"Pournelle, Jerry - Birth Of Fire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pournelle Jerry)

"So you're a Project nut too."
"Aren't you?"
"Don't know enough about it," I said. That was a mistake; I got an engineering dissertation. I liked her voice, and if necessary I'd have listened to her recite bad poetry in a language I didn't know, but a lecture on the Project wasn't the topic I'd had in mind for a tъte-р-tъte under the hurtling moons of Barsoom (actually, Deimos wasn't up yet, but never mind) with the most beautiful girl in the universe.
And yet. Maybe it was earlier, maybe it was just then, while she told me about how it would be some day when there was air on Mars and it stayed warm all night in summer, and there would be green fields and forests - maybe then, maybe earlier, but I knew as well as I knew anything that this was the girl I wanted to marry.
Crap, I told myself. Garrett, you haven't seen any women for months. Anybody you met just now would be the One and Only, which is a bunch of romantic claptrap you don't believe in in the first place.
Maybe so, I answered myself. But I've known a lot of girls, and I never felt like this before, and damned good it feels, too.
What you need, Garr baby, is a trip to Hellastown.
Go away. The idea is nauseating.
"We'll do it," she said. "We'll make Mars green and beautiful, the way Earth is, and it will be ours."
"Earth isn't -" I couldn't finish it. Earth is green and beautiful, except where people have messed it up.
We must have talked for another hour, but I don't remember what about. Finally I got up the nerve to reach for her hand. She didn't draw back. Well, here goes, I thought. I drew her to me and kissed her.

That went on for quite a while. Then she pushed me away. "I'm no expert on this, but I think we'd better stop," she said.
УWhy?Ф
"Because I've got the feeling we stop now or we don't stop at all -"
"And why stop at all?"
"I just think we'd better." She moved away from me and perched on a bench on the other side of the small dome. "Garrett, I am not a town Ц У
"Lord, I never -"
"Let me finish. I live on the Rim. I like it here. I know that girls in town, not whores, just girls, have plenty of affairs, and they must enjoy them. I'm damned sure I would. But then what? I intend to live on the Rim. I don't think I could stand it in town. But stations are family affairs, and I do not believe I want to get involved with anyone I'm not going to live with for a long time."
"And I'm a convict and -"
"Oh, shut up. You're just past being a pilgrim. In about a year you'll have a stake and when that time comes, if we can still stand the sight of each other, we'll open this conversation again. Until then, no."
"Yeah. Okay. I'm sorry."
"What's there to be sorry about? Didn't you enjoy it? I certainly did. I know I don't have much experience at this sort of thing, but you didn't seem too bored at the time. Now I think we ought to go downstairs, because I have work to do in the morning."


SEVEN

"Thinking about Erica? Pretty girl," Sarge said.
I concentrated on guiding the tractor around a small crater. The wind had come up, and whipped the dust in our faces so that visibility was bad. When I could look up, I threw Sarge a grin. "Well, actually I was thinking about the trees."
"Sure you were."
"Well, I was. just then, anyway."
We both laughed. "You know, Garr, I've been meaning to grow some fruit trees myself one of these days. Fruit trees make sense. But you know what Ruth Hendrix wants? A wood table for the dining room."
Erica had told me that, but I wasn't going to spoil Sarge's story.
"Yep, a wood table," Sarge said. "Be the only goddamn piece of wood furniture on Mars. Tax collectors ever saw a thing like that, they'd break old Sam. Dah! Why'd I get on that subject?"
"Why would the tax collectors care what Sam's table is made of?" I asked.
"Property tax." Sarge snorted in contempt. "Otherwise known as a fine for improving your property. You've got a lot to learn about Mars politics, and I guess you ought to start now. The Federation runs Mars to suit the big companies."
"The only thing I've seen the Federation in charge of was the prison ship and the school -"
"Yeah. Well, the school's Commander Farr's idea. He runs it in a way that helps us out. But the rest of it's Earth types, bureaucrats, don't want anybody to get ahead. And they're bringing in marines to make sure."
"You used to be a Federation Marine."
"Sure." Sarge sniffed his contempt. "Old style. We were peace keepers, back when keeping the peace on Earth was a damn dangerous job. None of my type left. The new marines are bloody thieves in uniform, out for wages and what they can steal. That's why the Skipper retired. He wanted no part of being a tax collector!"
"What do they do with the money they collect?"
Sarge laughed. "They don't put it to anything that helps us, you can be damned sure of that! Be different if they'd finance the Project, but not them." His voice changed to an unctuous whine. "Mister Speaker, we cannot destroy the ecology of an entire planet! To humans, perhaps, a breathable atmosphere on Mars is desirable, but to Mars it is no more than pollution . . . I swear to God, kid, I heard one of the goddamn Federation Councilors say that!"
I shook my head. "Sam grows the trees and makes the table. Why should the Federation take a cut for that? It's not very fair."
"Yeah. Question is, what do we do about it?"
"What can we do?" I asked.
He didn't answer. Instead, he sat up and rubbed his eyes, then said, very slowly, "Garrett, it's about time you started thinking about a place of your own. It's months yet, but not too early to pick out a location and study it."
"Erica said that too. She also said there's a good valley on the other side of that ridge behind Sam's place. Not on the Rim, but good mining and water ice -"
"Yeah. I know the place. Kind of remote. Have to cut a road in. Be even better if we can find a way without cuttin' a road . . ." He muttered to himself for a moment, then said, "Yeah. I like it and the Skipper will like it."
"Okay," I said. "Have I been here long enough to know, or do we go on playing games?"
"How's that?"