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

against a shower of meteorites which might damage it during its idle wait.
Then the two men began the laborious transfer of equipment. The solar
batteries were dismantled and placed within their insulated storage
containers where they would remain inoperative and shielded from the
excesses of heat and cold until needed again. When this work was
completed, Chet took a final look around as Jim clambered aboard the
bug, then he joined him. The pressure door clanged shut and Chet spun
the locking wheels; that done, he began the pressure buildup, drawing on
the vehicle's atmospheric tanks.

He brought the instrument panel to life and carefully adjusted a series
of slide-switches, tuning the main antennae to the precise pattern of the
mother ship's emanations. From then on, the remote-control equipment
upon which their safe pickup depended would respond only to the precise
radar pattern of the orbiting base.

All the instruments brought from the moonwalker were plugged into
their appropriate receptacles so that they became part of the bug's
integral system. Once the bug had been picked up by the mother ship,
they would be available to it as well. Now there was nothing to do but
wait. If something went wrong during the pickup and coupling, Chet
would be available to take over direct, manual control; but barring
mishap, lift-off, rendezvous and final coupling would be effected
automatically.

As soon as the cabin-pressure light winked green, indicating that the
atmosphere aboard equaled that of Earth at about six thousand feet, Jim
started to divest himself of the bulky spacesuit. This was not correct
procedure.
 "Hey, buddy, you might want to have that thing on if we suddenly lose
pressure," Chet called pleasantly. Since the cabin was up to pressure, voice
could travel normally through the air. Chet, however, still enclosed in his
helmet, spoke through microphones. Jim, who had discarded his
earphones when he had taken off his helmet, could hear Chet's words
clearly over the cabin loudspeakers. His own voice was picked up by the
in-cabin microphone.

"If we suddenly lose pressure," he said, "I don't want to be around to
know it. I'd rather cash in quickly than linger around on this desolate rock
or up in the emptiness. You know they couldn't rescue us soon enough.
Besides, the suit's a drag. It weighs a ton."

"True enough. Nevertheless, regulations call forтАФ"

"Aw come on, Chet. Regulations are written by some cat whose job calls
for him never to leave his desk except for an occasional parade. When we
dock with Mama, we'll go straight through a pressurized air lock into her
pressurized cabin where everyone will be wearing regular fatigues, right?
So what's the point of waiting around in a full suit of armor?"