Часовой / английский и русский параллельные тексты [Артур Чарльз Кларк] (fb2) читать постранично

Arthur C. Clarke. The Sentinel. Артур Кларк. Часовой. The next time you see the full moon high in the south, look carefully at its right-hand edge and let your eye travel upward along the curve of the disk. В следующий раз, когда высоко в небе появится полная Луна, обратите внимание на ее правый край и заставьте ваши глаза подняться по изгибу диска вверх, против часовой стрелки. Round about two o'clock you will notice a small, dark oval: anyone with normal eyesight can find it quite easily. Около цифры "два" вы заметите маленький темный овал; его без труда обнаружит любой человек с нормальным зрением. It is the great walled plain, one of the finest on the Moon, known as the Mare Crisium-the Sea of Crises. Эта великая равнина, самая прекрасная на Луне, названа Морем Кризисов. Three hundred miles in diameter, and almost completely surrounded by a ring of magnificent mountains, it had never been explored until we entered it in the late summer of 1996. Диаметром в триста миль, охраняемая плотным кольцом горных массивов, она не была исследована до той поры, пока мы не пробрались туда поздним летом 1996 года. Our expedition was a large one. We had two heavy freighters which had flown our supplies and equipment from the main lunar base in the Mare Serenitatis, five hundred miles away. There were also three small rockets which were intended for short-range transport over regions which our surface vehicles couldn't cross. Большая экспедиция с двумя тяжелыми луноходами для снаряжения и припасов двигалась с главной лунной базы, расположенной в Море Ясности, в пятистах милях от равнины. Luckily, most of the Mare Crisiurn is very flat. К счастью, большая часть площади Моря Кризисов очень ровная. There are none of the great crevasses so common and so dangerous elsewhere, and very few craters or mountains of any size. Здесь нет опасных расселин, столь обычных для лунной поверхности, мало кратеров и гор. As far as we could tell, our powerful caterpillar tractors would have no difficulty in taking us wherever we wished to go. И насколько можно было предполагать, мощным гусеничным вездеходам не придется очень трудно, в каком бы направлении мы ни захотели двигаться. I was geologist-or selenologist, if you want to be pedantic in charge of. the group exploring the southern region of the Mare. В ту пору я как геолог руководил группой исследователей в южном районе моря. We had crossed a hundred miles of it in a week, skirting the foothills of the mountains along the shore of what was once the ancient sea, some thousand million years before. За неделю мы проехали сотню миль, огибая основания гор вдоль берега, где несколько миллиардов лет назад было древнее море. When life was beginning on Earth, it was already dying here. На Земле тогда жизнь лишь зарождалась, а здесь уже вымирала. The waters were retreating down the flanks of those stupendous cliff s, retreating into the empty heart of the Moon. Воды, омывая склоны этих огромных скал, отступали в глубь, в пустое сердце Луны. Over the land which we were crossing, the tideless ocean had once been half a mile deep, and now the only trace of moisture was the hoarfrost one could sometimes find in caves which the searing sunlight never penetrated. Мы пересекали поверхность погибшего океана без приливов и отливов, глубиной в полмили, и только иней - единственный признак существования жидкости - порой встречался нам в пещерах, куда иссушающий свет солнца никогда не проникал. We had begun our journey early in the slow lunar dawn, and still had almost a week of Earth-time before nightfall. Мы отправились путешествовать с медленно наступающим лунным рассветом, и от ночи нас отделяла почти неделя земного времени. Half a dozen times a day we would leave our vehicle and go outside in the spacesuits to hunt for interesting minerals, or to place markers for the guidance of future travelers. Бывало, раз шесть на дню мы оставляли луноход и, защищенные скафандрами, искали интересные минералы или устанавливали дорожные указатели для будущих путешественников. It was an uneventful routine. There is nothing hazardous or even particularly exciting about lunar exploration. We could live comfortably for a month in our pressurized tractors, and if we ran into trouble we could always radio for help and sit tight until one of the spaceships came to our rescue. I said just now that there was nothing exciting about lunar exploration, but of course that isn't true. One could never grow tired of those incredible mountains, so much more rugged than the gentle hills of Earth. We never knew, as we rounded the capes and promontories of that vanished sea, what new splendors would be revealed to us. The whole southern curve of the Mare Crisiurn is a vast delta where a score of rivers once found their way into the ocean, fed perhaps by the torrential rains that must have lashed the mountains in the brief volcanic age when the Moon was young. Each of these ancient valleys was an invitation, challenging us to climb into the unknown uplands beyond. But we had a hundred miles still to cover, and could only look longingly at the heights which others must scale. We kept Earth-time aboard the tractor, and precisely at 22.00 hours the final radio message would be sent out to Base and we would close down for the day. Жизнь на вездеходе протекала по земному времени, и ровно в 22:00 мы посылали на базу радиограмму о том, что работа на данный день закончена. Outside, the rocks would still be burning beneath the almost vertical sun, but to us it was night until we awoke again eight hours later. Снаружи скалы еще рдели под лучами почти вертикального Солнца, а для нас наступала ночь, и мы спали не менее восьми часов. Then one of us would prepare breakfast, there would be a great buzzing of electric razors, and someone would switch on the short-wave radio from Earth. Завтрак готовили по очереди. Indeed, when the smell of frying sausages began to fill the cabin, it was sometimes hard to believe that we were not back on our own world - everything was so normal and homely, apart from the feeling of decreased weight and the unnatural slowness with which objects fell. It was my turn to prepare breakfast in the corner of the main cabin that served as a galley. На сей раз это делал я, расположившись в углу главной каюты, который служил нам камбузом. I can remember that moment quite vividly after all these years, for the radio had just played one of my favorite melodies, the old Welsh air, "David of the White, Rock." Our driver was already outside in his space-suit, inspecting our caterpillar treads. My assistant, Louis Garnett, was up forward in the control position, making some belated entries in yesterday's log. Прошли годы,