"Kim Stanley Robinson - Mars 1 - Red Mars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Kim Stanley)

and went to work pulling rank, bulling into the emergency rooms and shouting at the
doctors and nurses. They ignored him until one doctor said, тАЬShut up. IтАЩm coming.тАЭ She
went into the hallway and with a nurseтАЩs help clipped John into a monitor, then checked
him out with the abstracted, absent look doctors have while working: hands at neck and
face and head and chest, stethoscope. . . .

Maya explained what they knew. The doctor took down an oxygen unit from the wall,
looking at the monitor. Her mouth was bunched into a displeased little knot. Maya sat at
the end of the bench, face suddenly distraught. Her domino had long since disappeared.

Frank crouched beside her.

тАЬWe can keep working on him,тАЭ the doctor said, тАЬbut IтАЩm afraid heтАЩs gone. Too long
without oxygen, you know.тАЭ

тАЬKeep working on him,тАЭ Maya said.

They did, of course. Eventually other medical people arrived, and they carted him off
to an emergency room. Frank, Maya, Sax, Samantha, and a number of locals sat outside
in the hall. Doctors came and went; their faces had the blank look they took on in the
presence of death. Protective masks. One came out and shook his head. тАЬHeтАЩs dead.
Too long out there.тАЭ

Frank leaned his head back against the wall.

When Reinhold Messner returned from the first solo climb of Everest, he was
severely dehydrated, and utterly exhausted; he fell down most of the last part of the
descent, and collapsed on the Rongbuk glacier, and he was crawling over it on hands and
knees when the woman who was his entire support team reached him; and he looked up
at her out of a delirium, and said тАЬWhere are all my friends?тАЭ

It was quiet. No sound but the low hum and whoosh that one never escaped on Mars.


Maya put a hand on Frank's shoulder, and he almost flinched; his throat clamped
down to nothing, it really hurt. тАЬIтАЩm sorry,тАЭ he managed to say.

She shrugged the remark aside, frowned. She had somewhat the air of the medical
people. тАЬWell,тАЭ she said, тАЬyou never liked him much anyway.тАЭ

тАЬTrue,тАЭ he said, thinking it would be politic to seem honest with her at that moment.
But then he shuddered and said bitterly, тАЬWhat do you know about what I like or donтАЩt like.тАЭ


He shrugged her hand aside, struggled to his feet. She didnтАЩt know; none of them
knew. He started to go into the emergency room, changed his mind. Time enough for that
at the funeral. He felt hollow; and suddenly it seemed to him that everything good had
gone away.
 He left the medical center. Impossible not to feel sentimental at such moments. He
walked through the strangely hushed darkness of the city, into the land of Nod. The streets