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

big government center to the north, doing some work for the Soviet mining cartel. We
met in a restaurant, introduced by a mutual acquaintance.
He was tall and bulky, a handsome man. One of the Soviet blacks, they call them. I
guess some of their ancestors came from one of the USSR's client countries in Africa.
The color had been pretty well watered down over the generations, and Davydov had
coffee-and-cream-colored skin. His hair was black and wooly; he had thick lips under a
thin, aquiline nose; a heavy beard, shaved so that his lower face was rough; and his eyes
were ice blue. They seemed to jump out of his face. So he was a pretty good racial mix.
But on Mars, where ninety-nine percent of the population is fish-belly white, as they say,
any touch of skin color is highly valued. It made one look so... healthy, and vital. This
Davydov was really extremely good-looking, a color delight to the eye. I watched him
then, as we sat on adjacent stools in that Burroughs restaurant, talking, drinking, flirting a
little... watched so closely that I can recall the potted palm and white wall that were
behind him, although I don't remember a word we said. It was one of those charmed
nights, when both parties are aware of the mutual attraction.
We spent that night together, and the next several nights as well. We visited the first
colony in the area, The Can, and marvelled at the exhibits in the museum there. We
scrambled around the base of the Fluted Cliffs in Hellespontus Montes, and spent a night
out in a survival tent. I beat him easily in a footrace, and then won a 1500-meter race for
him at a Burroughs track. Every hour available to us we spent together, and I fell in love.
Oleg was young, witty, proud of his many abilities; he was exotically bilingual (a
Russian!), affectionate, sensual. We spent a lot of time in bed. I remember that in the dark
I could see little more than his teeth when he grinned, and his eyes, which seemed light
grey. I loved making love with him... I remember late dinners together, in Burroughs or
out at the station. And innumerable train rides, together or alone, across the sere rust
deserts between Burroughs and Hellas -- sitting by the window looking out at the curved
red horizon, feeling happy and excited.... Well, those are the kind of times that you only
live through once. I remember them well.
The arguments began quite soon after those first weeks. We were an arrogant pair and
didn't know any better. For a long time I didn't even realize that our disagreements were
particularly serious, for I couldn't imagine anyone arguing with me for very long. (Yes, I
was that self-important.) But Oleg Davydov did. I can't remember much of what we
argued about -- that period of time, unlike the beginning, is a convenient blur in my
memory. One time I do remember (of course the rest could be called up as well): I had
come into Burroughs on the late train, and we were out eating in a Greek restaurant
behind the train station. I was tired, and nervous about our relationship, and sick of
Hellas. Hoping to compliment him, I made some comment about how much more fun it
would be to be an asteroid miner like he was.
"We aren't doing anything out there," he said in response. "Just making money for the
corporations -- making a few people on Earth rich, while everything else down there falls
apart."
"Well, at least you're out there exploring," I said.
He looked annoyed, an expression I was becoming familiar with. "But we aren't, that's
what I'm saying. With our capabilities we could be exploring the whole solar system. We
could have stations on the Jovian moons, around Saturn, all the way out to Pluto. We
need a solar watch station on Pluto."
"I wasn't aware of that fact," I said sarcastically.
His pale blue eyes pierced me. "Of course you weren't. You think it's perfectly all
right to continue making money from those stupid asteroids, and nothing more, here at
the end of the twenty-second century."