"William K. Hartmann - Mars Underground" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hartmann William K)

novelists create them.

C. J. Koch, author ofThe Year of Living Dangerously, quoting poet Vivian Smith, from "Crossing the
Gap," 1987



Prediction is always difficult, especially of the future.

Danish proverb cited byNiels Bohr, quoted by Walter Moore inSchr├╢dinger: Life and Thought, 1989

Mars in 2031
Nothing that is can pause or stay;

The moon will wax, the moon will wane,

The mist and cloud will turn to rain,

The rain to mist and cloud again,

Tomorrowbe today.

тАФHenry Wadsworth Longfellow,Keramos, 1878



Prologue



HAWAII, 2032



The plane banks over the blue sea and the white waves, and the deep green blanket that cloaks the
mountainsides.

She gets off the plane at Hilo's ancient airport, and the cool air smells of plants and humidity. Home at
last.

The other end of the universe from Mars.
 Upon her arrival back on Earth, during her fifteen minutes of fame, she had been called by Newsnet, "the
woman who brought it all crashing down." The phrase had won her respect in Tokyo, in Moscow, and in
certain hallways along the Potomac, but she knows that in the crucial hours on Mars, the actions that
changed two worlds were not hers alone. Besides, respect in Earth's gray, frenzied capitals seemed no
longer to matter. Here at home, amidst the perfumed greenery of the islands, people still acted as if the
ancient ways of pleasure might, just possibly, be more important than the ways of power. The thought
intensifies her questions about her own life.

The greenness and wetness shield her from the urgent needs of men now far away, but still in her mind.