"Daughters Of Earth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merril Judith)

familiar—and now they stood together in the shadow of that rocket's monstrous
spawn, under the clear plastic skin of Moondome.

rodwee havetrav uldsoslo lee beyewere eeyanway stfulmen
zzz...

The silvery span of runway that would send it off today stretched out of sight
up the crater wall, the diminishing curve beyond the bloated belly already lost
in the distance, it was made to mule. Cameras ground steadily; TV commentators,
perched on platforms stilted high like lifeguard chairs, filled in a chattering
counterpoint against the drone from the loudspeakers of the well-worn words that
had launched the first Moondome expedition, how long back?
Sixteen years? Impossible. Much longer. How many children had painfully
memorized those tired words since? But here was George, listening as though he'd
never heard a word of it before, and Richard between them, his face shimmering
with reflections of some private glory, and the adolescent fervour of his
voice—"It's beautiful!"–drawing a baritone-to-tremolo screech across the
hypnosoporific of the loudspeakers' drone.
She shivered. 'Yes, dear, it is,' and took his hand, held it too tightly and had
to feel him pull away. A camera pointed at them and she tried to fix her face to
look the way the commentator would be saying all these mothers here today were
feeling.
She looked for the first time at the woman next to her and caught an echo of her
own effort at transformation. All around her, she saw with gratitude and dismay,
were the faint strained lines at lips and eyes, the same tensed fingers grasping
for a hand, or just at air.
Back on Earth, perhaps among the millions crowded around TV sets, there could be
honest pride and pleasure at this spec­tacle. But here—?
The cameras stopped roaming, and a man stood up on the raised central dais.
'The President of United Earth,' the speakers boomed sepulchrally.
An instant's hush, then:
'Today we are sending forth two hundred of our sons and daughters to the last
outpost of the solar world—the far room from which we hope they may open an exit
to the vistas of space itself. Before they go, it is proper that we pause ...'
She stopped listening. The words were different, but it was still the same. No
doubt the children would have to memorize this one too.
Did they feel this way?
It was a frightening, and then a cooling thought. There was no other way they
could have felt, the other mothers who watched that first Moondome rocket
leaving Earth.
'... for their children's children, who will reach to the unknown stars.'
Silence. That was the end, then.
The silence was broken by the rolling syllables of the two hundred names, as
each straight neat white uniform went up to take the hand of the President, and
complete the ritual. Then it was over and Joan was standing before her: her
daughter, a stranger behind a mask of glory. Seven months ago—seven short and
stormy months—a schoolgirl still. Now—what did the Presi­dent say?—an `emissary
to the farthest new frontiers.'
Martha reached out a hand, but George was before her, folding the slender girl
in a wide embrace, laughing proudly into her eyes, chucking her inanely under