"James E. Gunn - Station In Space" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gunn James E)

Both sections were practically undamaged; their fall had been cushioned by ribbon parachutes. They
could be cleaned, repaired, and used again. The trouble was the vital third stageтАФthe nose section. A
new one had to be designed and built within a month.

Space-madness became a new form of hysteria. We read statistics, we memorized insignificant details,
we studied diagrams, we learned the risks and the dangers and how they would be met and conquered.
It all became part of us. We watched the slow progress of the second ship and silently, tautly, urged it
upward.

The schedule overhead became part of everyone's daily life. Work stopped while people rushed to
windows or outside or to their television sets, hoping for a glimpse, a glint from the high, swift ship, so
near, so untouchably far.

And we listened to the voice from the cave of night:

"I've been staring out the portholes. I never tire of that. Through the one on the right, I see what looks
like a black velvet curtain with a strong light behind it. There are pinpoint holes in the curtain and the light
shines through, not winking the way stars do, but steady. There's no air up here. That's the reason. The
mind can understand and still misinterpret.

"My air is holding out better than I expected. By my figures, it should last twenty-seven days more. I
shouldn't use so much of it talking all the time, but it's hard to stop. Talking, I feel as if I'm still in touch
with Earth, still one of you, even if I am way up here.

"Through the left-hand window is San Francisco Bay, looking like a dark, wandering arm extended by
the ocean octopus. The city itself looks like a heap of diamonds with trails scattered from it. It glitters up
cheerfully, an old friend. It misses me, it says. Hurry home, it says. It's gone now, out of sight. Good-by,
Frisco!

"Do you hear me down there? Sometimes I wonder. You can't see me now; I'm in the Earth's shadow.
You'll have to wait hours for the dawn. I'll have mine in a few minutes.

"You're all busy down there. I know that. If I know you, you're all worrying about me, working to get me
down, forgetting everything else. You don't know what a feeling that is. I hope to Heaven you never have
to, wonderful though it is.

"Too bad the receiver was broken, but if it had to be one or the other, I'm glad it was the transmitter that
came through. There's only one of me. There are billions of you to talk to.

"I wish there were some way I could be sure you were hearing me. Just that one thing might keep me
from going crazy."

Rev, you were one in millions. We read all about your selection, your training. You were our
representative, picked with our greatest skill.

Out of a thousand who passed the initial rigid requirements for education, physical and emotional
condition and age, only five could qualify for space. They couldn't be too tall, too stout, too young, too
old. Medical and psychiatric tests weeded them out.

One of the training machinesтАФLord, how we studied thisтАФreproduces the acceleration strains of a