Chapter 3

 The central space of the node was a very elongated hall, more reminiscent of a huge corridor twenty meters high. Black granite and stainless steel. There was no practical need for such a large space and pretentious decoration - it was simply a public place for some kind of pastime. And yet the hall did have its functionality - on both sides there were ascents and descents to transport tunnels and a rail metro - there was one of those here, with a one and a half meter track, more traditional than industrial. Heller was right in some ways - if we simplify it a lot, then for each person, for each of the fifty thousand, there really were a lot of both cars and buildings. On Earth, here, in this networked city, or rather in its habitable volumes, they would have easily stuffed a million residents, arranging floor slabs and partitions of individual dwellings inside all these halls. Here, for each person, there were at least seven hundred cubic meters of individual housing. Plus, public apartments in close proximity to the factories - so as not to waste time on the road there and back. However, could all this replace the Earth? Those for whom it could replace, in the understanding of Somerset and other like-minded people, were damaged in mind. The result of unstudied cosmic radiation, no other way. Having walked half the length of the hall, he finally came to the entrance to the snack bar hidden under the ceiling of the second side tier - such places, with tables for eating standing up, were at every step. Dolbin was there - Somerset recognized him from behind. Leita was standing next to him - she had been with Dolbin for about a month and a half, about. Red-haired, with a pleasant face, but too lanky for Somerset's taste. In general, Somerset preferred miniature Asians. At home, in Brazil, they were not uncommon. Some were simply correcting their faces - it was a rather ordinary procedure. Here on Mars, for some reason, they, both genuine and dressed up, were an extreme rarity. This was another reason not to linger here, although in the "main principle" the customs in the settlement were quite relaxed, unnecessary ceremonies were seen here as something like a dense relic. For many, this style of relationships was seen as a big plus.

 - The radio was not needed! - Somerset said with a somewhat feigned sense of relief after the greetings.

- Wait, it's too early to get rid of it, - answered Leita, who, as far as Somerset knew, was an Engineer - Lieutenant for communications.

 - I wasn't going to, - admitted Blankenberg.

 - Do you have a phone with you?

 - Well, yes. Why?

 - Just like that. Did you at least turn it off?

 - Oh, stop it, - Dolbin intervened.

 - There were rallies in a number of European capitals, - came from the TV, - In Paris, it all ended in riots and damage to property. It's no secret that this is a long-standing tradition of temperamental French citizens, accustomed if not to getting what they want, then to expressively demonstrate their discontent, - on one of the hanging TV screens, the news of the American FХ@TV was on.

 - Your gathering, that is, Heller's speech was shown, - Dolbin interjected, - On our television, of course.

 - As if I would have thought that from Earth! - Somerset grinned.

 - Such crap can't be! - Leita muttered rather emotionally, looking at the screen the whole time.

On the screen was the well-known tower of London's Big Ben, blackened on one side by soot. It looked as if it had been hit by artillery or drones had been sent, which was more likely. As far as Somerset knew, Leitha was from the British Republic.

 - The residents of Berlin decided not to lag behind their neighbors and, having filled up on beer, organized an extraordinary Oktoberfest. As a result of a number of acts of civil sabotage, the capital's power supply facilities were damaged and put out of action. This is how tourists from Russia, who by an unfortunate coincidence found themselves in the very epicenter of this European celebration, describe it...

 - One of those two, it seems, was from there, from Germany, - Somerset said.

 They were talking about Captain-Engineer Walter, a chemist-metallurgist, who literally the day before had entered their standard five, which had been shuffled around for the coordination of the underground not for the first time.

 - That doesn't mean anything, - Dolbin said, - I'm talking about the TV show. A couple of hours ago we saw the European news. ENN-dog-TV. Judging by it, there's militaristic hysteria in America, just like in Russia. And in Europe, there's complete order, calm streets. We have marches that our local activist comrades never dreamed of, and fistfights for everyone else. I flew away four and a half years ago. We didn't have anything close to that. Maybe in past centuries, but now...

