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

He shouldn't have been surprised, he shouldn't. He knew John as well
as one could know another person; but it had never been any of his
business. Into the trees of the park, under the hand-sized leaves of the
sycamores. When had it been any different! All that time together, those
years of friendship; and none of it had mattered. Diplomacy by other
means.
# # #
He looked at his watch. Nearly eleven. He had an appointment with
Selim. Another appointment. A lifetime of days divided into quarter
hours had made him used to running from one appointment to the next,
changing masks, dealing with crisis after crisis, managing, manipulating,
doing business in a hectic rush that never ended; and here it was a
celebration, Mardi Gras, Fassnacht! and he was still doing it. He couldn't
remember any other way.
He came on a construction site, skeletal magnesium framing
surrounded by piles of bricks and sand and paving stones. Careless of
them to leave such things around. He stuffed his coat pockets with
fragments of brick just big enough to hold. Straightening up, he noticed
someone watching him from the other side of the siteЧa little man with a
thin face under spiky black dreadlocks, watching him intently. Something
in the look was disconcerting, it was as if the stranger saw through all his
masks and was observing him so closely because he was aware of his
thoughts, his plans.
Spooked, Chalmers beat a quick retreat into the bottom fringe of the
park. When he was sure he had lost the man, and that no one else was
watching, he began throwing stones and bricks down into the lower town,
hurling them as hard as he could. And one for that stranger too, right in
the face! Overhead the tent framework was visible only as a faint pattern
of occluded stars; it seemed they stood free, in a chill night wind. Air
circulation was high tonight, of course. Broken glass, shouts. A scream.
It really was loud, people were going crazy. One last paving stone, heaved
at a big lit picture window across the grass. It missed. He slipped further
into the trees.
Near the southern wall he saw someone under a sycamoreЧSelim,
circling nervously. "Selim," Frank called quietly, sweating. He reached
into his jumper pocket, carefully felt in the bag and palmed the trio of stem
patches. Synergy could be so powerful, for good or ill. He walked forward
and roughly embraced the young Arab. The patches hit and penetrated
Selim's light cotton shirt. Frank pulled back.
Now Selim had about six hours. "Did you speak with Boone?" he
asked.
"I tried," Chalmers said. "He didn't listen. He lied to me." It was so
easy to feign distress: "Twenty-five years of friendship, and he lied to
me!" He struck a tree trunk with his palm, and the patches flew away in
the dark. He controlled himself. "His coalition is going to recommend that
all Martian settlements originate in the countries that signed the first
treaty." It was possible; and it was certainly plausible.
"He hates us!" Selim cried.
"He hates everything that gets in his way. And he can see that Islam
is still a real force in people's lives. It shapes the way people think, and he