"Blish, James - Pheonix Planet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Blish James)

least been busy, too busy for him to develop the knack of solitaire or playing
chess with himself, and now the inaction in the shining wooden box of the Icarus
was tormenting. He could only pace in a five-foot circle, walk up and down the
catwalk in a useless check of Kammerman's superb engines, make delicate
adjustments of the little ship in the crude cage, and return again to smudge the
port and lean on the walls as if to urge more speed.
But the days went by, and Mars dwindled, and the blue star grew. And with it
grew visions of forests, and oceans, and Anne, and an enormous steak, and thick,
rich air....
ON THE two-hundred and fiftieth day the Icarus swept in close to the corpse-like
moon, and shot by, while Marshall took the last foot of his film before turning
on the forward engines. He had managed to fill four whole days taking these
pictures, and the sun, which had been his enemy so long, had turned fair-weather
friend and illuminated the ''dark'' side with slanting rays which brought out
every detail in sharp contrast to its own shadow.
With a sigh he unpacked the magazine and stored it with the rest. Then he moved
the little ship on the gold wires back a bit and up, and white, intense flame
blotted out his vision. He wrote hasty calculations on the walls (since the
Society had considered paper wasted weight).
The Icarus, a comet with two opposed tails, fell gradually into the Oberth
braking orbit, so carefully calculated for it by the Society ten years ago. No,
over twelve, now, thanks to the time the two trips had added to the stay on
Mars. Marshall fidgeted and paced his five-foot circle and could not sleep,
though it would be ten hours before the first brush with the atmosphere. Instead
he stood at the port every few minutes and looked down at the great planet of
his home, the world of blue seas and green-brown continents and masses of white
mist obscuring both. He longed to see a city, but he was too high up, and their
lights at night he found also invisible.
He filled the ten hours making nice adjustments on the gyroscope, compensating
for the constant, nauseating shift in the down direction which occurred if the
ship went through the orbit changing its relative position to Earth as inertia
would have it do. Then the high thin screaming of the atmosphere, almost beyond
the range of audibility, penetrated the Icarus and he charged up the catwalk to
strap himself in and fire another burst through the forward tubes. The wood
would not burn under ordinary conditions, protected as it was by the outside
coatings, but it was not wise to take chances. Even stone meteors burned if they
fell free through such gloriously thick atmosphere.
During the next two hours the scream crept gradually down to a siren-like howl
as he edged the ship toward the Earth a few hundred feet at a time. Once his
fingers slipped and perspiration started out all over him as he had to apply
rocket power. It would be ironic to be burned in the last lap. Then at last the
sound, without changing pitch, died away to a whisper and the Icarus was back in
space, speed greatly reduced, making the wide loop for the return. Seven hours
now decelerating all the time in a constant, sickening surge. . . .
This time the sound started as a howl and went down from there. In an hour he
was but two miles up from home. Another hour, another mile down, while the dark
mass of Europe slid below him and then the beautiful turquoise desert of the
Atlantic. In half an hour he was making only two hundred miles an hour, so that
an airplane could have paced him, and he slid out the retractable wings.... Five
thousand feet from home. ...