"Jack Williamson - The Ultimate Earth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williamson Jack)

live in houses, or underground in tunnels like ours? What did
he do for a living? Did he have a wife? Children like us?
He wouldn’t tell us much. Earth, he said, had changed
since our parents knew it. It was now so different that he
wouldn’t know where to begin, but he let us take turns
looking at it through the big telescope. Later, he promised, if
he could find space gear to fit us, he would take us up to orbit
the Moon and loop toward it for a closer look. Now, however,
he was working to learn all he could about the old Earth, the
way it had been ages ago, before the great impacts.
He showed it to us in the holo tanks and the brittle old
paper books, the way it was with white ice caps over the
poles and bare brown deserts on the continents. Terraformed,
the new Earth had no deserts and no ice. Under the bright
cloud spirals, the land was green where the sun struck it, all
the way over the poles. It looked so wonderful that Casey and
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 The Ultimate Earth
by Jack Williamson


Pepe begged him to take us back with him to let us see it for
ourselves.
“I’m sorry.” He shook his neat, fur-crowned head. “Terribly
sorry, but you can’t even think of a trip to Earth.”
We were looking from the dome. Earth stood high in the
black north, where it always stood. Low in the west, the slow
Sun blazed hot on the new mountains the machines had piled
up around the spaceport, and filled the craters with ink.
Dian had learned by now to trust him. She sat on his knee,
gazing up in adoration at his quirky face. Tanya stood behind
him, playing a little game. She held her hand against his back
to bleach the golden tan, and took it away to watch the Sun
erase the print.
Looking hurt, Casey asked why we couldn’t think of a trip
to Earth.
“You aren’t like me.” That was very true. Casey has a wide
black face with narrow Chinese eyes and straight black hair.
“And you belong right here.”
“I don’t look like anybody.” Casey shrugged. “Or belong to
you.”
“Of course you don’t.” Uncle Pen was gently patient. “But
you do belong to the station and your great mission.” He
looked at me. “Remind him, Dunk.”
My clone father was Duncan Yarrow. The master computer
that runs the station often spoke with his holo voice. He had
told us how we had been cloned again and again from the
tissue cells left frozen in the cryostat.
“Sir, that’s true.” I felt a little afraid of Uncle Pen, but
proud of all the station had done. “My holo father has told us