"Robert F. Young - Goddess in Granite" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

To MartenтАЩs knowledge, he was the only Earthman who had ever found that
level, who had ever seen the Virgin as she really was; seen her emerge into a
reality uniquely her ownтАФan unforgettable reality, the equal of which he had
never before encountered.
Perhaps being the only one had had something to do with her effect on him;
that, plus the fact that he had been only twenty at the timeтАФtwenty, he
thought wonderingly. He was thirty-two now. Yet the intervening years were no
more than a thin curtain, a curtain he had parted a thousand times.
He parted it again.

After his motherтАЩs third marriage he had made up his mind to become a
spaceman, and he had quit college and obtained a berth as cabin boy on the
starship Ulysses. The UlyssesтАЩ destination was Alpha Virginis IX; the purpose
of its voyage was to chart potential ore deposits.
Marten had heard about the Virgin, of course. She was one of the seven
hundred wonders of the galaxy. But he had never given her a second
thoughtтАФtill he saw her in the main viewport of the orbiting Ulysses.
Afterward, he gave her considerable thought and, several days after
planetfall, he тАЬborrowedтАЭ one of the shipтАЩs life-rafts and went exploring. The
exploit had netted him a week in the brig upon his return, but he hadnтАЩt
minded. The Virgin had been worth it.
The altimeter of the life-raft had registered 55,000 feet when he first
sighted her, and he approached her at that level. Presently he saw the
splendid ridges of her calves and thighs creep by beneath him, the white
desert of her stomach, the delicate cwm of her navel. He was above the twin
mountains of her breasts, within sight of the mesa of her face, before it
occurred to him that, by lifting the raft, he might gain a much better
perspective.
He canceled his horizontal momentum and depressed the altitude button. The
raft climbed swiftlyтАФ60,000 feet . . . 65,000 . . . 70,000. It was like
focusing a telescreenтАФ80,000 . . . His heart was pounding nowтАФ90,000 . . . The
oxygen dial indicated normal pressure, but he could hardly breathe.
100,000, 101,000 . . . Not quite high enough. 102,300 . . .Thou art
beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, Comely as Jerusalem, Terrible as an army with
banners . . . 103,211 . . .The joints of thy thighs are like jewels, the work
of the hands of a cunning workman . . . 103,288 . . .
He jammed the altitude button hard, locking the focus. He could not breathe
at all nowтАФat least not for the first, ecstatic moment. He had never seen
anyone quite like her. It was early spring, and her hair was black; her eyes
were a springtime blue. And it seemed to him that the mesa of her face
abounded in compassion, that the red rimrock of her mouth was curved in a
gentle smile.
She lay there immobile by the sea, a Brobdingnagian beauty come out of the
water to bask forever in the sun. The barren lowlands were a summer beach; the
glittering ruins of a nearby city were an earring dropped from her ear; and
the sea was a summer lake, the life-raft a metallic gull hovering high above
the littoral.
And in the transparent belly of the gull sat an infinitesimal man who would
never be the same again. . . .