"Alastair Reynolds - Glacial" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Alastair)

GLACIAL

New writer Alastair Reynolds is a frequent contributor to Interzone and has also sold to Asimov's
Science Fiction, Spectrum SF, and elsewhere. His first novel, Revelation Space, was widely hailed
as one of the major SF books of the year. His most recent novel is a sequel to Revelation Space also
attracting much notice, Chasm City. Upcoming is another big new novel, Redemption Ark. His
stories have appeared in our Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Annual Collections. A
professional scientist with a Ph.D. in astronomy, he comes from Wales, but lives in the Netherlands,
where he works for the European Space Agency.
In the taut and absorbing story that follows, he takes us to the arid and frozen wastelands of a
distant alien planet, where one man must solve an intricate and puzzling mystery before the clock
runs out -- and his own life runs out with it.

NEVIL CLAVAIN PICKED his way across a mosaic of shattered ice. The field stretched away in
all directions, gouged by sleek-sided crevasses. They had mapped the largest cracks before landing,
but he was still wary of surprises; his breath caught every time his booted foot cracked through a
layer of ice. He was aware of how dangerous it would be to wander from the red path that his
implants were painting across the glacier field.
He only had to remind himself what had happened to Martin Setterholm.
They had found his body a month ago, shortly after their arrival on the planet. It had been near
the main American base; a stroll from the perimeter of the huge, deserted complex of stilted domes
and ice-walled caverns. Clavain's friends had found dozens of dead within the buildings, and most
of them had been easily identified against the lists of base personnel that the expedition had pieced
together. But Clavain had been troubled by the gaps and had wondered if any further dead might be
found in the surrounding ice fields. He had explored the warrens of the base until he found an
airlock which had never been closed, and though snowfalls had long since obliterated any
footprints, there was little doubt in which direction a wanderer would have set off.
Long before the base had vanished over the horizon, Clavain had run into the edge of a deep,
wide crevasse. And there at the bottom -- just visible if he leaned close to the edge -- was a man's
outstretched arm and hand. Clavain had gone back to the others and had them return with a winch to
lower him into the depths, descending thirty or forty meters into a cathedral of stained and sculpted
ice. The body had come into view: a figure in an old-fashioned atmospheric survival suit. The man's
legs were bent in a horrible way, like those of a strangely articulated alien. Clavain knew it was a
man because the fall had jolted his helmet from its neck-ring; the corpse's well-preserved face was
pressed halfway into a pillow of ice. The helmet had ended up a few meters away.
No on died instantly on Diadem. The air was breathable for short periods, and the man had
clearly had time to ponder his predicament. Even in his confused state of mind he must have known
that he was going to die.
"Martin Setterholm," Clavain had said aloud, picking up the helmet and reading the nameplate on
the crown. He felt sorry for him but could not deny himself the small satisfaction of accounting for
another of the dead. Setterholm had been among the missing, and though he had waited the better
part of a century for it, he would at least receive a proper funeral now.
There was something else, but Clavain very nearly missed it. Setterholm had lived long enough
to scratch out a message in the ice. Sheltered at the base of the glacier, the marks he had gouged
were still legible. Three letters, it seemed to Clavain: an I, a V, and an F.
I-V-F.
The message meant nothing to Clavain, and even a deep search of the Conjoiner collective
memory threw up only a handful of vaguely plausible candidates. The least ridiculous was in vitro
fertilization, but even that seemed to have no immediate connection with Setterholm. But then
again, he had been a biologist, according to the base records. Did the message spell out the chilling