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

will come to care for each other more than ever before," John said, which
really meant, Chalmers thought, an alarming incidence of the kind of
behavior seen in rat overpopulation experiments; "Mars is a sublime,
exotic and dangerous place," said John—meaning a frozen ball of oxidized
rock on which they were exposed to about fifteen rem a year; "And with
our work," John continued, "we are carving out a new social order 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 cafйs 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