"Cassutt, Michael - More Adventures On Other Planets" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cassutt Michael)

Today he even finds the traverse on Europa to be less than totally engaging. He is re-covering the same ground as the earlier traverse, in essence, crawling through an icy ditch for the second time.

But then he emerges onto a spot of flat ground, notes the tracks of Element Rebecca and its power unit on his original route, and veers off.

This is more challenging, up and down the slopes at an amazing five kilometers an hour. It feels like sailing in the open sea.

Then, just as Earl has grown comfortable with the traverse, Element Earl stalls on a slope that is slightly too steep. He is also in a shadow. Several data packets are squirted back, forth and around, their tone as close to panic as the operators and mission control ever get. Earl is encouraged to let Element Earl slip backwards down the icy slope in search of traction. Meanwhile, the Hoppa base unit will try to find a passable routeЧ

Now the temperature readout, having gotten no higher than a sixth of the way up its scale, starts to plummet, like a barometer just before a storm. Earl finds this troubling, but knows that turning around now would mean doom.

"Back up twenty-two meters," Haas says on the voice loop. "We've got something here."

Element Earl slowly retraces his pathЧblindly, since the camera only points forwardЧbut surely, since each turn of his wheels has been recorded and can be replayed precisely in reverse. Out of the shadow into the light.

Then forward into what appears to be a narrow passage in a wall of ice. Left. Left again. Temperature rising again. Good. Had it dropped much more, Earl would have had to begin the lengthy disengagement processЧ

Ping! It's Element Rebecca pulsing him, in direct line of sight. One more turn to the left, and Element Earl has visual, not only on Rebecca, but on Element Asif, the power rover, behind.

There is time for one slight push, an expensive one in terms of power. An electrical arc leaps between them, a common enough event when two machines touch in a vacuum. The event startles both Earls, and causes the displays to drop out for a moment.

Then all is well. Element Rebecca slews free, and continues backing up, clearing the way for Earl to approach Asif. "The drill site is that way. Follow me."




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"How do you like the work so far?" Earl has checked into Rebecca's background and knows that the J2E2 mission is her first. Just as he knows that her personal history makes him look like a model of stability, with three marriages (none lasting longer than four years) and at least one other semi-famous liaison. No children. Remembering a phrase from his youth, Earl has decided that Rebecca has commitment issues.
"Europa? It reminds me of home."

"You must have grown up someplace very cold and a long time ago." Which is a joke, since by 2026, after thirty years of global warming, there aren't many cold places left on the planet.

"It's not so much the cold," she says. "It's big Jupiter. My parents were teachers in B.C., British Columbia. We lived in a place called Garibaldi, which had this gigantic rock face hanging over it. It always creeped me out. Jupiter feels like that."

They are having martinis as they watch the sun set from the stern of Earl's boat, the Atropos, in its slip in Mission Bay. Both have been drained by the experience on Europa today, which required them to operate for six hours in Rebecca's case, ten in Earl'sЧmuch longer than the usual three. In spite of his initial feeling that he and Rebecca will never have anything beyond a professional relationship, Earl has accepted her invitation for a drink. A tribute to his stamina, she says.

Hoping to control the agenda, he suggested they come to his boat. Where he pours a second round, as a tribute to her courage, he says, and now Earl is feeling the effects of the alcohol, something he does not enjoy. But he would rather stay here overlooking the Pacific than return to his condo.

"How about you?" she says. "You've been doing this work almost from the beginning."

Earl is not one for introspection or emotion, or so he believes. "It's a great way to be on the cutting edge of exploration at an age when everyone else is retired."

She nods, amused at the banality of this. "Yeah, let's strike a blow for our demo. Age shall not only not wither us, it shan't even slow us down." Then she looks at him closely. "Earl, forgive me, we hardly know each other, but you don't look well."

And then, his barriers eroded by vodka, he starts to weep. "I've got a growth in my neck." In spite of his reservations, he reaches for her, and she takes him in.