"Bova, Ben - Death on Venus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bova Ben)

fluttering with near panic.
For about the twelve-thousandth time I told myself I should have insisted on a
tugboat. Rodriguez had talked me out of it when weТd first started planning the
mission. "A pressurized tug, just so we can make the transfer without getting
into our suits?" he had jeered at me. "ThatТs an expense we can do without. ItТs
a waste of money."
"It would be much safer, wouldnТt it?" I had persisted.
Tomas Rodriguez had been an astronaut; heТd gone to Mars four times before
retiring upward to become a consultant to aerospace companies and universities
doing planetary explorations. Yet what he really wanted was to fly again.
He was a solidly built man with an olive complexion and thickly curled hair that
he kept clipped very short, almost a military crew cut. He looked morose most of
the time, pensive, almost unapproachable. But that was just a mask. He smiled
easily, and when he did it lit up his whole face to show the truly gentle man
beneath the surface.
But he was not smiling; he looked disgusted. "You want safety? Use the mass and
volume weТd need for the tug to carry extra water. ThatТll give us an edge in
case the recycler breaks down."
"We have a backup recycler."
"WaterТs more important than a tug that weТll only use for five minutes during
the whole mission. ThatТs one piece of equipment that we definitely donТt need
to carry along."
So I had let Rodriguez talk me out of the tug. Now I was going to have perform
an EVA, a space walk, something that definitely gave me the shakes.
My jitters got even worse whenever I thought about Lars Fuchs.
Once my father told me that Fuchs actually was racing for the prize money, I
spent long hours digging every byte of information I could glean about him. What
I found was hardly encouraging. Fuchs had a reputation for ruthlessness and
achievement. According to the media biographies, he was a merciless taskmaster,
a driven and hard-driving tyrant who ran roughshod over anyone who stood in his
way. Except my father.
The media had barely covered FuchsТ launch into a high-velocity transit to
Venus. He had built his ship in secrecy out in the Belt--adapted an existing
vessel, apparently, to his needs. Unlike all the hoopla surrounding my own
launch from Tarawa, there was only one brief interview with Fuchs on the nets,
grainy and stiff because of the hour-long delay between the team of questioners
on Earth and Fuchs, out there among the asteroids.
I pored over that single interview, studying the face of my adversary on my
stateroom wall screen, in part to get my mind off the impending space walk.
Fuchs was a thickset man, probably not much taller than me, but with a barrel
chest and powerful-looking shoulders beneath his deep blue jacket. His face was
broad, jowly, his mouth a downcast slash that seemed always to be sneering. His
eyes were small and set so deep in his sockets that I couldnТt make out what
color they might be.
He made a grisly imitation of a smile to the interviewersТ opening question and
replied, "Yes, I am going to Venus. It seems only fair that I should take this
very generous prize money from Martin Humphries--the man who destroyed my
business and took my wife from me more than thirty years ago."
That brought a barrage of questions from the reporters. I froze the image and
delved into the hypertext records.