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

Carter. Philippe. All of them on that Oz-like red world, following their brick roads that they were laying
ahead of them, one brick at a time. And here, of course, Tomas is waiting for her.

Later, she and Tomas make frantic love, Tomas betraying a hint of suspicion. But the love of Tomas is
different from the love of Philippe which was different from the love of Carter. They are all different, men.
Philippe had said she was sincere but not honest, and the nature of the distinction still goes around and
around in her mind. Yet here, among the soft plants and the warm waters that fall from the sky like liquid
caresses, she feels free.

She settles in, visits her aunt in the hundred-year-old house under the banyan tree on the hills of Ka'u.
She sits on the wooden veranda and looks across the land toward the sea. Do they still have verandas
anywhere else in the United States? The mainland is a teeming mess, consumed by the drought, the debt,
the lottery, this year's sports scandal, the crisisdujour , and everyone's doomed quest to be rich, famous,
a player, the winnerтАФor at least to acquire the facade ofbeing something; here, she takes time to listen
to insects pursuing their business. She walks on the black beach at Ninole cove and stares at the slimy
creatures in the tide pools. They have climbed over wet rocks like these for eons beyond human
memory, without caring whether other species conquered the land or went still further, beyond the sky.

She is surprised that she feels no impatience in this quiet island life. She feels renewal, recreation.
Wonders if some day she will go back. Back to what? She is not sure she knows how to answer that.
What was it she had sought out there?

Being on the island again makes her aware of cycles. Liquid water, for example: Earth's unique
attraction. Mainlanders seem to believe that water flows in rivers because water's nature is to do so. But
islanders see the whole truth before their eyes. Water babbles down from the mountains across the black
lava rocks and dry grassy plains and into the sea; the only way it can get back to the mountains is for the
ocean waters to be lifted through the air, torecondense , to fall on the broad summits, where it can begin
the cycle again.

She feels part of a vast cycle like that, a molecule of water at one stage of its history. On this island, she
sees that even the land has cycles. Twenty new acres of lava have flowed out into the sea since she left;
down the coast, an old black lava cliff, where she played as a child, has fallen back into the sea. And she
has been to another planet and back.

Still later, there is her tiny son and she is happy for a while, content that she has been, after all, true to
herself.

One day a piece of mail arrives from Mars. It's on actual paper, with handwriting, months old. So
characteristic of what Carter would dream up. Was he afraid to contact her in real time?

She sits on the veranda, and tries to think how to answer him. She gazes at the distant ocean far below,
lost in haze on the humid horizon. Everything is beyond that horizon, and yet she is here and content. For
now.

That evening, she checks out "Mars" on the net. Newsnet explains that Mars is reaching the point in its
own orbital cycle where it is close to Earth. It is shining in the darkening east as the twilight settles in, and
she goes down the road to the ancientheiau above Ninole cove to watch it. She sits on one of the
prehistoric rock walls as waves send white foam crashing over the rocks below. Salt spray accumulates
on her skin.