 - Judging by what they're showing, Bob and I are now enemies. We're about to be on opposite sides of the front, - Leita said with a sad smile.

 - Well, yeah, - Somerset, chewing a sandwich that had fallen out of his serve, continued the conversation, - And I'm on the neutral side. I'm serious. Brazil is outside the events, after all.

 - So it's a draw, - Dolbin grinned.

 - No, when Walter comes... he's from Europe. And Ericsson is from Australia. Also neutral. Two against one. In general, seriously, I'm surprised that the constellations don't interfere in this matter.

 - Yes, that's true, - answered Leita, - More than fifty years ago they privatized Central Europe. Maybe you know? The governments went bankrupt, politically bankrupt, and were ready to start an open war. European Germany against European Poland. The AEA superholding privatized both states and set up a multi-republic in both. Maybe you know? They taught us at school, I even watched a video once.

 - Now the scale is completely different, - answered Dolbin. It's unlikely that all three constellations will be able to get out of here. And there's also a default. And screw them. We'll at least go to Africa, right? - he turned to Leita, - We can go to African France. There's still a lot of things...

 - As for me, all this is better than hanging around here, - Somerset summed up for everyone.

No one argued.

 The sad conversation was interrupted by the appearance of the energetic, fat and round-faced Walter, who immediately headed for the transport terminal - on the ubiquitous screens built into the walls, you could do a lot of things, including find the nearest free car. Eriksson, who was elderly by the standards of the settlement, and in contrast to Walter, was as thin as a stick, and arrived a couple of minutes later than Walter. All five of them headed down - the necessary tunnel was at minus thirty.

Somerset hastily finished the sausages he ordered from the snack bar on the go - leaving unfinished food here, in the conditions of space and an alien planet, was considered something if not shameful, then rather indecent. Eating on the go in comparison seemed like a completely understandable necessity that a working man faced every now and then. A man accustomed to living, being involved in the tough pace of the general process.

 When the team loaded into one of the orange cars, Dolbin, who took the driver's seat, began to look for the rocket launch site on the display. Having plotted the route, for some reason he switched to manual control and began to independently drive out onto the highway. Having settled in behind a heavy platform dragging a spent ceramic crucible, the car moved to the West. The speed was about fifty kilometers per hour - they did not go faster here.

 Here, on Mars, they could rush around in shuttles in violation of all route regulations. For more practical, respectable purposes, here, as in the cities of Earth, people could simply go by metro, accelerating to three hundred kilometers per hour on the stretches. But with motor transport here it was complete despondency. There were no personal cars in the earthly sense of the word "car" here at all. Neither driving, nor, especially, flying. The cars that were generally available and in abundance did not develop a speed of more than sixty kilometers per hour. They did not even have a closed top - only metal arcs. And even that sixty-kilometer speed was in most cases optionally limited by directives of the general computer network to fifty, and in some places even more strictly. All sorts of single crystals, pressure vessels and precision units were constantly transported along the highways - there was no place for lovers of fast driving here.

 An hour or so later, the car drove into exactly the same parking lot at its destination. Dolbin, who was tired of steering about halfway, transferred control to the computer, which steered the car in the flow as if on a conveyor belt.

 Somerset turned around, taking one last look at the parking lot, the tunnel and generally everything that caught his eye. If only everything worked out, and these views would remain only memories. The checkpoint facility was located a kilometer from the launch pad. It was already directly related to the rocket launch site. On the way from the parking lot to this mini-dome, two posts were passed: one had a duty officer, the second was automated. Unlike Earth, the local organization of production and everyday life could not waste personnel resources on all kinds of security. As for the fugitives, the sabotage previously organized by the underground worked flawlessly, both with a person and with a machine. All that was left was to rejoice and thank fate that the rebel separatists had not yet built their own security system. A new system, built according to all those odious models and developments of Earth, which was