"Alastair Reynolds - Revelation Space" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Alastair)

theistic displeasure, within the constraints of their belief system -- but there wouldn't have been
time to express that belief in any permanent form before they all died, much less bury bodies for the
benefit of future archaeologists from a different species.' She lifted her hood over her head and
tightened the drawstring -- fine plumes of dust were starting to settle down into the pit, and the air
was no longer as still as it had been a few minutes earlier. 'But you don't think so, do you?' Without
waiting for an answer, she fixed a large pair of bulky goggles over her eyes, momentarily disturbing
the edge of her fringe, and looked down at the object which was slowly being uncovered.
Pascale's goggles accessed data from the imaging gravitometers stationed around the Wheeler
grid, overlaying the stereoscopic picture of buried masses on the normal view. Sylveste had only to
instruct his eyes to do likewise. The ground on which they were standing turned glassy,
insubstantial -- a smoky matrix in which something huge lay entombed. It was an obelisk -- a single
huge block of shaped rock, itself encased in a series of stone sarcophagi. The obelisk was twenty
metres tall. The dig had exposed only a few centimetres of the top. There was evidence of writing
down one side, in one of the standard late-phase Amarantin graphicforms. But the imaging
gravitometers lacked the spatial resolution to reveal the text. The obelisk would have to be dug out
before they could learn anything.
Sylveste told his eyes to return to normal vision. 'Work faster,' he told his students. 'I don't care if
you incur minor abrasions to the surface. I want at least a metre of it visible by the end of tonight.'
One of the students turned to him, still kneeling. 'Sir, we heard the dig would have to be
abandoned.'
'Why on earth would I abandon a dig?'
'The storm, sir.'
'Damn the storm.' He was turning away when Pascale took his arm, a little too roughly.
'They're right to be worried, Dan.' She spoke quietly, for his benefit alone. 'I heard about that
advisory, too. We should be heading back toward Mantell.'
'And lose this?'
'We'll come back again.'
'We might never find it, even if we bury a transponder.' He knew he was right: the position of the
dig was uncertain and maps of this area were not particularly detailed; compiled quickly when the
Lorean had made orbit from Yellowstone forty years earlier. Ever since the corn sat girdle had been
destroyed in the mutiny, twenty years later -- when half the colonists elected to steal the ship and
return home -- there had been no accurate way of determining position on Resurgam. And many a
transponder had simply failed in a razorstorm.
'It's still not worth risking human lives for,' Pascale said.
'It might be worth much more than that.' He snapped a finger at the students. 'Faster. Use the
servitor if you must. I want to see the top of that obelisk by dawn.'
Sluka, his senior research student, muttered a word under her breath.
"Something to contribute?' Sylveste asked.
Sluka stood for what must have been the first time in hours. He could see the tension in her eyes.
The little spatula she had been using dropped on the ground, beside the mukluks she wore on her
feet. She snatched the mask away from her face, breathing Resurgam air for a few seconds while
she spoke. 'We need to talk.'
'About what, Sluka?'
Sluka gulped down air from the mask before speaking again. 'You're pushing your luck, Dr
Sylveste.'
'You've just pushed yours over the precipice.'
She seemed not to have heard him. 'We care about your work, you know. We share your beliefs.
That's why we're here, breaking our backs for you. But you shouldn't take us for granted.' Her eyes
flashed white arcs, glancing towards Pascale. 'Right now you need all the allies you can find, Dr
Sylveste.'