"Kim Stanley Robinson - Forty Signs of Rain" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Kim Stanley)

This particular Starbucks was graced by a staff maniacally devoted to speed and precision; they went at
their work like a drum and bugle corps. Anna loved to see it. She liked efficiency anywhere she found it,
and more so as she grew older. That a group of young people could turn what was potentially a very
boring job into a kind of strenuous athletic performance struck her as admirable and heartening. Now it
cheered her once again to move rapidly forward in the long queue, and see the woman at the computer
look up at her when she was still two back in line and call out to her teammates, “Tall latte half-caf,
nonfat, no foam!” and then, when Anna got to the front of the line, ask her if she wanted anything else
today. It was easy to smile as she shook her head.

Then outside again, doubled paper coffee cup in hand, to the NSF building’s west entrance. Inside she
showed her badge to security in the hall, then crossed the atrium to get to the south elevators.

Anna liked the NSF building’s interior. The structure was hollow, featuring a gigantic central atrium, an
octagonal space that extended from the floor to the skylight, twelve stories above. This empty space, as
big as some buildings all by itself, was walled by the interior windows of all the NSF offices. Its upper
part was occupied by a large hanging mobile, made of metal curved bars painted in primary colors. The
ground floor was occupied by various small businesses facing the atrium—pizza place, hair stylist, travel
agency, bank outlet.

A disturbance caught Anna’s eye. At the far door to the atrium there was a flurry of maroon, a flash of
brass, and then suddenly a resonant low chord sounded, filling the big space with a vibratingblaaa, as if
the atrium itself were a kind of huge horn.

A bunch of Tibetans, it looked like, were now marching into the atrium: men and women wearing belted
maroon robes and yellow winged conical caps. Some played long straight antique horns, others thumped
drums or swung censers around, dispensing clouds of sandalwood. It was as if a parade entry had
wandered in from the street by mistake. They crossed the atrium chanting, skip-stepping, swirling, all in
majestic slow motion.

They headed for the travel agency, and for a second Anna wondered if they had come in to book a flight
home. But then she saw that the travel agency’s windows were empty.

This gave her a momentary pang, because these windows had always been filled by bright posters of
tropical beaches and European castles, changing monthly like calendar photos, and Anna had often stood
before them while eating her lunch, traveling mentally within them as a kind of replacement for the real
travel that she and Charlie had given up when Nick was born. Sometimes it had occurred to her that
given the kinds of political and bacterial violence that were often behind the scenes in those photos,
mental travel was perhaps the best kind.

But now the windows were empty, the small room behind them likewise. In the doorway the
Tibetanesque performers were now massing, in a crescendo of chant and brassy brass, the incredibly low
notes vibrating the air almost visibly, like the cartoon soundtrack bassoon inFantasia.

Anna moved closer, dismissing her small regret for the loss of the travel agency. New occupants, fogging
the air with incense, chanting or blowing their hearts out: it was interesting.

In the midst of the celebrants stood an old man, his brown face a maze of deep wrinkles. He smiled, and
Anna saw that the wrinkles mapped a lifetime of smiling that smile. He raised his right hand, and the music
came to a ragged end in a hyperbass note that fluttered Anna’s stomach.