"Kim Stanley Robinson - Mars 1 - Red Mars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Kim Stanley)

and the next step in the human story”—i.e. the latest variant in primate dominance
dynamics.

John finished with this flourish, and there was, of course, a huge roar of applause.
Maya Toitovna then went to the podium to introduce Chalmers. Frank gave her a private
look which meant he was in no mood for any of her jokes; she saw it and said, “Our next
speaker has been the fuel in our little rocket ship,” which somehow got a laugh. “His vision
and energy are what got us to Mars in the first place, so save any complaints you may
have for our next speaker, my old friend Frank Chalmers.”

At the podium he found himself surprised by how big the town appeared. It covered
a long triangle, and they were gathered at its highest point, a park occupying the western
apex. Seven paths rayed down through the park to become wide, tree-lined, grassy
boulevards. Between the boulevards stood low trapezoidal buildings, each faced with
polished stone of a different color. The size and architecture of the buildings gave things a
faintly Parisian look, Paris as seen by a drunk Fauvist in spring, sidewalk cafés and all.
Four or five kilometers downslope the end of the city was marked by three slender
skyscrapers, beyond which lay the low greenery of the farm. The skyscrapers were part of
the tent framework, which overhead was an arched network of sky-colored lines. The tent
fabric itself was invisible, and so taken all in all, it appeared that they stood in the open air .
That was gold. Nicosia was going to be a popular city.

Chalmers said as much to the audience, and enthusiastically they agreed.
Apparently he had the crowd, fickle souls that they were, about as securely as John.
Chalmers was bulky and dark, and he knew he presented quite a contrast to John’s blond
good looks; but he knew as well that he had his own rough charisma, and as he warmed
up he drew on it, falling into a selection of his own stock phrases.

Then a shaft of sunlight lanced down between the clouds, striking the upturned faces
of the crowd, and he felt an odd tightening in his stomach. So many people there, so many
strangers ! People in the mass were a frightening thing—all those wet ceramic eyes
encased in pink blobs, looking at him. . . it was nearly too much. Five thousand people in
a single Martian town. After all the years in Underhill it was hard to grasp.

Foolishly he tried to tell the audience something of this. “Looking,” he said. “Looking
around… the strangeness of our presence here is…… accentuated.”

He was losing the crowd. How to say it? How to say that they alone in all that rocky
world were alive, their faces glowing like paper lanterns in the light? How to say that even
if living creatures were no more than carriers for ruthless genes, this was still, somehow,
better than the blank mineral nothingness of everything else?

Of course he could never say it. Not at any time, perhaps, and certainly not in a
speech. So he collected himself. “In the martian desolation," he said, "the human
presence is, well, a remarkable thing” (they would care for each other more than ever
before, a voice in his mind repeated sardonically). “The planet, taken in itself, is a dead
frozen nightmare” (therefore exotic and sublime), “and so thrown on our own, we of
necessity are in the process of… reorganizing a bit” (or forming a new social order)—so
that yes, yes, yes, he found himself proclaiming exactly the same lies they had just heard
from John!