"John Varley - Titan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Varley John)

Beyond the ice was another daylight area, this one brighter and yellower than the others she could see, like desert sands. To reach it, she would have to travel across the frozen sea.
"Three days and two nights," Gaby said. "That worked out pretty well from the theory. I said we'd he able to see almost half the inside of Themis from any point. What I didn't figure on were those things."
Cirocco followed Gaby's pointing fimer to a series of what looked like ropes that started on the land below and angled up- ward to the roof. There were three of them in a line almost directly in front of them, so that the nearest partially concealed the other two. Cirocco had seen them earlier, but had skipped over them because she could not understand it all at once. Now she looked closer, and frowned. Like a depressing number of things in Themis, they were huge.
The nearest one could serve as a model for all the rest. It was fifty kilometers away, but she could see that it was made of perhaps one hundred strands wound together. Each strand was 200 or 300 meters thick. Further detail was lost at that distance.
The three in the row all angled steeply over the frozen sea, rising 150 kilometers or more until they joined the roof at a point she knew must be one of the spokes, seen from the inside. It was a conical mouth, like the bell of a trumpet that flared to become the roof and sides of the rim enclosure. At the far edge of the bell, some 500 kilometers away, she could make out more of the ropes.
There were more cables to her left, but these went straight up
to the arched ceiling and disappeared through it. Beyond them were other rows that angled toward the spoke mouth she could not see from her vantage point, the one over the sea in the mountains.
Where the cables joined the ground, they pulled it up into broad-based mountains.
"They look like the cables on a suspension bridge," Cirocco said.
"I agree. And I think that's what it is. There's no need for tow- ers to support it. The cables can be fastened in the center. Themis is.a circular suspension bridge."
Cirocco eased herself closer to the edge. She stuck her head over and looked down two kilometers to the ground.
The clifi was as near perpendicular as an irregular surface fea- ture can be. Only near the bottom did it begin to flare out to meet the land below.
"You aren't thinking of going down that, are you?" Gaby asked.
"The thought had entered my mind, but I sure don't feel good about it. And what would be better down there than up here? We've got a pretty good idea we could survive up here." She stopped. Was that to he their only goal?
Given the chance, she would take adventure to security, if se- curity meant building a but from sticks and settling down to a diet of raw meat and fruit. She would be crazy in a month.
And the land below was beautiful. There were impossibly steep mountains with shining blue lakes set in them like gems. She could see waving grasslands, dense forests, and far to the east, the brooding midnight sea. There was no telling what dan- gers that land concealed, but it seemed to call to her.
"We might shinny down those vines," Gaby said, reaching over the edge and pointing out a possible line of descent.
The cliff face was encrusted with plants. The jungle spilled over the edge like a frozen torrent of water. Massive trees grew from the bare rock face, clinging like bamacles. The rock itself could be seen only in patches, and even there the news was not all bad. it looked like a basaltic formation, a closely packed sheaf of crystal pillars with broad hexagonal platforms where columns had broken off.
"It's do-able," Cirocco said, at last. lit wouldn't he easy or safe. We'd have to think of a pretty good reason for trying it." Something better than the formless urge she felt to be down there, she thought.
"Hell, I don't want to be stuck up here, either," Gaby said, with a grin.
"Then your troubles are over," said a quiet voice from behind them.
Every muscle in Cirocco's body tensed. She bit her lip, forcing herself to move slowly until she was safely away from the edge.
"Up here. I've been waiting for you."
Sitting on a tree limb. three meters from the ground, his bare feet dangling was Calvin Greene.




CHAPTER SEVEN

Before Cirocco quite had a chance to settle down, they were all sitting in a circle and Calvin was talking.
"I came out not far from the hole where the river disappears," he was saying. "That was seven days ago. I heard you on the second day."
"So why didn't you call us?" Cirocco asked. Calvin held up the remains of his helmet.
"The mike is missing," he said, extricating the broken end of wire. "I could listen, but not transmit. I waited. I ate fruit. I just couldn't seem to kill any of the animals." He spread his broad bands, and shrugged.
"How did you know this was the right place to wait?" Gaby asked.
"I didn't know, for sure."
"Well," Cirocco said. She slapped her palms on her legs, and then laughed. "Well. Fancy that. just when we'd about given up hope of finding anybody else, we stumble over you. It's too good to be true. Isn't it, Gaby? "
"Huh? Oh, yeah, it's great."
"It's good to see you folks, too. I've been listening to you for five days now. It's nice to hear a familiar voice."
"Has it really been that long?"
Calvin tapped a device on his wrist. It was a digital watch.
"It's still keeping perfect time," he said. "When we get back, I'm going to write a letter to the manufacturer."
"I'd thank the maker of the watchband," Gaby said. "Yours is steel and mine was leathery
Calvin shrugged. "I remember it. It cost more than I made in a month, as an intem."
"It still seems like too much time. We only slept three times." "I know. Bill and August are having the same trouble Judging
time.pi
Cirocco looked up.
"Bill and August are alive?"
"Yeah, I've been listening to them. They're down there, on the bottom. I can point to the place. Bill has his whole radio, like you two. August only had a receiver. Bill picked out some land- marks and started talking about how we could find him. He sat still for two days, and August found him pretty quick. Now they call out regular. But August only asks for April, and she cries a lot."
"Jesus," Cirocco breathed. "I guess she would. You don't have any idea where April is, or Gene?"