"David Grinnell- To Venus! To Venus!" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grinnell David)

better if one of us had argued the other side."

Phillip and Douglas had joined them, standing by the edge of the table.

"After all," Borg continued, "in spite of the fact that the Russians may
seem peculiar to us in the way they do things, they're not stupid."

"The first Sputnik was Russian," Jim agreed, "so was the first man in
orbit. And the first spacewalker."

Borg nodded.

"It seems to me that I heard somewhere that when the first Russian
was orbiting Earth and sending messages, a number of our scientists
thought the thing was a hoax," Jim continued.

The captain exhaled a large breath. "Okay," he said, "let's get on with it.
Phil, what's been coming in?"

The meeting broke up as Phil went to the teleprinter and gathered the
sheaf of papers on which each incoming message was continuously
recorded.


Chet was sound asleep in his cramped bunk when Doug pulled the
curtain aside and awakened him. "Captain wants you," he said.

Chet climbed out, rinsed his face in the tiny sink, using no more than
two ounces of water, and walked to the captain's office. Borg was seated
on his side of the table and Chet sat opposite him. Doug joined him.

"Duncan, I wouldn't have disturbed you if it wasn't important. You've
earned your rest and you need it." It was not Borg's habit to apologize for
ordering someone to duty. "We've got orders to set up an antenna to
monitor the Russian Venus probe. Mailie will second you. He's already got
the location worked out."

Doug placed a finger on the chart which covered the tabletop.

"Here, Chet," he said; "this crater will do nicely."
 Chet tried to dissolve the remnants of sleep which fogged his mind.

"You mean we're not going to monitor right from here?" he asked.

"No, they want the highest precision possible. We'll set up a W-type
bowl antenna with a self-contained recorder."

"Or we could microwave back to you and tape it here," Chet suggested
hopefully. The W-type was the heaviest rig they carried and he knew from
hard experience that any sort of work while encased in the spacesuit