"Kim Stanley Robinson - A Martian Romance" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Kim Stanley)

“And you’re still the canyon hermit,” she says, laughing and pulling
him toward the crowd; it is good to see him again, it has been three months.
For many years now they have been a steady couple, Roger returning to
their rooms in the co-op in Burroughs after every trip away; but his work is
still in the back country, so they still spend quite a lot of time apart.

Just as they join Hans and Arnold, who are wrapping up their history
of the world, Stephan and Frances come in the door, and they hold a
cheery reunion over a late dinner. There’s a lot of catching up to do; this
many members of their Olympus Mons climb haven’t been together in a
long time. Hours after the other diners have gone upstairs to bed, or off to
their homes, the little group of old ones sits at the end of one table talking.
A bunch of antique insomniacs, Eileen thinks, none anxious to go to bed
and toss and turn through the night. She finds herself the first to stand up
and stretch and declare herself off. The others rise on cue, except for
Roger and Arnold; they’ve done a lot of climbing together through the
years, and Roger was a notorious insomniac even when young; now he
sleeps very poorly indeed. And Arnold will talk for as long as anyone else is
willing, or longer. “See you tomorrow,” Arnold says to her. “Bright and early
for the crossing of the Amazonian Sea!”

****

The next morning the iceboat runs over ice that is mostly white, but in some
patches clear and transparent right down to the shallow seafloor. Other
patches are the color of brick, with the texture of brick, and the boat’s
runners clatter over little dunes of gravel and dust. If they hit melt ponds the
boat slows abruptly and shoots great wings of water to the sides. At the
other side of these ponds the runners scritch again like ice skates as they
accelerate back up to speed. Roger’s iceboat is a scooter, he explains to
them; not like the spidery skeletal thing that Eileen was expecting, having
seen some of that kind down in Chryse —those Roger calls DNs. This is
more like an ordinary boat, long, broad, and low, with several parallel
runners nailed fore-and-aft to its hull. “Better over rough ice,” Roger
explains, “and it floats if you happen to hit water.” The sail is like a big bird’s
wing extended over them, sail and mast all melded together into one
object, shifting shape with every gust to catch as much wind as it can.

“What keeps us from tipping over?” Arnold asks, looking over the lee
rail at the flashing ice just feet below him.

“Nothing.” The deck is at a good cant, and Roger is grinning.

“Nothing?”

“The laws of physics.”

“Come on.”

“When the boat tips the sail catches less wind, both because it’s tilted