"Randall Garrett - His Master's Voice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Garrett Randall)

had been carved from the nickel-iron of the asteroid with a focused sun beam, I was itchy with my own
perspiration and groggy tired. I don't like riding in flitterboats, sitting on a bucket seat, astride the drive
tabe, like a witch on a broomstick, with nothing but a near-invisible transite hull between me and the
stars, all cooped up in a vac suit. Unlike driving a car, you can't pull a flitterboat over and take a nap; you
have to wait until you hit the next beacon station.

Ceres, the biggest rock in the Belt, is a lot more than just a beacon station. Like Eros and a few
others, it's a city in its own right. And except for the Government Reservation, Viking Spacecraft owned
Ceres, lock, stock, and mining rights.

Part of the reason for Viking's troubles was envy of that ownership. There were other companies in
the Belt that would like to get their hands on that plum, and there were those who were doing everything
short of cutting throats to get it. The PSD was afraid it might eome to that, too, before very long.

Ceres is fifty-eight million cubic miles of nickel-iron, but nobody would cut her up for that. Nickel-iron
is almost exactly as cheap as dirt on Earth, and, considering shipping costs, Earth soil costs a great deal
more than nickel-iron in the Belt.

But, as an operations base, Ceres is second to none. Its surface gravity averages .0294 Standard
Gee, as compared with Earth's .981, and that's enough to give a slight feeling of weight without unduly
hampering the body with too much load. I weigh just under six pounds on Ceres, and after I've been
there a while, going back to Earth is a strain that takes a week to get used to. Kids that are brought up in
the Belt are forced to exercise in a room with a one-gee spin on it at least an hour a day. They don't like
it at first, but it keeps them from growing up with the strength of mice. And an adult with any sense takes
a spin now and then, too. Traveling in a flitterboat will give you a one-gee pull, all right, but you don't get
much exercise.

I parked my flitterboat in the space that had been assigned to me by Landing Control, and went over
to the nearest air-lock dome.

After I'd cycled through and had shucked my vac suit, I went into the inner room to find Colonel
Brock waiting for me.

"Have at good trip, Oak?" he asked, trying to put a smile on his scarred, battered face.

"I got here alive, if that makes it a good flitterboat trip," I said, shaking his extended hand.

"That's the definition of a good trip," he told me.

"Then the question was superfluous. Seriously, what I need is a bath and some sleep."

"You'll get that, but first let's go somewhere where we can talk. Want a drink?"

"I could use one, I guess. Your treat?"

"My treat," he said. "Come on."

I followed him out and down a ladder to a corridor that led north. By definition, any asteroid spins
toward the east, and all directions follow from that, regardless of which way the axis may point.