"Edmond Hamilton - Whats It Like Out There" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Edmond)

His wife came in a hurry from the back. She looked a little
too old to be Joe's mother, for Joe had been just a kid; but
then she didn't look so old either, but just sort of worn.
She said to Valinez, "Please, a chair. Can't you see he's
tired? And just from the hospital."
I sat down and looked between them at a case of canned
peppers, and they asked me how I felt, and wouldn't I be
glad to get home, and they hoped all my family were well.
They were gentlefolk. They hadn't said a word about Joe,
just waited for me to say something. And I felt in a spot, for
I hadn't known Joe well, not jreally. He'd been moved into
our squad only a couple of weeks before take-off, and since
he'd been our first casualty, I'd never got to know him much.
I finally had to get it over with, and all I could think to say
was, "They wrote you in detail about Joe, didn't they?"
Valinez nodded gravely. "Yesthat he died from shock
within twenty-four hours after take-off. The letter was very
nice."
His wife nodded too. "Very nice," she murmured. She
looked at me, and I guess she saw that I didn't know quite
what to say, for she said, "You can tell us more about it. Yet
you must not if it pains you."
I could tell them more. Oh, yes, I could tell them a lot
more, if I wanted to. It was all clear in my mind, like a movie
film you run over and over till you know it by heart.
I could tell them all about the take-off that had killed
their son. The long lines of us, uniformed backs going up into
Rocket Four and all the other nineteen rocketsthe lights
flaring up there on the plateau, the grind of machinery and
blast of whistles and the inside of the big rocket as we
climbed up the ladders of its center well.
The movie was ruiming again in my mind, clear as crystal,
and I was back in Cell Fourteen of Rocket Four, with the
minutes ticking away and the walls quivering every time
one of the other rockets blasted off, and us ten men in our
hammocks, prisoned inside that odd-shaped windowless
metal room, waiting. Waiting, till that big, giant hand came
and smacked us down deep into our recoil springs, crush-
ing the breath out of us, so that you fought to breathe, and
the blood roared into your head, and your stomach heaved
in spite of all the pills they'd given you, and you heard the
giant laughing, b-r-room! b-r-r-roomi b-r-r-oomi
Smash, smash, again and again, hitting us in the guts and
cutting our breath, and someone being sick, and someone
else sobbing, and the b-r-r-oom! b-r-r-oomi laughing as it
killed us; and then the giant quit laughing, and quit slap-
ping us down, and you could feel your sore and shaky body
and wonder if it was still all there.
Walter Millis cursing a blue streak in the hammock under-
neath me, and Breck Jergen, our sergeant then, clambering