"Kim Stanley Robinson - Mars 4 - The Martians" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Kim Stanley)

social existence is a set of double-binds.'
'No no,' Michel said. 'Social life is a set of contradictory demands.
That's normal, agreed. But what we're talking about here are requirements to
be two opposite things at once. Classic double-binds. And they are already
causing a lot of the classic responses. Hidden lives. Multiple personalities.
Bad faith. Repression, then the return of the repressed, A close look at the
results of the tests given down there

_will show it is not a viable project. I would advise starting with small
scientific stations, with rotating crews. As Antarctica itself is operated
now.'
This caused a lot of discussion, even controversy. Charles remained
committed to sending up a permanent colony, as proposed; but he had grown
close to Mary. Georgia and Pauline tended to agree with Michel; though they
too had had personal difficulties at Vanda.
Charles dropped by to see Michel in his borrowed office, shaking his
head. He looked at Michel, serious but somehow still uninvolved, distanced.
Professional. 'Look, Michel,' he said. 'They want to go. Tbey're capable of
adapting. A lot of them did very well with that, so well that you couldn't
pick them out of a crowd in any kind of blind test. And they want to go, it's
clear. That's how we should choose who to send. We should give them their
chance to do what they want. It's not really our business to decide for them.'
'But it won't work. We saw that.'
'I didn't see that. They didn't see that. What you saw is your concern,
but they have the right to make their try at it. Anything could happen there,
Michel. Anything. And this world is not so well-arranged that we should deny
people who want to take their chance to try something different. It could be
good for us all.' He stood abruptly to leave the office. 'Think about it.'
Michel thought about it. Charles was a sensible man, a wise man. What he
had said had the ring of truth to it. And a sudden gust of fear blew through
Michel, as cold as any katabatic downdraught in Wright Valley: he might, out
of his own fear, be stopping something with greatness in it.
He changed his recommendation, describing all the reasons why. He
explained his vote for the project to continue; he gave the committees his
list of the best hundred candidates. But Georgia and Pauline continued to
advise against the project as designed. And so an outside panel was convened
to make an evaluation, a recommendation, a judgment. Near the end of the
process Michel even found himself in his office with the American president,
who sat down with him and told him he had probably been right the first time
around, first impressions were usually that way, second-guessing was of little
use. Michel could only nod. Later he sat in a meeting attended by both the
American and Russian presidents;


the stakes were that high. They both wanted a Martian base, for their own
political purposes, Michel saw that clearly. But they also wanted a success, a
project that worked. In that sense, the hundred permanent colonists as
originally conceived was clearly the riskier of the options they had before
them now. And neither president was a risk-taker. Rotating crews were
intrinsically less interesting, but if the crews were large enough, and the