"Severna Park - The Three Unknowns" - читать интересную книгу автора (Park Severna)

Right-angle corners and openings like doorways. Distinct rooms. Hallways? Jeff turned the tractor, and
Althea twisted to watch as the site fell behind them, so alien and still so familiar, like any other dig.
Shovels and trowels were arranged in a practical kind of still-life. Rust-colored dirt spilled out of dull
metal buckets, waiting to be sifted though the screens stacked in the lee of one wall. The whole thing was
familiar from Hoshi's videos, but now, framed by the dusty alien scenery, the dig was bigger, more
amazing than she'd let herself imagine. It was a site on Mars. Althea felt a jealous pang in her chest.
There had been a moment when she could have been the one to come here, but she had put it aside for
practical reasons. Now the dig was Hoshi's, and there was nothing left for her to do but perform an act
of dirty work.

"How big is the excavation?" she said to Jeff.

"Four hundred square meters."

"Why don't you cover it? Couldn't you pressurize the site?"

"We tried that in the beginning," said Jeff, "but changing the O2-CO 2 ratio created too much
condensation. The water was destroying the mortar between the stones."

That meant they dug in pressure suits. How much could you actually see in a helmet as you dug with a
toothbrush and a dental pick?

Jeff drove the tractor into a corrugated plastic shelter beside the third boxcar. A door slid shut behind
them, cutting off the weak daylight and turning the inside of the cab gloomy. The walls of the shelter
bulged with the change in air pressure. Jeff tapped a button on the dash and gave Althea a funny smile.
"You did bring a heavy coat?"

She nodded. "But it's still packed."

"It's okay," said Jeff. "Here's mine." He reached behind his own seat and hauled out a coat so bulky
Althea had mistaken it for a blanket. He handed it to her and waved at the window. Althea turned and
looked. It was Hoshi, squinting in at them, her face pinched and thin. Jeff tapped the release for the
tractor door, and the rush of freezing air almost sucked the breath right out of Althea's lungs.

Hoshi smiled at Althea without any visible warmth. "Welcome to Mars, Professor Mendez."




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Inside, shelving units stacked with hard-copy site catalogues covered almost every inch of wall. Desks
were arranged in a fortress-like island in the middle of the narrow room, and a big vinyl noteboard hung
at one end. Light from outside illuminated black marker scrawls showing sectional views of the dig. The
whole place was so like any other excavation, it gave Althea a familiar itch behind her back teeth where
she could always taste the drifting grit.
"Would you like a cup of coffee?" said Hoshi.

Althea shook her head and tried not to look as cold as she felt, despite Jeff's coat. "Do you know what