"Alexander Kazantsev. The Destruction of Faena (ГИБЕЛЬ ФАЭНЫ, англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

entering it, slowly destroying the safety fuse.
No one on Faena, however, had an inkling of this danger on the day of
the ceremonial farewell to the astronauts leaving for the planet Terr.
The expedition consisted of three Culturals and three Superiors, one of
the latter being Mada Jupi.
For the toilers in the fields and workshops of Powermania, the day of
the send-off was declared a public holiday so that the Faetians could go out
on the road all the way as far as Cape Farewell, as the Dictator had named
part of the Great Beach near the cosmodrome. This was the usual point of
departure for all space probes, and also for the ships of the Superiors who
were maintaining contact with Space Station Deimo. The proprietors hoped to
gain considerable profits from the possible colonisation of the planets and
were not parsimonious with their out lays.
Mada and Ave could not escape the feeling that they would soon find
themselves being pursued. They were riding in the same steam-car as Dm Sat
The old scientist was pensive and sad.
The young members of the expedition kept either looking back over their
shoulders or looking intently at the Faetians who flashed past, standing on
either side of the road and throwing flowers under the wheels of the car.
There were roundheads and longfaces among them. They stood closely packed
side by side, as if there were no distinction between them. For many
Faetians, a joint expedition of the two continents to a planet was a symbol
of peace and inspired them with the hope that it might be possible not only
to come to terms on Faena and avoid a war, so but to send part of the
population to other planets.
Many Faetians had come out onto the road with their children.
The Faetian landworkers were conspicuous with their dark suntan. Those
who toiled in the workshop buildings had earthy complexions. But
particularly noticeable were the Faetians from the deep mines. The coal-dust
had so ingrained itself into their pores that their skin seemed dark, as if
they were of another race and were neither longfaces nor roundheads.
Mada had withdrawn wholly into herself, depressed by what was
happening. Like a true Faetess, she evaluated everything through the images
near to her. She hardly remembered her own mother, but her nanny was to her
a symbol of everything that she was leaving behind on Faena. She felt
troubled because happiness lay ahead of her, whereas here... She shut her
eyes tight.
When she opened them again, she saw that the road had reached the
ocean. She looked at Ave, and her expression spoke volumes.
Ave had been thinking all the time about the Faetians standing by the
roadside. Tomorrow they would return to workshops filled with the noise of
lathes and the reek of oil. They would take up their stations by moving
belts conveying the frames of machines in the process of stage-by-stage
assembly, and they would stay there with no hope of Justice, compulsorily
and joylessly toiling to the end of their hopeless days.
Ave Mar knew that on his shoulders lay the responsibility for the
outcome of the space flight and how much it meant to all these deprived
people.
Millions of these Faetians were also dreaming of happiness and the
right to have children, whatever shape their heads might be. The means of