"Samuel R. Delany - High Weir" - читать интересную книгу автора (Delaney Samuel R)

Bellona that night and report their discovery to the Those Who Were in Charge of
Such Things. But the university people (especially the anthropology department)
treasured their brief freedom. One more examination of the site tomorrow, a few
cursory readings and measurements.тАж

Rimkin walked barefoot into the hall. It must have only been a few minutes, because
strips of light from reading machines underlined three doors. Which room belonged
to whom? He knew, and yet somehow there seemed no way to know.тАж

Down in the locks, he put his air suit on over his underwear. The plastic form-rings
felt odd against his thighs and arms without the usual padding. He stepped into the
lock.

Outside, sharp stars dropped frostlights. The sand was filled with great, slopping
puddles of ink. Cold, cold outside. The little motor humming in the vicinity of his chin
kept the silicone circulating between the double thickness of his faceplate to avoid
frosting. He stepped. And stepped. The desert sucked his boots.

The others? It was not even that he disliked them. He was infinitely confused by
them. Dune and shadow received him. As he walked, he looked up. One bright star
was тАж moving. If he stood still, he could follow the movement distinctly. Phobos?
Deimos? He knew it was one of the two tiny Martian moons. But for the life of him,
Rimkin could not remember whether it was Fear or Terror that coursed the frozen
jewelry of the Martian night.

He saw the ruin.

He tried to blank the struggling anxieties that squirmed into the edges of his
consciousness. Seven hundred and fifty-odd vitally important enzyme reactions are
occurring constantly in the human body. Were any one of them to break down for
even two-three minutes, the body would die. So, just to fix the free fear that ranged
his mind, he worried about one of these seven hundred and fifty-odd complex
reactions suddenly coming to a halt: until he lost the subject of his worry in the coils
of sand. And fear moved free above him, tangible as the slender columns, the
sculpted architrave.

He looked up at the faces, obscured by darkness. The eyes caught and grayed the
starlight, and regarded him. Rimkin began to paw under the flap of his pack for his
flash. He found it after much too much timeтАФhe had forgotten what he was looking
for twiceтАФand rotated the dispersal grid to break up the laser beam into ordinary
light.

He played the beam over the stones. They were gray now. He wondered if the
purple were actually only a reflection from the desert. No, it was just the weakness
of his beam. He walked along the sand to the place where the foundation could be
mounted. He started to climb, once more aware of the inside of his suit against bare
skin. The heating was working adequately, but the plastic and metal textures were
so odd. He wanted to take the suit off and place his hand on the stone, then grew
terrified that he might, because the Martian night was almost a hundred degrees
below freezing.