"Joe Haldeman - The Forever War (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Joe)

"You fell on your heat exchanger, right?"
"Sure, Corporal-that's it. It must not be working
right."
"I don't think it's working at all," said Doc. Sanchez came over with his diagnostic kit and we
told him what had happened. He looked at the heat exchanger, then plugged a couple of jacks into
it and got a digital readout from a little monitor in his kit. I didn't know what it was


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measuring, but it came out zero to eight decimal places.
Heard a soft click, Sanchez chinning my private frequency. "Corporal, this guy's a deader."
"What? Can't you fix the goddamn thing?"
"Maybe.. . maybe I could, if I could take it apart. But there's no way-"
"Hey! Sanchez?" Singer was talking on the general freak. "Find out what's wrong?" He was panting.
Click. "Keep your pants on, man, we're working on it." Click. "He won't last long enough for us to
get the bunker pressurized. And I can't work on the heat exchanger from outside of the suit."
"You've got a spare suit, haven't you?"
34
Joe Haldeman
"Two of 'em, the fit-anybody kind. But there's no place ...say..."
"Right. Go get one of the suits warmed up." I chinned the general freak. "Listen, Singer, we've
gona get you out of that thing. Sanchez has a spare suit, but to make the switch, we're gonna have
to build a house around you. Understand?"
"Huh-uh."
"Look, we'll make a box with you inside, and hook it up to the life-support unit. That way you can
breathe while you make the switch."
"Soun's pretty compis. . . compil. . . cated t'me."
"Look, just come along-"
"I'll be all right, man, jus' lemme res'. . .
I grabbed his arm and led him to the building site. He was really weaving. Doc took his other arm,
and between us, we kept him from falling over.
"Corporal Ho, this is Corporal Mandella." Ho was in charge of the life-support unit.
"Go away, Mandella, I'm, busy."
"You're going to be busier." I outlined the problem to her. While her group hurried to adapt the
LSU-for this purpose, it need only be an air hose and heater-I got my crew to bring around six
slabs of permaplast, so we could build a big box around Singer and the extra suit. It would look
like a huge coffin, a meter square and six meters long.
We set the suit down on the slab that would be the floor of the coffin. "OK, Singer, let's go."
No answer.
"Singer, let's go."
No answer.
"Singer!" He was just standing there. Doc Jones checked his readout.
"He's out, man, unconscious."
My mind raced. There might just be room for another person in the box. "Give me a hand here." I
took Singer's shoulders and Doc took his feet, and we carefully laid him out at the feet of the
empty suit.
Then I lay down myself, above the suit. "OK, close'er
up.,,