"Christopher Rowe - Another Word for Map is Faith" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rowe Christopher)

"We haven't prepared for anything like this. That lake is more than a mile across at its broadest!"

"A mile across, yes,тАЭ said Sandy, dismissively. тАЬCarmen? What scale did you draw your sketch of the
valley in?"

Carmen handed her a sheaf of papers. тАЬ24K to one. Is that all right?"

"Good, good,тАЭ said Sandy. She smiled at Ford. тАЬThat's a conversion even I can do in my head. So ... if I
compare the size of the damтАФтАЭ and she knitted her eyebrows, calculating. тАЬIf I compare the dam to the
ridge, I see that the ridge we came to move is about three hundred times the larger."

Everyone began talking at once and at cross purposes. A gratifying number of the students were simply
impressed with her cleverness and seemed relaxed, sure that it would be a simple matter now that they'd
been shown the problem in the proper perspective. But Carmen was scratching some numbers in the dirt
with the knuckle of her right index finger and Ford was flipping through the appendix of one of his books
and Lucas...

Lucas stood and looked down over the valley. He wasn't looking at the lake and the dam, though, or
even at the village of the unchurched creatures who had built it. He was looking to his right, down the
eastern flank of the ridge they stood on, down the fluvial valley towards where, it suddenly occurred to
Sandy, he'd grown up, towards the creek side town they'd stopped in the day before.

Ford raised his voice above an argument he'd been having with two or three others. тАЬIsn't there a
question about what that much water will do to the topography downstream? I mean, I know hydrology's
a pretty knotty problem, theologically speaking, but we'd have a clear hand in the erosion, wouldn't we?
What if the floodwaters subside off ground that's come unwrit because of something that we did?"

"That is a knotty problem, Ford,тАЭ said Sandy, looking Lucas straight in the eye. тАЬWhat's the best way to
solve a difficult knot?"

And it was Lucas who answered her, nodding. тАЬCut through it."
****
Later, while most of the students were meditating in advance of the ceremony, Sandy saw Carmen
moving from glass to glass, making minute focusing adjustments and triangulating different views of the
lake and the village. Every so often, she made a quick visual note in her sketchbook.

"It's not productive to spend too much time on the side effects of an error, you know,тАЭ Sandy said.

Carmen moved from one instrument to the next. тАЬI don't think it's all that easy to determine what's a side
effect and what's ... okay,тАЭ she said.

Sandy had lost good students to the distraction she could see now in Carmen. She reached out and
pivoted the cylinder down, so that its receiving lens pointed straight at the ground. тАЬThere's nothing to see
down there, Carmen."

Carmen wouldn't meet her eye. тАЬI thought I'd recordтАФ"

"Nothing to see, nothing to record. If you could go down and talk to them you wouldn't understand a
word they say. If you looked in their little huts you wouldn't find anything redemptive; there's no cross
hanging in the wall of the meeting house, no Jesus of the Digging Marmots. When the water is drained,