"Robert L. Forward - Starquake" - читать интересную книгу автора (Forward Robert L)

through the thick glass of the tiny port into the interior of the high-gravity protection tank. The inside of
the small, one-meter diameter sphere was empty except for a tiny split-screen video console

set in the inner wall. In the walls of the tanks were banks of sound generators that produced pressure
waves to counteract the gravitational tidal forces they would experience once they had left the haven of
the six dense masses that danced in a ring around their spacecraft. Amalita pushed buttons that emptied
the air from the tank and filled it with incompressible water. A touch on the controls and the sound
generators sang their protective cloak into the chamber. In the exact center of the tank was a tiny check
sphere pinioned by the sound forces. She increased the intensity of the sound pulses and waited until the
tiny ball glowed a brilliant green. Satisfied that the tank was operational, Amalita punched for a purge and
restart, then went around the central column to check out the next tank.

As Amalita left, Seiko came to a halt in front of the tank and started taking off her clothes. She stripped
to a bra and briefs, pulled a wetsuit from the locker below the hatch door, and slid her pale body
smoothly into the suit, the underwater breathing mask floating quietly above her head in the low gravity.
Amalita paused in her check-out of the adjacent tank, looked down at her blouse, blushed, and dove
down the passageway to her private locker. Shortly she was back again, and this time the motions of her
upper body seemed to be a little more constrained.

By the time Amalita had come around to the hatch that opened downward from the ceiling of the lounge,
Abdul was already there. He was down to his underpants. They were the skimpy European "bikini" style.
The white satin contrasted nicely with the muscular ebony-black skin. Amalita floated up under Abdul
and grabbed him firmly by his naked waist.

"Here, let me give you a hand with your suit," she said, her long, ballet-trained legs and feet locked firmly
in the handholds at the lounge door.

"Hey! Cut it out!" Abdul yelled.

"I'mjust trying to help," Amalita replied sweetly.

"I'll bet. I know you oversexed Harvard broads. Always trying to find some excuse to paw an MIT
engineer. Leggo. I'm big enough to get dressed by myself."

Despite Abdul's protests, Amalita held onto his muscular waist until he got the legs of his wet suit on.
Then pushing his arms into his sleeves as if she were dressing a little child, she helped him dress the rest
of the way. Her attention bruised Abdul's ego a little, but Amalita didn't care; they were going home, and
it was time for a little fun. Grinning from ear to ear,

she shot up the passageway to check out the top tank. The hatch for this tank was under the star image
table.
 Amalita floated over to the table and glanced down for a moment at the image of Dragon's Egg on the
white frosted surface. There was now more to see on the star as the cheela technology became capable
of constructing structures large enough to be seen from space. The Bright's Heaven jump loop was now
visible below. It was already slinging payloads into space. Within ten minutes or so, a space fountain
should be pointing straight up into space from the top of the East Pole mountains off on the horizon. Just
before she flicked off the image, Amalita saw the Polar Orbiting Space Station of the cheela flash by
below like a white-hot tracer bullet.