"Robert F. Young - The Questenestal Towers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

canal and plunge into the blue blue water, striking out with long strong strokes toward the magic
pinnacles waiting forever on the farther shore.
"The Quetenestel Towers," the narrator's flat voice said: "a remarkable example of Martian mass art
dating from the last century of the old modernism. Formerly and romantically believed to represent the
attempt of a poet-architect named Quetenestel to immortalize himself by spelling his name in grandiose
letters along the Suriul canal.
"Actually an example of the advertising ingenuity—and the extravagance—of a huge Martian winery.
The Quetenestel Vintners. . The towers bear a startling resemblance, when properly understood, to the
much smaller neon lettering used to promulgate similar products on Earth during the twentieth century."
"Is something wrong, sir?"
Thorton realized that he was standing. "No, no. Nothing," he said.
Somehow he found his way out of the room into the corridor. He walked down the corridor to the
elevators and descended to street level.
They crawled out of their burrows into the sun; he kept thinking. Into the sun, and they saw the
dust covering their broken cities. And in all their land nothing stood except the towers, the towers
immortalizing the vintage they had drunk for centuries to rationalize their brick and mortar
civilization . . .
Thorton stepped through the street entrance into the bleak November sunshine. He saw the naked
street and the tall white buildings lining it. And the people hurrying. He shuddered.