"Philip Jose Farmer - Tongues of the Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

"But I can't forget. It's not that a voice has spoken to me out of the fire in the bushes. But there's a voice. Or a
reasonable facsimile thereof."
"You're letting the events of the last two weeks get to you," said Broward. "The old world is destroyed, and
there's nothing you can do about it. But we do have a new world to make, and if we profit by the mistakes the old
world made, well..."
"You have as much chance getting everybody to agree on what the brave new world should be as Scone will
have on getting everybody to agree to make the Moon a New America," said Moshe.
Broward did not reply. It was true that Moshe was a member of his Athenian party, but Broward had all along
felt that Moshe had joined him only in protest against the Communists. He did not have a sincere or deep belief in the
principles Broward expounded. Not in the ability of men to carry out the principles, anyway. When Moshe had lost his
faith in the God of his fathersтАФif he ever had anyтАФhe had also lost his faith in men.
The rest of the way the two talked about trivial things, about those they knew on the Moon, about friends
and enemies they had known on Earth, their childhoods, jokes. Exactly one and a half hours after they had hurtled from
the surface of the Moon, an alarm rang through the ship. This, as the appropriate blinking light on the panel validated,
was the signal that the ship was beginning to decelerate. It was not needed, for the vessel had been on automatic from
the beginning. It would continue to be so until it had brought them into the atmosphere and close to the area where
they were to land. Then, Moshe would take over the controls.
They waited, silently, while the ship plunged into the clouds that blanketed the planet. Broward showed his
nervousness by the swift tapping of his fingers on the chair-arm; Moshe hummed softly. Outside, all was gloom except
for flashes of lightning in the distance. Suddenly, they were in a heavy rain.
"We're on the nightside," said Moshe. "Out of contact with the Moon. There's nothing to keep us from
taking off again, keeping the Earth between us and the Moon until we are out of detection range."
"Where would we go?" said Broward. "And why should we go?"
"Ganymede. Mercury. Ganymede'd be better. Did you ever read the report on the complex of caverns in it? A
whole city could hide there and never be found. As to why, well, why go back to a people that hate you or, at least,
have contempt for you? Or to a leader that wants to use you as tools for his own twisted ideology, not as a human
being with rights and desires of his own? And..."
"We have to stick together to survive," said Broward. "Centripetal force is what we need, not centrifugal
desires that will whirl us apart."
"Forget it. I'm just talking. First, let's find what we came for, then..."
Their goal was ten kilometers off the coast of the East Siberian Sea, near the city of Yakan, and a quarter of a
kilometer beneath the surface. The ship took them to the exact spotтАФor so the instruments indicatedтАФand then it
poised ten meters above the waves. So thick was the mixture of smoke and fog, that the two men could see nothing.
They had not glimpsed the land once during their descent. Broward had wanted to see something of the devastation.
At the same time, he did not want to see it. He was not sure that he could bear the sight. Knowing about it had been
almost too much; to view the glassed-over and fused cities that had suffered direct hits, to see the shattered remnants
of the areas that had been on the fringes, to have to see the thousands, the millions of bodies of those who had died
from radiation, the human beings, the animals, birds... this was more than he could endure even to imagine. No, he was
glad that the smoke from burning cities and the forests hid dead Earth.
He pressed the button that released them from stasis, rose, and went to the control panel. Powerful
searchlights stabbed into the brown-grey mists. Below, the huge waves of the sea raced up and down. Then, they
were near, lashing at the ship; then, the waves were gone, and the darkness of the sea, speared by the light beams,
was around them. There were no fish to be startled by the frightening appearance of the strong lights.
Abruptly, one of the rays struck a projection, obviously not a natural formation. It reared 200 meters above
the black ooze of the sea bottom. Moshe guided the vessel above the flat top of the tower, halted it above the exact
center, and pressed another button.
"According to what Ziolsky told Scone, the port is set to activate only to a certain sonar code. Ziolsky was
not sure the code would not be changed by now. But, if the code doesn't work, we can enter by another port, near the
base, in our suits."
"It's working," said Moshe, pointing at the door sinking within the flat surface of the tower top. He lowered