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

Mars' amber beacon is the brightest light in the part of the sky above the sea. Strange. In ancient tales of
quests, the hero travels to distant empires and then escapes home, leaving the distant land far behind
forever. In her case, the distant land has followed her around the sun and watches her balefully from the
sky across the sea. With a shock, she realizes she will never escape it. At the right season, it will always
be within direct sight. Wars and carnage, craft and madness, lust and spite; Philippe taught her
Tennyson's prescient poem about Mars and Earth.They remain there, living their lives in that point of
peaceful light: friends, lovers, enemies.

It is unbelievable to her: a glowing dot containing the whole world where she had lived, a world that
already seems an amber dream.She . I ambers down to the tide pools in the rough lava at the edge of the
sea, and looks for a reflection of Mars' red sparkle on the water. She would like to see the sea and sky,
Mars and Earth, tied together by that reflection.Il would make some kind of link. But the planet does not
glow quite brightly enough; it is too far away and the sea is too restless.




BOOK 1



Kilroy in Hellespontus



...each tale is but a fragment of a tale

тАФthe tale of mankind's history.

тАФStephenVizinczey , An

Innocent Millionaire,1985




1
 2031, FEBRUARY 42, SATURDAY



Morning. So, was he really going to keep driving west, after all, into the unknown Martian desert?
Stafford smiled to himself.

Stafford's dune buggy churned across the ocher sands of Hellespontus. Inthe immense empty wasteland,
the buggy looked like an insignificant blue insect crawling across a dusty parking lot. The dust kicked up
by its big wheels spurted into the air and fell away slowly, sometimes twisted by uncertain gusts of wind.
Along the horizon, the hazy sky was exactly the same color as Stafford's creased Anglo flesh. But high
above, wasn't that a trace of blue he had been seeing in the last year or so?