"Clarke, Arthur C - The Sands Of Mars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Clarke Arthur C)

anyone at home next door.

And even then we may not be sure for quite a long
time. One space scientist has already quoted this book to
make precisely this point. The land area of Mars is greater
than that of Asia, Africa, and the Americas combined; its
exploration will take decades, if not centuries.

Nevertheless, many of the mysteries that have tantalized
generations of men are now rushing toward their solu-
tion. Before this story is twice its present age, we will
have robot explorers dotted all over Mars.

And a little while later, men will be preparing to join
them.

ARTHUR C. CLARKE
London, August 1966

1

"So this is the first time you've been upstairs?" said the
pilot, leaning back idly in his seat so that it rocked to and
fro in the gimbals. He clasped his hands behind his neck
in a nonchalant manner that did nothing to reassure his
passenger.

"Yes," said Martin Gibson, never taking his eyes from
the chronometer as it ticked away the seconds.

"I thought so. You never got it quite right in your sto-
riesЧall that nonsense about fainting under the accelera-
tion. Why must people write such stuff? It's bad for busi-
ness."

"I'm sorry," Gibson replied. "But I think you must be
referring to my earlier stories. Space-travel hadn't got
started then, and I had to use my imagination."

"Maybe," said the pilot grudgingly. (He wasn't paying
the slightest attention to the instruments, and take-off was
only two minutes away.) "It must be funny, I suppose, for
this to be happening to you, after writing about it so
often."

The adjective, thought Gibson, was hardly the one he
would have used himself, but he saw the other's point of
view. Dozens of his heroesЧand villainsЧhad gazed hyp-
notised by remorseless second-hands, waiting for the rock-
ets to hurl them into infinity. And nowЧas it always did