"Emil Petaja - The Path Beyond The Stars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Petaja Emil)

Firmly.
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Eventually Jon closed up shop and went out to eat. It was dark, one of
those drizzly March evenings when the Bay fogs drift up off the black water
and cling about the wharves and the dock sheds and those elongated
ice-cube-tray apartments poking up all around Telegraph Hill like brittle
monolithic idols. He kept telling himself while he chomped down his salad
and steak and sipped away his split of Cabernet Sauvignon that he'd come
all the way down to North Beach because he liked the atmosphere. He
wouldn't permit himself the slightest suggestion that he had come here
because Greenwich and Franklin was only three blocks from the little
Basque restaurant. Not until he was waving away the flan and more coffee
did he allow one hint of Venus Trine to leak into the mainstream of his
thoughts. And that, he insisted, was pure masculine instinct. Fill a man up
with wine and steak and what's the next thing he'll think of?
Venus Trine was pretty. Damn pretty.
The cluster of monoliths matching the address Jon had happened to
cram down in his pocket just before leaving his office was patterned around
an arched central plaza that managed by artful design to look much larger
than it really was. Space was at a premium everywhere on Earth.
Sauntering through the pinprick drizzle toward the first of those arches,
having run his car into the sub-basement parking lot, Jon thought about
astrology with irritation. Imagine himтАФJon Wood, starplot's top
star-dowserтАФpermitting himself even to think about such ancient nonsense!
Holy Gemini!
It was true, of course, that the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians had
believed that the stars ruled their destinies and that one could read within
them that which might happen. Might, that is. What was it they chattered?
тАЬThe Stars impel; they do not compel.тАЭ Very smart of them. It left all kinds
of outs in case they guessed wrong! Those ancient stargazers with their
flamboyant star-spangled robes and their conical hats and their long beards
weren't so dumb! Always leave yourself an escape hatch in case your king's
headsman gets itchy fingers. Come to think of it, the Greeks had had a
crack at astrology. And the Romans and the French. India, too. Curious how
widespread the belief had once been, among isolated tribes who'd had little
contact with one another. A lot of odd coincidences. The Mayan observatory
in Chich├йn Itz├б and some of those weird crystal lenses were uncannily
modern in many ways. And, of course, Venus Trine was right about
mathematics' having its beginnings in astrology. The Aztec calendar, an
intricate enigma, was based on the movement of the stars. Astronomy was
obviously a projection of starry soothsaying. If one cared to go into itтАФif
there were any logical reason to botherтАФone could become fascinated by all
the ramifications and curious bypaths of astrology. If one cared to, that is.
Jon's knowledge was rudimentary and he intended to keep it that way. As
for Venus Trine, she was pretty and she was in some kind of trouble. Maybe
he could help her outтАФand incidentally have a bit of fun doing so.

***

The apartment number he had scrawled down was 90-18. A long way up.