"Kim Stanley Robinson - Icehenge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Kim Stanley)

ICEHENGE
by KIM STANLEY ROBINSON (1984)

[VERSION 1.1a (Jan 09 04). If you find and correct errors in the text, please update the
version number by 0.1 and redistribute.]


"Tea at the Palaz of Hoon" copyright 1923 and renewed 1951 by Wallace Stevens.
Reprinted from The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens by permission of Alfred A.
Knopf, Inc.
Parts of this novel have appeared in substantially different form under the titles:
"To Leave a Mark," copyright ┬й 1982 by The Mercury Press. Published in the
November 1982 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. "On the North
Pole of Pluto," copyright ┬й 1980 by Damon Knight. Published in Orbit 21.



for Damon Knight
and Kate Wilhelm


Part One
EMMA WEIL 2248 A.D.

"A ship is floating in the harbour now,
A wind is hovering o'er the mountain's brow;
There is a path on the sea's azure floor,
No keel has ever plough'd that path before;
The halcyons brood around the foamless isles;
The treacherous Ocean has forsworn its wiles;
The merry mariners are bold and free:
Say, my heart's sister, wilt thou sail with me?"
--SHELLEY, "Epipsychidion"

THE first indication I had of the mutiny came as we approached the inner limit of the
first asteroid belt. Of course I didn't know what it meant at the time; it was no more than
a locked door. The first belt we call the dud belt, because the asteroids in it are basaltic
achondrite, and no use to miners. But we would be among the carbonaceous chondrites
soon enough, and one day I went down to the farm to get ready. I fed a bit more light to
the algae, for in the following weeks when the boats went out to break up rocks there
would be a significant oxygen depletion, and we would need more chlorella around to
help balance the gas exchange. I activated a few more bulbs in the lamps and started
fooling around with the suspension medium. Biologic life-support systems are my work
and play (I am one of the best at it), and since I was making room for more chlorella, I
once again became interested in the excess biomass problem. Thinking to cut down on
surplus algae by suspending it less densely, I walked between long rows of spinach and
cabbage to the door of one of the storage rooms at the back of the farm, to get a few more
tanks. I turned the handle of the door. It was locked.
"Emma!" called a voice. I looked up. It was Al Nordhoff, one of my assistants.
"Do you know why this door is locked?" I asked.