"Aldiss, Brian - There is a Tide" - читать интересную книгу автора (Aldiss Brian W)

clarity which suggested yet more rain to come, stretched the
rolling jungles of the Congo tributaries.
For at least three hundred miles in that direction, man had
not invaded: there lived the pygmies, flourishing without
despoiling. That area, the Congo Source land, would be the
next to go; Jubal, indeed, was the spearhead of the attack.
But for my generation at least that vast tract of primitive
beauty would stand, and I was selfishly glad of it. I always
gained more pleasure from trees than population increase
statistics.
Jubal caught something of the expression on my face.
"The power we are releasing here will last for ever," he
said. "It's already changingimprovingthe entire economy
of the area. At last, at long last, Africa is realizing her
potentialities."
His voice held almost a tremor, and I thought that this
passion for Progress was the secret of his strength.
"You cling too much to the past, Rog," he added.
"Why all this digging and tunnelling and wrenching up of
riverbeds?" I asked. "Would not atomics haye been a cheaper
and easier answer?"
"No," he said decisively. "This system puts to use idle
water; once in operation, everything is entirely self-servicing.
Besides, uranium is none too plentiful, water is. Venus has
no radioactive materials, I believe?"
This sounded to me like an invitation to change the sub-
ject. I accepted it.
"They've found none yet," I assented. "But I can speak
with no authority. I went purely as a touristand a glorious
trip it was."
"It must be wonderful to be so many million miles nearer
the sun," he said. It was the sort of plain remark I had
often heard him make. On others' lips it might have sounded
platitudinous; in his quiet tones I caught a note of sublimity.
"I shall never get to Venus," he said. "There's too much
work to be done here. You must have seen some marvels
there, Rog!"
"Yes . . . Yet nothing so strange as an elephant."
"And they'll have a breathable atmosphere in a decade,
I hear?"
"So they say. They are certainly doing wonders . . . You
know, Jubal, I shall have to go back then. You see, there's
a feeling, ersomething, a sort of expectancy. No, not quite
that; it's hard to explain" I don't converse well. I ramble
and mumble when I have something real to say. I could
say it to a woman, or I could write it on paper; but
Jubal is a man of action, and when I did say it, I deliber-
ately omitted emotional overtones and lost interest in what
I said. "It's like courting a woman in armour with the visor
closed, on Venus now. You can see it, but you can't touch