"Kim Stanley Robinson - Mars 2 - Blue Mars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Kim Stanley)

"Any news?" she asked.
"No. We appear to be at something of an impasse. We're allowing all of them
caught outside free passage into the elevator district, so they've got control
of the train, station and the south rim airport, and the subway lines from
those to the Socket."
"Did the planes that evacuated them from Burroughs come here?"
"Yes. Apparently most of them are leaving for Earth. It's very crowded in
there."
"Are they going back to Earth, or into Mars orbit?"
"Back to Earth. I don't think they trust orbit anymore."
He smiled at that. He had done a lot in space, aiding Sax's efforts and so on.
Her son the spaceman, the Green. For many years they had scarcely spoken to
each other.
Ann said, "So what are you going to do now?"
"I don't know. I don't see that we can take the elevator, or the Socket
either. It just wouldn't work. Even if it did, they could always bring the
elevator down."
"So?"
"Well-" He looked suddenly concerned. "I don't think that would be a good
thing. Do you?"
"I think it should come down."
Now he looked annoyed. "Better stay out of the fall line then."
"I will."
"I don't want anyone bringing it down without a full discussion," he told her
sharply. "This is important. It should be a decision made by the whole Martian
community. I think we need the elevator, myself."
"Except we have no way to take possession of it."
"That remains to be seen. Meanwhile, it's not something for you to take into
your own hands. I heard what happened in Burroughs, but it's different here,
you understand? We decide strategy together. It needs to be discussed."
"It's a group that's very good at that," Ann said bitterly. Everything was
always thoroughly discussed and then always she lost. It was past time for
that. Someone had to act. But again Peter looked as if he were being taken
from his real work. He thought he would be making the decisions about the
elevator, she could see that. Part of a more general feeling of ownership of
the planet, no doubt, the birthright of the nisei, displacing the First
Hundred and all the rest of the issei. If John had lived that would not have
been easy, but the king was dead, long live the king-her son, king of the
nisei, the first true Martians.
But king or not, there was a Red army now converging on Pavonis Mons. They
were the strongest military operation left on the planet, and they intended to
complete the work begun when Earth had been hit by its great flood. They did
not believe in consensus or compromise, and for them, knocking down the cable
was killing two birds with one stone: it would destroy the last police
stronghold, and it would also sever easy contact between Earth and Mars, a
primary Red goal. No, knocking down the cable was the obvious thing to do.
But Peter did not seem to know this. Or perhaps he did not care. Ann tried to
tell him, but he just nodded, muttering "Yeah yeah, yeah yeah." So arrogant,
like all the greens, so blithe and stupid with all their prevaricating, their
dealing with Earth, as if you could ever get anything from such a leviathan.