"Utley, Steven - The Despoblado" - читать интересную книгу автора (Utley Steven)

"It's Climatius," Grenon said proudly, "or a first cousin. The order of Climatiiformes, in any case. Not really sharks at all, but the earliest vertebrates with jaws that we know about."

"Well, I'll be go to hell," Walton drawled. He looked askance at the mouth, frozen in a fierce toothy miniature grimace. "What does it eat?"

"Invertebrates and maybe small jawless fish. Sea scorpions probably consider it a delicacy."

A thickset middle-aged woman entered, set down her collecting case, removed a sun hat. Michelle was introduced to Helen Wheeler, who greeted her warmly and said, "It's always a pleasure to see a new face."

"I've just been admiring your sharklet," Michelle said, "and the art collection. Is this the Paleozoic version of the Louvre?"

"I'm afraid so. There're more in the bunkhouse. Merry and I wouldn't let Pete put up girlie pictures in there, so we got him a Modigliani nude instead. Now he claims he's in love." Wheeler gestured at the Seurat picture and said, "I saw the original once. It's stunning. You know about pointillism? Up close, it's just all these individual points of color that seem unconnected with one another. Step back, and you notice two things. First you notice that all those dots become a whole greater than its parts. Then you notice that each figure, each group of figures seems to have its own light source. You think it shouldn't work, and yet somehow it does work." She turned and indicated The Potato Eaters and gave a soft little laugh. "And that's my idea of a religious print. I first came to the Paleozoic when I was a grad student, probably not much older than you. I kept coming back, and then one time I found God here. I mean God the source, the everywhere-spirit. I'm not talking about Jesus and religion. Some people turn to holy books and fairy storiesЧI don't know how else to put it. I don't care if Jesus walked on water or rose from the dead. Even if I did care, I still wouldn't believe it. I don't need to hear about miracles like those. The real miracles are life and spacetime and art. I can feel God's presence in art. Literature, too, sometimes. And music."

"Oh, yes," Michelle managed to say; she had been unprepared for the turn Helen Wheeler's monologue had taken. While she tried to think of something to say, she peered at the picture as though seeking out hidden meaning. Then memory came to her rescue. "My mother told me once she'd always thought Bach and Mozart must've felt the presence of God."

The other woman nodded. "Absolutely. But I'm partial to painters. God spoke through the great painters, at least into the twentieth century."

"My guess would be that God lost interest after Cubism."

"Maybe. But, oh, the Impressionists."

"Van Gogh," Michelle murmured, "was very disturbed, of course, but how could God's presence not be disturbing?"

Wheeler shook her head. "No. God's presence brings peace and joy. Poor van Gogh was mentally ill."

"Can't mentally ill people know God?"

"I believe anybody can know God. But looking at it realistically, I've got to admit that it seems easier for some people than for others."

Michelle and Walton returned to the barge. As Karen pulled away from the platform, Michelle, standing next to the pilot house, exchanged waves with the two women on the platform, then turned to Walton and asked, "Is Helen Wheeler always like that? Kind of, you knowЧ"

"Goofy and mystical?" Walton snorted with amusement. "Helen's a case."

Michelle frowned slightly. "I liked her, butЧ"

"I like her, too, but she's still a case."

"Does she always start talking about God with people she's just met?"

"Well, it's not like she's decided that it's her personal mission in life to lead all her hell-bent colleagues to Jesus Christ. She isn't trying to convert anybody. I think God is just one of the really interesting things in her life, like bugs and plants." Walton shrugged. "God's presence is disturbing. You said so yourself."




╖ ╖ ╖ ╖ ╖


Gradually, as they entered the estuary's upper reaches, the character of the vegetation changed. The delta's winding channels converged, separated, and reconverged, at last merging into a single broad channel, brown and sluggish, with low banks overgrown in tangles of creeping, curlicued greenery, some with stems topped with buttonlike sporangia. The sun was descending behind them toward the now unseen sea when they made their first stop upriver from the base camp. Walton brought the barge in close to the bank, and Wicket ran out a gangplank and maneuvered a heavily-loaded dolly ashore. There was no one there to greet him and no sign of a camp, only a neat stack of specimen crates. Michelle looked questioningly at Moen, who told her, "Couple of scientists are off back there scraping lichens from rocks or some such. Baxter and Sterling. Husband-and-wife team. They can lug their own supplies into camp when they get back. Walton'll pick up their crates on the way back downriver."
"It's okay to leave stuff sitting there on the bank like that?"

"Who is there to steal it? Nothing's going to come along and eat it."