"Jeff Hecht - The Crystal Highway" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hecht Jeff)

no more than 20 meters thick. We think it crystallized at the bottom of an
ancient sea, and lay buried underground for eons until mountain-building
tilted it. We don't know how to make the stuff; the geologists can only guess
at the nature of the ocean where it formed. It's tough stuff; the other rocks
erode much faster."
Axel stared at the glittering colors. He wished Hannah was beside him
to see it. Her little bit of crystal and Vaxila's words barely hinted at the
glory of the whole thing. The steep, jagged cliff drank in sunlight and spewed
forth brilliant sprays of multi-colored light. Only when dust blew by the
window, hiding it, could Axel pull himself away enough to ask, "Who goes out
there?"
"Just robots. We run them under remote control with a radio link. We
spray them with coatings and wash them every day, but still the atmosphere
eats them up."
Axel stared at the crystal, above and beyond the poison sky and barren
land. Vaxila's words did not say enough. "Have you gone out..." he started.
"I'm not crazy. You know what's outside?" Lambrecht gestured. "The
corrosives -- nitric acid, sulfuric acid, and worse -- eat their way through
space suits if they can find a dent. Dust storms can rise up and bury robots
in minutes. We take no chances. No humans go outside."
That, Axel realized, was why Vaxila had said the Crystal Highway was
out of reach. "How did you build the Station?"
"Robots built it, professor. My great grandfather sent them down
seventy years ago, while he stayed in an orbiting control module. The basic
structure was prefab; then they sent down the interior framework. It was all
done by remote control from orbit, until they verified it could hold up..."
"But it's beautiful," was all that Axel could say, staring out. "The
light makes it come alive..."
"That's why we built the window. It's half a meter thick, and sometimes
I wonder if that's enough. We're lucky the atmosphere doesn't have more
fluorine, or it would eat through the glass."
The light returned and the crystal came alive again. Axel stared
through the window.
"The outside is coated with diamond," the stationmaster boasted. "Eight
whole millimeters thick, enough to keep the sandstorms at bay for a
millennium, my great-grandfather said..."
The words passed through Axel like light through the window.
Eventually, Lambrecht tired of talking to himself, and said he was returning
to his office. Axel mumbled that he would find his own way back.
Axel watched the colors change as the planet turned and the light
struck the crystal at different angles. He wished he could capture the
shifting patterns so Hannah could tell him how the crystal changed the light.
A cloud blocked the sun, breaking the spell. Only then did he look down the
corridor and see a dirty sign reading "EMERGENCY EXIT LOCK."
All his life Axel Cormier had sat and read and watched, never reaching
or touching or venturing. "Go," the dean had said, and he knew the dean was
right, even though he knew the going was a fool's errand. His hand did not
want to move, but he reached to open the door. Four lockers were inside. Three
were empty, but the fourth contained a pressure suit. It was dusty, stiff with
age, and closer to Lambrecht's size than to his, but Axel could fit inside,