"Peter Watts - A Niche" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watts Peter)

her eyes like smooth white cataracts.
She climbs out of her cubby and moves along the corridor to
the lounge. Ballard is waiting there, dressed in a diveskin and the
usual air of confidence.
Ballard stands up. "Ready to go?"
"You're in charge," Clarke says.
"Only on paper." Ballard smiles. "No pecking order down
here, Lenie. As far as I'm concerned, we're equals." After two
days on the rift Clarke is still surprised by the frequency with
which Ballard smiles. Ballard smiles at the slightest provocation.
It doesn't always seem real.
Something hits Beebe from the outside.
Ballard's smile falters. They hear it again; a wet, muffled thud
through the station's titanium skin.
"It takes a while to get used to," Ballard says, "doesn't it?"
And again.
"I mean, that sounds bigтАФ"
"Maybe we should turn the lights off," Clarke suggests. She
knows they won't. Beebe's exterior floodlights burn around the
clock, an electric campfire pushing back the darkness. They can't
see it from insideтАФBeebe has no windowsтАФ but somehow they
draw comfort from the knowledge of that unseen fireтАФ
Thud!
тАФmost of the time.
"Remember back in training?" Ballard says over the sound,
"When they told us that the fish were usually soтАФsmallтАж"
A Niche 3

Her voice trails off. Beebe creaks slightly. They listen for a
while. There's no other sound.
"It must've gotten tired," Ballard says. "You'd think they'd
figure it out." She moves to the ladder and climbs downstairs.
Clarke follows her, a bit impatiently. There are sounds in
Beebe that worry her far more than the futile attack of some
misguided fish. Clarke can hear tired alloys negotiating surrender.
She can feel the ocean looking for a way in. What if it finds one?
The whole weight of the Pacific could drop down and turn her into
jelly. Any time.
Better to face it outside, where she knows what's coming. All
she can do in here is wait for it to happen.

Going outside is like drowning, once a day.
Clarke stands facing Ballard, diveskin sealed, in an airlock that
barely holds both of them. She has learned to tolerate the forced
proximity; the glassy armor on her eyes helps a bit. Fuse seals,
check headlamp, test injector; the ritual takes her, step by reflexive
step, to that horrible moment when she awakens the machines
sleeping within her, and changes.
When she catches her breath, and loses it.
When a vacuum opens, somewhere in her chest, that swallows