"James E. Gunn - Breaking Point" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gunn James E)

we?"

"Much better not to," said[Pg 19] the Captain. "It's being done efficiently enough from outside."

"You are convinced it's being done from outside?" asked Hoskins, peering at him owlishly.

"I'm ... convinced of very little," said the Captain heavily. He went to the acceleration couch and sat
down. "I want out," he said. He waved away the professional comment he could see forming on Paresi's
lips and went on, "Not claustrophobia, Nick. Getting out of the ship's more important than just relieving
our feelings. If the trouble with the port is being caused by some fantastic something outside this ship,
we'll achieve a powerful victory over it, purely by ignoring it."

"It broke off," murmured Johnny.
"Ignore that," snorted Ives.

"You keep talking about this thing being caused by something outside," said Paresi. His tone was almost
complaining.

"Got a better hypothesis?" asked Hoskins.




"Hoskins," said the Captain, "isn't there some way we can get out? What about the tubes?"

"Take a shipyard to move those power-plants," said Hoskins, "and even if it could be done, those
radioactive tubes would fry you before you crawled a third of the way."

"We should have a lifeboat," said Ives to no one in particular.

"What in time does a ship like the Ambassador need with a lifeboat?" asked Hoskins in genuine
amazement.

The Captain frowned. "What about the ventilators?"

"Take us days to remove all the screens and purifiers," said Hoskins, "and then we'd be up against the
intake ports. You could stroll out through any of them about as far as your forearm. And after that it's
hull-metal, skipper. That you don't cut, not with a piece of the Sun's core."




The Captain got up and began pacing, slowly and steadily, as if the problem could be trodden out like
ripe grapes. He closed his eyes and said, "I've been circling around that idea for thirty minutes now.
Look: the hull can't be cut because it is built so it can't fail. It doesn't fail. The port controls were also built
so they wouldn't fail. They do fail. The thing that keeps us in stays in shape. The thing that lets us out goes
bad. Effect: we stay inside. Cause: something that wants us to stay inside."

"Oh," said Johnny clearly.