"Kim Stanley Robinson - Mars 2 - Blue Mars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Kim Stanley)

Kakaze. They're the ones who broke the Burroughs dike. We're trying to shut
them down, and expect to succeed by the end of the day."
It was the most awful string of lies she had ever said. She felt like Frank
Chalmers had come down and taken over her mouth, she couldn't stand the
sensation of such words on her tongue. She cut the connection before her face
betrayed what falsehoods she was vomiting. Hastings disappeared without having
said a word, and his face was replaced by Peter's, who did not know she was
back on-line; she could hear him but his wristpad was facing a wall, "If they
don't stop on their own we'll have to do it ourselves, or else UNTA will and
it'll all go to hell. Get everything ready for a counterattack, I'll give the
word."
"Peter!" she said without thinking.
The picture on the little screen swung around, came onto his face.
"You deal with Hastings," she choked out, barely able to look at him, traitor
that he was. "I'm going for Kasei."
Arsiaview was the southernmost tent, filled now with smoke, which snaked
overhead in long amorphous lines that revealed the tent's ventilation
patterns. Alarms were ringing everywhere, loud in the still-thick air, and
shards of clear framework plastic were scattered on the green grass of the
street. Ann stumbled past a body curled just like the figures modeled in ash
in Pompeii. Arsiaview was narrow but long, and it was not obvious where she
should go. The whoosh of rocket launchers led her eastward toward the Socket,
the magnet of the madness-like a monopole, discharging Earth's insanity onto
them.
There might be a plan revealed here; the cable's defenses seemed to be capable
of handling the Reds' lightweight missiles, but if the attackers thoroughly
destroyed Sheffield and the Socket, then there would be nothing for UNTA to
come down to, and so it would not matter if the cable remained swinging
overhead. It was a plan that mirrored the one used to deal with Burroughs.
But it was a bad plan. Burroughs was down in the lowlands, where there was an
atmosphere, where people could live outside, at least for a while. Sheffield
was high, and so they were back in the past, back in '61 when a broken tent
meant the end for everyone in it exposed to thfe elements. At the same time
most of Sheffield was underground, in many stacked floors against the wall of
the caldera. Undoubtedly most of the population had retreated down there, and
if the fighting tried to follow them it would be impossible, a nightmare. But
up on the surface where fighting was possible, people were exposed to fire
from the cable above. No, it wouldn't work. It wasn't even possible to see
what was happening. There were more explosions near the Socket, static over
the intercom, isolated words as the receiver caught bits of other coded
frequencies cycling through: "-taken Arsiaviewpkkkkkk-" "We need the AI back
but I'd say x-axis three two two, y-axis eightpkkkkk-"
Then another barrage of missiles must have been launched at the cable, for
overhead Ann caught sight of an ascending line of brilliant explosions of
light, no sound to them at all; but after that, big black fragments rained
down on the tents around her, crashing through the invisible fabrics or
smashing onto the invisible framework, then falling the last distance onto the
buildings like the dropped masses of wrecked vehicles, loud despite the thin
air and the intervening tents, the ground vibrating and jerking under her
feet. It went on for minutes, with the fragments falling farther outward all