"William Forstchen - Article 23" - читать интересную книгу автора (Forstchen William R)

"But what did it feel like?" Justin pressed.

"Sort of strange. I did like they told you to do in training, exhaled and kept my mouth open. If you try and
hold the air in you might burst your lungs or eardrums. I couldn't close my eyes because I had to see
what I was doing. I guess what got me the most was just how silent it was. The moment the door blew in
and I went through, all sound just disappeared, I could see my breath rushing out and turning into a
frozen fog, and I could feel the moisture on my eyes and in my nose and mouth just vaporizing. It sort of
felt like stepping out into a subzero day. Just real cold."

"That's from the skin moisture boiling off when the atmospheric pressure drops to zero," Matt interjected.
"Felt it myself a couple of times."

"Yeah," Brian said with a chuckle. "It was all over with so fast, though. They told me later I got in and out
of there, carrying Abdul, in just under ten seconds and once I closed the door the corridor was
repres-surized in another ten seconds."

Justin wondered how he would have reacted. Brian made his decision sound so matter-of-fact. In reality,
no one would have blamed him for following standard rescue procedure getting a suit on and calling for
backup before going in. But that would have taken several minutes and Abdul would have been dead.
Brian had not hesitated to make a split-second decision that was a wager with death.

Justin was silent. He looked over at Matt, who appeared ready to start into a story of his own, but his
friend simply smiled, knowing it was best not to play one-upmanship with a senior.

"It was no big deal," Brian said quietly. "It kills me how they still have those stupid holo movies where
somebody gets caught in a vacuum and their eyeballs or sometimes their whole body just explode.
Actually, I think dying in a vacuum isn't too bad a way to go. You just pass out after thirty seconds or so
and it's all over."

Justin said nothing in reply. His father had been killed in space; so had Matt's parents he pushed the
thought away.

Brian fell silent for a moment and looked out the window.

"Space has a lot of ways of getting you if you aren't on your toes."

Justin turned and looked back out the window, In the short time they had been talking the car had
climbed through the four hundred thousand-meter level. The sky was shifting into black, and stars were
visible. He could see clear across the Amazon Basin all the way to the snowcapped peaks of the Andes,
the surface of the Earth curving away beneath him.

The seatbelt light clicked off.

"Let's go to the top observation deck," Brian said. "It's the best view in the house."

Surprised at how friendly their old nemesis was, Justin and Matt followed along. They crowded into the
small elevator that connected the three floors of the car. As they stepped out onto the top floor Justin
looked up with a gasp.

High-stress plexishield domed the top of the car, giving a full view in all directions and straight up. You