"Ben Bova - The Kinsman Saga" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bova Ben)

The post of the foe,
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible

form.
Yet the strong man must go ...

ЧRobert Browning

Age 21

To Mark Chartrand, despite his puns

FROM THE REAR SEAT of the TF-15 jet the mountains of Utah
looked like barren wrinkles of grayish brown, an old thread-
bare bedcover that had been tossed carelessly across the floor.

"How do you like it up here?"

Chet Kinsman heard the pilot's voice as a disembodied
crackle in his helmet earphones. The shrill whine of the
turbojet engines, the rush of unbreathably thin air just inches
away on the other side of the transparent canopy, were
nothing more than background music, muted, unimportant.

"Love it!" he answered to the bulbous white helmet in
the seat in front of him.

The cockpit was narrow and cramped. The oxygen he
breathed through the rubbery mask had a cold, metallic tang
to it. Kinsman could barely move in his seat. The pilot had
warned him, "Pull the harness good and snug; you don't want
anything flapping loose if you have to eject." Now the safety
straps cut into his shoulders.

Yet he felt free.

"How high can we go?" he asked into the mike built into
the oxygen mask.

A pause. "Oh, we can leave controlled airspace if we
want to. Better'n fifty thousand feet." The pilot had a trace of
Southern accent. Alabama, maybe, thought Kinsman. Or
Georgia. "Thirty thou's good enough for now, though."

Kinsman grinned to himself. "A lot better than hang
gliding."

"Hey, I like hang gliding," said the pilot.

"But it doesn't compare to this. . . . This is power.''1