"Daniel Marcus - Ex Vitro" - читать интересную книгу автора (Marcus Daniel)

Ex Vitro
Daniel Marcus


With a few short story sales to Asimov's, F&SF, and SF Age, Daniel
Marcus has made a sharp splash in the science fiction field. His
hard-hitting tales landed him on this year's John W. Campbell ballot for
Best New Writer, but Mr. Marcus isn't resting. His powerful new story
takes a brutal look at life on a research station millions of miles from
home.



I

The communications room was a weird place. Jax wanted to hunch his
shoulders against the close metal walls, against the silent machines that
smelled faintly of ozone and heat. An array of yellow telltales glowed
steadily on the panel over his head; the blank, grey screen hung before him
like an open mouth. The one decoration in the barren cubicle was a
software ad-fax Maddy had taped to the wallтАФINSTANT ACCESS, some
sort of file-retrieval utility, the first word highlighted in blue and the
letters slanted, trailing comb-like filigrees denoting speed.

There was something that drew him to the place, though, and he
caught solitary time there whenever he could. He imagined himself a point
of light on the far tip of a rocky promontory, a beacon rising above a dark,
endless ocean.

Jax heard a sound behind him and turned around. Maddy stood in the
doorway. She had been working out, and her shirt was damp with sweat.
Ringlets of dark hair framed her face; red splotches stood out high on her
pale cheeks.

"What's up?" she asked, still a little short of breath. "I didn't hear a
comm bellтАж"
 "Nothing," Jax replied. "I'm just hanging. Fog's really badтАФwe can't
even watch the slugs."

Maddy shrugged. The slugs didn't interest her muchтАФanything that
happened on time-scales shorter than a thousand millennia slid under her
radar. Titan itself, though, was to her like a blood-glittering, faceted ruby
to a gemologist. Ammonia seas, vast lava fields laced with veins of waxy,
frozen hydrocarbons. She was taking ultrasound readings to map the
moon's crust and mantle. Jax had never seen her so engaged, but the news
from home was like a tidal force pulling at her from another direction.
"Anything new on the laser feed?" she asked.

Jax knew that, decoded, the question was, "War news?" Or more
specifically, "How bad does it have to get before we can go home?"