"Allen Steele - Labyrinth of Night" - читать интересную книгу автора (Steele Allen)

Face on Mars, by Randolfo Rafael Pozos. While some of the theories and conjectures about the
Cydonia anomalies have been included in this novel, others have been left out, and more than a
few are completely the product of this author's imagination.
In real life, the oddities which were photographed by the NASA Viking orbiters in 1976
have been either hailed as certain proof of extraterrestrial intelligence or dismissed as wild-eyed
pseudo-science. The truth probably lies somewhere between the opposite poles of fact and
fantasy; the verdict isn't in yet, and perhaps won't be conclusively delivered until the first manned
expedition is made to the Cydonia region. We can only hope this happens within our lifetimes.
For the purposes of this work, the Face and the City are treated as if they do indeed exist, but
this should not be misconstrued as wholehearted endorsement of the "Face on Mars" theories; the
author neither claims to be a believer nor a disbeliever. This is intended as a work of science
fiction, nothing more nor less,
Your acceptance of the underlying premise, or your skepticism of the same, are both
welcome.
тАФRindge, New Hampshire; Sanibel, Florida; St. Louis, Missouri; September, 1987тАФDecember,
1991
 Prologue


"No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was
being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his
own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinized and
studied, perhaps as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures
that swarm and multiply in a drop of water . . . Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our
minds as ours are to those beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded
this earth with envious eyes and surely drew their plans against us . . ."
тАФH. G. WELLS
The War of the Worlds (1897)


Cydonia Base, Mars: July 6, 0945 MCM (Mars Central Meridian), 2029
Hal Moberly gingerly stepped on a round stone divot in front of a red door deep underneath
the Martian surface, closed his eyes, and waited to die. Instead, the door slid grindingly aside,
towed along coasters by pulleys at least as old as recorded history. Hearing the door move, the
NASA geologist opened his eyes and took a deep breath. Through the now-open door, beyond the
oval of light cast by his armor's lamp, lay the darkness of Room C4-20.
"Thank God," he murmured. "I'm still here."
Shin-ichi Kawakami watched from Cydonia Base's monitor center, located outside the City
on the rock-strewn, wind-stripped red plain. Around him, other members of the team were
hunched over their stations, concentrating on their instruments. "We copy that, Hal," the Japanese
exobiologist replied. "Stay in the doorway for a few moments and let the pod sweep the room."
Next to Kawakami, Paul Verduin watched as the radar in Moberly's suit sensor podтАФa
sausage-shaped package mounted on the armor's right shoulderтАФmapped the interior of Room
C4-20. The radar's feedback was input directly into Verduin's computer, which in turn assembled
a three-dimensional image of C4-20 on his screen. The new room was 40 feet long, 21 feet wide,
and 8 feet high. There were apparently no furnishings in this chamber, but the Dutch astronomer
noticed that the computer had painted the room's walls as being irregular, rippled and unsmooth.
From her station behind them, Tamara Isralilova kept vigil on the armor's internal monitors.
Moberly's Hoplite II armor was less like a garment than it was a vehicle. A spin-off from the
military armor used by American and Russian heavy infantry units, the Hoplite suit weighed a