building around me quivered as if under a heavy blow. i reacted immediately and was already closing the helmet of my emergency suit when the floor slipped and the wall tore open in front of me. because i automatically pressed the general alarm button we lost only two men despite the fact that the earthquake - the worst ever recorded on the moon - destroyed all three of our observatories. the human mind has strange and labyrinthine ways of doing its business; if knew the signal that could most swiftly wake me and make me aware of danger. there is nothing supernatural in it; though one can say that it was laika who woke me on both occasions, during the earthquake in san francisco and the quake on the far side of the moon. sometimes i wake now in the silence of the moon, and wish that the dream could have lasted a few seconds longer— so that i could look just once more into those luminous brown eyes, full of unselfish understanding love that i have found now where else in this or on any other world.