"Edward L. Ferman - Best From F&SF, 23rd Edition" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ferman Edward L)

gone to Lang. There was little friendship between the two, especially when Weinstein fell to brooding
about the very real financial benefits Lang stood to reap by being the first woman on Mars, rather than
the lowly mission commander. He saw himself as another Michael Collins.
Crawford called down to Lang, who raised her head enough to mumble something.
"What'd she say?"
"She said take a message." McKillian had been crawling up the ladder as she said this. Now she
reached him and said in a lower voice, "Matt, she's pretty broken up. You'd better take over for now."
"Right, I know." He turned back to the radio, and McKillian listened over his shoulder as Weinstein
briefed them on the situation as he saw it. It pretty much jibed with Crawford's estimation, except at one
crucial point. He signed off and they joined the other survivors.
He looked around at the faces of the others and decided it wasn't the time to speak of rescue
possibilities. He didn't relish being a leader. He was hoping Lang would recover soon and take the
burden from him. In the meantime he had to get them started on something. He touched McKillian gently
on the shoulder and motioned her to the lock.
"Let's go get them buried," he said. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, forcing out tears, then nodded.
It wasn't a pretty job. Halfway through it, Song came down the ladder with the body of Lou Prager.
"Let's go over what we've learned. First, now that Lou's dead there's very little chance of ever lifting
off. That is, unless Mary thinks she can absorb everything she needs to know about piloting the
Podkayne from those printouts Weinstein sent down. How about it, Mary?"
Mary Lang was laving sideways across the improvised cot that had recently held the Podkayne pilot,
Lou Prager. Her head was nodding listlessly against the aluminum hull plate behind her, her chin was on
her chest. Her eyes were half-open.
Song had given her a sedative from the dead doctor's supplies on the advice of the medic aboard the
E.R.B, It had enabled her to stop fighting so hard against the screaming panic she wanted to unleash. It
hadn't improved her disposition. She had quit; she wasn't going to do anything for anybody.
When the blowout started, Lang had snapped on her helmet quickly. Then she had struggled against
the blizzard and the undulating dome bottom, heading for the roofless framework where the other
members of the expedition were sleeping. The blowout was over in ten seconds, and she then had the
problem of coping with, the collapsing roof, which promptly buried her in folds of clear plastic. It was far
too much like one of those nightmares of running knee-deep in quicksand. She had to fight for every
meter, but she made it.
She made it in time to see her shipmates of the last six months gasping soundlessly and spouting
blood from all over their faces as they fought to get into their pressure suits. It was a hopeless task to
choose which two or three to save in the time she had. She might have done better but for the freakish
nature of her struggle to reach them; she was in shock and half believed it was only a nightmare. So she
grabbed the nearest, who happened to be Doctor Ralston. He had nearly finished donning his suit; so she
slapped his helmet on him and moved to the next one. It was Luther Nakamura, and he was not moving.
Worse, he was only half suited. Pragmatically she should have left him and moved on to save the ones
who still had a chance. She knew it now, but didn't like it any better than she had liked it then.
While she was stuffing Nakamura into his suit, Crawford arrived. He had walked over the folds of
plastic until he reached the dormitory, then sliced through it with his laser normally used to vaporize rock
samples.
And he had had time to think about the problem of whom to save. He went straight to Lou Prager
and finished suiting him up. But it was already too late. He didn't know if it would have made any
difference if Mary Lang had tried to save him first.
Now she lay on the bunk, her feet sprawled carelessly in front of her. She slowly shook her head
back and forth.
 "You sure?" Crawford prodded her, hoping to get a rise, a show of temper, anything.
"I'm sure," she mumbled. "You people know how long they trained Lou to fly this thing? And he
almost cracked it up as it was. I ... ah, nuts. It isn't possible."