"Asimov, Isaac - 1. Foundation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Asimov Isaac)

The man waved him on, good-naturedly, and Gaal leaned out over the shoulder-high
railing and bathed himself in all the panorama.
He could not see the ground. It was lost in the ever increasing complexities of
man-made structures. He could see no horizon other than that of metal against
sky, stretching out to almost uniform grayness, and he knew it was so over all
the land-surface of the planet. There was scarcely any motion to be seen Ц a few
pleasure-craft lazed against the sky-but all the busy traffic of billions of men
were going on, he knew, beneath the metal skin of the world.
There was no green to be seen; no green, no soil, no life other than man.
Somewhere on the world, he realized vaguely, was the Emperor's palace, set amid
one hundred square miles of natural soil, green with trees, rainbowed with
flowers. It was a small island amid an ocean of steel, but it wasn't visible
from where he stood. It might be ten thousand miles away. He did not know.
Before very long, he must have his tour!
He sighed noisily, and realized finally that he was on Trantor at last; on the
planet which was the center of all the Galaxy and the kernel of the human race.
He saw none of its weaknesses. He saw no ships of food landing. He was not aware
of a jugular vein delicately connecting the forty billion of Trantor with the
rest of the Galaxy. He was conscious only of the mightiest deed of man; the
complete and almost contemptuously final conquest of a world.
He came away a little blank-eyed. His friend of the elevator was indicating a
seat next to himself and Gaal took it.
The man smiled. "My name is Jerril. First time on Trantor?"
"Yes, Mr. Jerril."
"Thought so. Jerril's my first name. Trantor gets you if you've got the poetic
temperament. Trantorians never come up here, though. They don't like it. Gives
them nerves."
"Nerves! Ц My name's Gaal, by the way. Why should it give them nerves? It's
glorious."
"Subjective matter of opinion, Gaal. If you're born in a cubicle and grow up in
a corridor, and work in a cell, and vacation in a crowded sun-room, then coming
up into the open with nothing but sky over you might just give you a nervous
breakdown. They make the children come up here once a year, after they're five.
I don't know if it does any good. They don't get enough of it, really, and the
first few times they scream themselves into hysteria. They ought to start as
soon as they're weaned and have the trip once a week."
He went on, "Of course, it doesn't really matter. What if they never come out at
all? They're happy down there and they run the Empire. How high up do you think
we are?"
He said, "Half a mile?" and wondered if that sounded naive.
It must have, for Jerril chuckled a little. He said, "No. Just five hundred
feet."
"What? But the elevator took about Ц"
"I know. But most of the time it was just getting up to ground level. Trantor is
tunneled over a mile down. It's like an iceberg. Nine-tenths of it is out of
sight. It even works itself out a few miles into the sub-ocean soil at the
shorelines. In fact, we're down so low that we can make use of the temperature
difference between ground level and a couple of miles under to supply us with
all the energy we need. Did you know that?"
"No, I thought you used atomic generators."