"Kim Stanley Robinson - Mars 3 - Green Mars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Kim Stanley)

But that night Coyote spoke to Hiroko, when he thought no one was listening. тАЬRoko you got to take
those kids outside and show them the world. Even if itтАЩs only under the fog hood. TheyтАЩre like moles in a
hole down here, for ChristтАЩs sake.тАЭ Then he was gone again, who knew where, off on one of his
mysterious journeys into that other world folded over them.
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Some days Hiroko came into the village to teach them. These to Nirgal were the best days of all. She
always took them down to the beach; and going to the beach with Hiroko was like being touched by a
god. It was her worldтАФthe green world inside the whiteтАФand she knew everything about it, and when
she was there the subtle pearly colors of sand and dome pulsed with both worldsтАЩ colors at once, pulsed
as if trying to break free of what held them. They sat on the dunes, watching the shore birds skitter and
peep as they charged together up and down the strand. Gulls wheeled overhead and Hiroko asked them
questions, her black eyes twinkling merrily. She lived by the lake with a small group of her intimates,
Iwao, Rya, Gene, Evgenia, all in a little bamboo stand in the dunes. And she spent a lot of time visiting
other hidden sanctuaries around the South Pole. So she always needed catching up on the village news.
She was a slender woman, tall for one of the issei, as neat as the shore birds in her dress and her
movement. She was old, of course, impossibly ancient like all the issei, but with something in her manner
which made her seem younger than even Peter or KaseiтАФjust a little bit older than the kids, in fact, with
everything in the world new before her, pushing to break into all its colors.

тАЬLook at the pattern this seashell makes. The dappled whorl, curving inward to infinity. ThatтАЩs the shape
of the universe itself. ThereтАЩs a constant pressure, pushing toward pattern. A tendency in matter to evolve
into ever more complex forms. ItтАЩs a kind of pattern gravity, a holy greening power we call viriditas, and
it is the driving force in the cosmos. Life, you see. Like these sand fleas and limpets and krillтАФalthough
these krill in particular are dead, and helping the fleas. Like all of us,тАЭ waving a hand like a dancer. тАЬAnd
because we are alive, the universe must be said to be alive. We are its consciousness as well as our own.
We rise out of the cosmos and we see its mesh of patterns, and it strikes us as beautiful. And that feeling
is the most important thing in all the universeтАФits culmination, like the color of the flower at first bloom on
a wet morning. ItтАЩs a holy feeling, and our task in this world is to do everything we can to foster it. And
one way to do that is to spread life everywhere. To aid it into existence where it was not before, as here
on Mars.тАЭ

This to her was the supreme act of love, and when she talked about it, even if they didnтАЩt fully
understand, they felt the love. Another push, another kind of warmth in the envelope of cold. She
touched them as she talked, and they dug for shells as they listened. тАЬMud clam! Antarctic limpet. Glass
sponge, watch out, it can cut you.тАЭ It made Nirgal happy just to look at her.

And one morning, as they stood from their dig to do more beachcombing, she returned his gaze, and he
recognized her expressionтАФit was precisely the expression on his face when he looked at her, he could
feel it in his muscles. So he made her happy too! Which was intoxicating.

He held her hand as they walked the beach. тАЬItтАЩs a simple ecology in some ways,тАЭ she said as they knelt
to inspect another clam shell. тАЬNot many species, and the food chains are short. But so rich. So
beautiful.тАЭ She tested the temperature of the lake with her hand. тАЬSee the mist? The water must be warm
today.тАЭ