"CLARKE, Arthur C. - Odyssey 3 - 2061 Odyssey Three" - читать интересную книгу автора (Clarke Arthur C)

'When are you going out?'

'Just as soon as Cliff comes back - he's gone caving with Bill Chant.'



The first flybys of the comet, in 1986, had suggested that it was considerably less dense than water -which could only mean that it was either made of very porous material, or was riddled with cavities. Both explanations turned out to be correct.

At first, the ever-cautious Captain Smith flatly forbade any cave-exploring. He finally relented when Dr Pendrill reminded him that his chief assistant Dr Chant was an experienced speleologist - indeed, that was one of the very reasons he had been chosen for the mission.

'Cave-ins are impossible, in this low gravity,' Pendrill had told the reluctant Captain. 'So there's no danger of being trapped.'

'What about being lost?'

'Chant would regard that suggestion as a professional insult. He's been twenty kilometres inside Mammoth Cave. Anyway, he'll play out a guideline.'

'Communications?'

'The line's got fibre optics in it. And his suit radio will probably work most of the way.'

'Umm. Where does he want to go in?'

'The best place is that extinct geyser at the base of Etna Junior. It's been dead for at least a thousand years.'

'So I suppose it should keep quiet for another couple of days. Very well - does anyone else want to go?'

'Cliff Greenburg has volunteered - he's done a good deal of underwater cave-exploring, in the Bahamas.'

'I tried it once - that was enough. Tell Cliff he's much too valuable. He can go in as far as he can still see the entrance - and no further. And if he loses contact with Chant, he's not to go after him, without my authority.'

Which, the Captain added to himself, I would be very reluctant to give...



Dr Chant knew all the old jokes about speleologists wanting to return to the womb, and was quite sure he could refute them.

'That must be a damn noisy place, with all its thumpings and bumpings and gurglings,' he argued. 'I love caves because they're so peaceful and timeless. You know that nothing has changed for a hundred thousand years, except that the stalactites have grown a bit thicker.'

But now, as he drifted deeper into Halley, playing out the thin, but virtually unbreakable thread that linked him to Clifford Greenburg, he realized that this was no longer true. As yet, he had no scientific proof, but his geologist's instincts told him that this subterranean world had been born only yesterday, on the time-scale of the Universe. It was younger than some of the cities of man.

The tunnel through which he was gliding in long, shallow leaps was about four metres in diameter, and his virtual weightlessness brought back vivid memories of cave-diving on Earth. The low gravity contributed to the illusion; it was exactly as if he was carrying slightly too much weight, and so kept drifting gently downwards. Only the absence of all resistance reminded him that he was moving through vacuum, not water.

'You're just getting out of sight,' said Greenburg, fifty metres in from the entrance. 'Radio link still fine. What's the scenery like?'

'Very hard to say - I can't identify any formations, so I don't have the vocabulary to describe them. It's not any kind of rock - it crumbles when I touch it - I feel as if I'm exploring a giant Gruyшre cheese.'

'You mean it's organic?'

'Yes - nothing to do with life, of course - but perfect raw material for it. All sorts of hydrocarbons - the chemists will have fun with these samples. Can you still see me?'