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

Tatiana Durova, for instance, he thought as gorgeous as any movie star,
with also that intelligence and individuality that derived from life lived in
the real world of work and community. Michel loved Tatiana.
And he loved Hiroko Ai, a remote and charismatic human being, withdrawn
into her own affairs, but kind. He loved Ann Clayborne, a Martian already. He
loved Phyllis Boyle, sister to Machiavelli. He loved Ursula Kohl like the
sister he could always talk to. He loved Rya Jimenez for her black hair and
bright smile, he loved

_Marina Tokareva for her tough logic, he loved Sasha Yefremova for her irony.
But most of all he loved Maya Toitovna, who was as exotic to him as
Hiroko, but more extroverted. She was not as beautiful as Tatiana, but drew
the eye. The natural leader of the Russian contingent, and a bit forbidding -
dangerous somehow - watching everyone there in much the same way Michel was,
though he was pretty sure she was a tougher judge of people. Most of the
Russian men seemed to fear her, like mice under a hawk, or maybe it was that
they feared falling hopelessly in love with her. If Michel were going to Mars
(he was not) she was the one he would be most interested in.

Of course Michel, as one of the four psychologists there to help evaluate the
candidates, could not act on any of these affections. That did not bother him;
on the contrary he liked the constraint, which was the same he had with any of
his clients. It allowed him to indulge his thoughts without having to consider
acting on them. 'If you don't act on it, it wasn't a true feeling' - maybe the
old saying was right, but if you were forbidden to act for good reasons, then
your feelings might not be false after all. So he could be both true and safe.
Besides the saying was wrong, love for one's fellow humans could be a matter
of contemplation only. There was nothing wrong with it.
Maya was quite certain she was going to Mars. Michel therefore
represented no threat to her, and she treated him like a perfect equal.
Several others were like her in this respect - Vlad, Ursula, Arkady, Sax,
Spencer, a few others. But Maya took matters beyond that; she was intimate
from the very start. She would sit and talk to him about anything, including
the selection process itself. They spoke English when they talked, their
partial competence and strong accents making for a picturesque music.
'You must be using the objective criteria for selecting people, the
psychological profiles and the like.'
'Yes, of course. Tests of various kinds, as you know. Various indexes.'
'But your own personal judgments must count too, right?'
'Yes. Of course.'


'But it must be hard to separate out your personal feelings about people
from your professional judgments, yes?'
'I suppose so.'
'How do you do it?'
'Well ... I suppose you would say it is a habit of mind. I like people,
or whatever, for different reasons to the reasons that might make someone good
on a project like this.'
'For what reasons do you like people?'