"Kim Stanley Robinson - A History Of The Twentieth Century2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Kim Stanley)

bad storms they need never go out. The first mall, Frank thought. The driftwood had included pieces of
spruce, which had to have come from North America. The Gulf Stream again. Frank stood at the back
of a group of seven, listening to the guide as he looked down into the homes. The guide was bearded,
stocky, fiftyish. Like the Maes Howe guide he was good at his work, wandering about with no obvious
plan, sharing what he knew without memorized speeches. The village had been occupied for about six
hundred years, beginning around 3000 B.C. Brodgar and Maes Howe had been built during those years,
so probably people from here had helped in their construction. The bay had likely been a fresh-water
lagoon at that time, with a beach separating it from the sea. Population about fifty or sixty. A heavy
dependence on cattle and sheep, with lots of seafood as well. Sand filled in the homes when the village
was abandoned, and turf grew over it. In 1850 a big storm tore the turf off and exposed the homes,
completely intact except for the roofs....
Water seepage had rounded away every edge, so that each slab looked sculpted, and caught at the light.
Each house a luminous work of art. And five thousand years old, yet so familiar: the same needs, the
same thinking, the same solutions.... A shudder ran through him, and he noticed that he was literally
slack-jawed. He closed his mouth and almost laughed aloud. Open-mouthed astonishment could be so
natural sometimes, so physical, unconscious, genuine. When the other tourists left, he continued to
wander around. The guide, sensing another enthusiast, joined him. "It's like the Flintstones," Frank said,
and laughed. "The what?" "You expect to see stone TVs and the like." "Oh aye. It's very contemporary,
isn't it." "It's marvelous." Frank walked from house to house, and the guide followed, and they talked.
"Why is this one called the chief's house?" "It's just a guess, actually. Everything in it is a bit bigger and
better, that's all. In our world a chief would have it." Frank nodded. "Do you live out here?" "Aye." The
guide pointed at the little building beyond the site. He had owned a hotel in Kirkwall, but sold it; Kirkwall
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had been too hectic for him. He had gotten the job here and moved out, and was very happy with it. He
was getting a degree in archaeology by correspondence. The more he learned, the more amazed he was
to be here; it was one of the most important archaeological sites in the world, after all. There wasn't a
better one. No need to imagine furnishings and implements, "and to see so clearly how much they thought
like we do." Exactly. "Why did they leave, in the end?" "No one knows." "Ah." They walked on. "No
sign of a fight, anyway." "Good." The guide asked Frank where he was staying, and Frank told him about
the Sierra. "I see!" the man said. "Well, if you need the use of a ba throom, there's one here at the back
of the building. For a shave, perhaps. You look like you haven't had the chance in a while." Frank rubbed
a hand over his stubble, blushing. In fact he hadn't thought of shaving since well before leaving London.
"Thanks," he said. "Maybe I'll take you up on that." They talked about the ruins a while longer, and then
the guide walked out to the seawall, and let Frank wander in peace. He looked down in the rooms,
which still glowed as if lit from within. Six hundred years of long summer days, long winter nights.
Perhaps they had set sail for the Falklands. Five thousand years ago. He called good-bye to the guide,
who waved. On the way back to the car park he stopped once to look back. Under a carpet of cloud
the wind was thrashing the tall beach grass, every waving stalk distinct, the clouds' underside visibly
scalloped; and all of it touched with a silvery edge of light.
He ate lunch in Stromness, down by the docks, watching the fishing boats ride at anchor. A very
practical-looking fleet, of metal and rubber and bright plastic buoys. In the afternoon he drove the Sierra
around Scapa Flow and over a bridge at the east channel, the one Winston had ordered blocked with
sunken ships. The smaller island to the south was covered with green fields and white farmhouses. Late in
the afternoon he drove slowly back to the Point of Buckquoy, stopping for a look in the nearby ruins of
the sixteenth century earl's palace. Boys were playing soccer in the roofless main room. The tide was out,
revealing a concrete walkway set on a split bed of wet brown sandstone. He parked and walked over in