"Alastair Reynolds - Zima Blue" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Alastair)

"I'm fine for now. Who else got the blue card treatment?"

"Only you, to the best of my knowledge."
"And if I'd declined? Were you supposed to ask someone else?"

"No," the robot said. "But let's face it, Miss Clay. You weren't very likely to turn him down."

As we flew on, the conveyor's shock wave gouged a foaming channel in the sea behind it. I thought of a
brush drawn through wet paint on marble, exposing the white surface beneath. I took out Zima's
invitation and held it against the horizon ahead of us, trying to decide whether the blue was a closer match
to the sky or the sea. Against these two possibilities the card seemed to flicker indeterminately.

Zima Blue. It was an exact thing, specified scientifically in terms of angstroms and intensities. If you were
an artist, you could have a batch of it mixed up according to that specification. But no one ever used
Zima Blue unless they were making a calculated statement about Zima himself.

Zima was already unique by the time he emerged into the public eye. He had undergone radical
procedures to enable him to tolerate extreme environments without the burden of a protective suit. Zima
had the appearance of a well-built man wearing a tight body stocking, until you were close and you
realised that this was actually his skin. Covering his entire form, it was a synthetic material that could be
tuned to different colours and textures depending on his mood and surroundings. It could approximate
clothing if the social circumstances demanded it. The skin could contain pressure when he wished to
experience vacuum, and stiffen to protect him against the crush of a gas giant planet. Despite these
refinements the skin conveyed a full range of sensory impressions to his mind. He had no need to breathe,
since his entire cardiovascular system had been replaced by closed-cycle life-support mechanisms. He
had no need to eat or drink; no need to dispose of bodily waste. Tiny repair machines swarmed through
his body, allowing him to tolerate radiation doses that would have killed an ordinary man in minutes.

With his body thus armoured against environmental extremes, Zima was free to seek inspiration where he
wanted. He could drift free in space, staring into the face of a star, or wander the searing canyons of a
planet where metals ran like lava. His eyes had been replaced by cameras sensitive to a huge swathe of
the electromagnetic spectrum, wired into his brain via complex processing modules. A synaes-thesic
bridge allowed him to hear visual data as a kind of music; to see sounds as a symphony of startling
colours. His skin functioned as a kind of antenna, giving him sensitivity to electrical field changes. When
that wasn't sufficient, he could tap into the data feeds of any number of accompanying machines.

Given all this, Zima's art couldn't help but be original and attention-grabbing. His landscapes and
starfields had a heightened, ecstatic quality about them, awash in luminous, jarring colours and
eye-wrenching tricks of perspective. Painted in traditional materials but on a huge scale, they quickly
attracted a core of serious buyers. Some found their way into private collections, but Zima murals also
started popping up in public spaces all over the Galaxy. Tens of metres across, the murals were
nonetheless detailed down to the limits of vision. Most had been painted in one session. Zima had no
need for sleep, so he worked uninterrupted until a piece was complete.

The murals were undeniably impressive. From a standpoint of composition and technique they were
unquestionably brilliant. But there was also something bleak and chilling about them. They were
landscapes without a human presence, save for the implied viewpoint of the artist himself.

Put it this way: they were nice to look at, but I wouldn't have hung one in my home.