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

colonists would have to have their expertise in areas that would come into play after
landfall: medical skills, computer skills, robotics, systems design, architecture, geology,
biosphere design, genetic engineering, biology; also every sort of engineering, and
construction expertise of several kinds. Those who had made it to Antarctica were an
impressive group of experts in the relevant sciences and professions, and they spent a
good bit of their time cross-training to become impressive in secondary and tertiary
fields as well.

And all their activity took place under the constant pressure of observation,
evaluation, judgement. It was necessarily a stressful procedure; that was part of the test.
Michel Duval felt that this was a mistake, as it tended to ingrain reticence and distrust
in the colonists, preventing the very compatability that the selection committee was
supposedly seeking. One of the many double binds, in fact. The candidates
themselves were quiet about that aspect of things, and he didn't blame them; there
wasn't any better strategy to take, that was a double bind for you: it insured silence.
They could not afford to offend anyone, or complain too much; they could not risk
withdrawing too far; they could not make enemies.

So they went on being brilliant and accomplished enough to stand out, but normal
enough to get along. They were old enough to have learned a great deal, but young
enough to endure the physical rigors of the work. They were driven enough to excell, but
relaxed enough to socialize. And they were crazy enough to want to leave Earth forever,
but sane enough to disguise this fundamental madness, in fact defend it as pure
rationality, scientific curiosity or something of the sortтАФthat seemed to be the only
acceptable reason for wanting to go, and so naturally they claimed to be the most
scientifically curious people in history! But of course there had to be more to it than
that. They had to be alienated somehow, alienated and solitary enough to not care
about leaving everyone they had known behind foreverтАФand yet still connected and
social enough to get along with all their new acquaintances in Wright Valley, with every
member of the tiny village that the colony would become. Oh, the double binds were
endless! They were to be both extraordinary and extra ordinary, at one and the same
time. An impossible task, and yet a task that was an obstacle to their heart's greatest
desire; making it the very stuff of anxiety, fear, resentment, rage. Conquering all those
stresses. . . .

But that too was part of the test. Michel could not help but observe with great
interest. Some failed, cracked in one way or another. An American thermal engineer
became increasingly withdrawn, then destroyed several of their rovers and had to be
forcibly restrained and removed. A Russian pair became lovers, and then had a falling
out so violent that they couldn't stand the sight of each other, and both had to be
dropped. This melodrama illustrated the dangers of romance going awry, and made the
rest of them very cautious in this regard. Relationships still developed, and by the time
they left Antarctica they had had three marriages, and these lucky six could consider
themselves in some sense "safe"; but most of them were so focused on getting to Mars
that they put these parts of their lives on hold, and if anything conducted discreet
friendships, in some cases hidden from almost everyone, in other cases merely kept
out of the view of the selection committees.
 And Michel knew he was seeing only the tip of the iceberg. He knew that critical
things were happening in Antarctica, out of his sight. Relationships were having their
beginnings; and sometimes the beginning of a relationship determines how the rest of it