"George Zebrowski - The Water Sculptor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zebrowski George)

I wish I could hear and feel the motion of gas molecules in the upper air, the
whisperings of subtle energy transfers тАж

In the Pacific, weather control engineers guided the great storm into an electrostatic
basket. The storm would provide usable power for the rest of its natural life.



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Praeger awoke a quarter of an hour before his watch was due to begin. He thought
of his recent vacation Earthside, remembering the glowing volcano he had seen in
Italy and how strange the silver shield of the Moon had looked through Earth's
atmosphere. He remembered watching his own Station Six, his post in life, moving
slowly across the sky, remembered one of the inner stations as it passed Julian's
Station 233, one of the few private satellites, synchronous, fixed for all time over one
point on the Earth. He should be able to talk to Julian soon, during his next off
period. Even though Julian was an artist and a recluse, a water sculptor as he called
himself, Julian and he were very much alike. At times he felt they were each other's
conscience, two ex-spacemen in continual retreat from their home world. It was
much more beautiful and bearable from out here. In all this silence he sometimes
thought he could hear the universe breathing. It was alive, the whole starry cosmos
throbbing.

If I could tear a hole in its body, it would bleed and cry out for a bandage тАж

He remembered the stifling milieu of Rome's streets: the great screens which went
dead during his vacation, blinding the city, the crowds waiting on the stainless steel
squares for the music to resume over the giant audios. They could not work without
it. The music pounded its monotonous bass beat: the sound of some imprisoned
beast beneath the city. The cab that waited for him was a welcome sight: an
instrument for fleeing.

In the shuttle craft that brought him back to Station Six he read the little quotation
printed on the back of every seat for the ten thousandth time; it told him that the
shuttle dated back to the building of the giant Earth station system.

"тАж What we are building now is the nervous system of mankind тАж the
communications network of which the satellites will be the nodal points. They will
enable the consciousness of our grandchildren to flicker like lightning back and forth
across the face of the planet тАж"



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Praeger got up from his bunk and made his way back to the watch room. He was
glad now to get away from his own thoughts and return to the visual stimulation of