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

"It's certainly a convenient theory. But there's nothing here that contradicts anything we already knew for certain about mid-Paleozoic times. We knew about maybe two percent of the whole story from what we found in the fossil record. Now we can at least glimpse the other ninety-eight percent, and it's roughly what we imagined it would be. Even if the physicists're right, even if this isn't our own Earth, it might as well be. What about this planet's future? Even if it's only a duplicate Earth, what if, four hundred million years from now, humans arise but can't invent technological civilization all over again because the resources needed to do so aren't there?"

"There's no guarantee," Dews said, "that humans necessarily arise on Earth-type planets. Maybe humans don't make it here. Maybe the dinosaurs never go extinct, no big meteor crash, and the mammals never get their shot at greatness. Maybe there never are even dinosaurs here, just bugs and shellfish until the sun expands and the planet fries. We can't see into the future of this world and find out if it's a good thing or a bad thing to exploit its resources. Meanwhile, we need the oil."

"What we need is a replacement for the internal-combustion engine."

"You may not believe me, but I agree. I've been waiting all my life for one of those hydrogen-powered buckets. And you, Bud," Dews said to Walton, "how much'd that tub of yours save you if you didn't have to use diesel fuel?"

Walton did not look up from his dinner; he said, without enthusiasm, "A bundle."

"Right!" Dews returned his attention to Michelle. "But the fact of the matter is, we don't have a replacement, andЧmeanwhileЧthe internal-combustion engines we do have need the oil!"

Michelle said nothing but shook her head emphatically.

Dews rolled his eyes. "Eco-maniacs give me a highly localized pain. Because people like me know how to take what the earth has to offer, everybody, including you, lives better and longer than any people in history. But people like you don't want us to hurt their precious goddamn salamanders and bugs."

"Time out," Moen interjected, "for a sunset," and everybody relaxed as one and turned as one to watch the sun go down.

Conversation, slow to resume, restricted itself to requests for condiments, then died altogether. After the silence had stretched out across half an eternity Michelle suddenly said, "Well, everybody, how about some music?" and took her chip pack from her shirt pocket.

Simultaneously, Dews said, "What?" and Moen exclaimed, "Excellent idea!"

"I've got Mozart and the three Bees," she said, "plus bop, pop, hop, drop, and truckstop."

"Lady's a poet," said McCampbell, and Bloodworth asked, "You got the Shiners?"

She gave him a regretful look. "Sorry, fresh out. Oh, I know." She did something with the chip pack. "What I'm about to inflict on you is an actual top-ten country-and-western hit back in the twenty-first century," and at the touch a button there came a twangy guitar introduction, and then a woman sang, in a nasal but good-humored voice,


Baby, come on back with me,
let's skinny-dip in the Tethys Sea.
Let's pack a bag and leave today
four hundred million years away,
and marvel at exotic fauna
living in or near GondwanaЧ
trilobites and placoderms
and seven thousand kinds of worms.
During an instrumental interlude, McCampbell said, "Sure's hell don't write songs like they used to."

"That's for damn sure," Dews said.

Moen laughed. "It's wonderful, boys. A top-ten hit, she says. I bet it's playing at truck stops all over America."


We'll pitch a tent, and through the door
we'll watch those creatures flop ashore
and bet on how well each one waddlesЧ
we'll be excellent role models,
we'll leave our tracks along the shore