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

painfully out of his straps to look us over, and then through
the voices a thin, ragged voice saying uncertainly, "Breck,
I think I'm hurt . . ."
Sure, that was their boy Joe, and there was blood on his
lips, and he'd had itwe knew when we first looked at him
that he'd had it. A handsome kid, turned waxy now as he
held his hand on his middle and looked up at us. Expedition
One had proved that take-off would hit a certain percentage
with internal injuries every time, and in our squad, in our
little windowless cell, it was Joe that had been hit.
If only he'd died right off. But he couldn't die right off, he
had to lie in the hammock all those hours and hours. The
medics came and put a strait-jacket around his body and
doped him up, and that was that, and the hours went by.
And we were so shaken agd deathly sick ourselves that we
didn't have the sympathy for him we should have hadnot
till he started moaning and begging us to take the jacket off.
Finally Walter Millis wanted to do it, and Breck wouldn't
allow it, and they were arguing and we were listening when
the moaning stopped, and there was no need to do anything
about Joe Valinez any more. Nothing but to call the medics,
who came into our little iron prison and took him away.
Sure, I could tell the Valinezes all about how their Joe
died, couldn't I?
"Please," whispered Mrs. Valinez, and her husband
looked at me and nodded silently.
So I told them.
I said, "You know Joe died in space. He'd been knocked
out by the shock of take-off, and he was unconscious, not
feeling a thing. And then he woke up, before he died. He
didn't seem to be feeling any pain, not a bit. He lay there,
looking out the window at the stars. They're beautiful, the
stars out there in space, like angels. He looked, and then he
whispered something and lay back and was gone."
Mrs. Valinez began to cry softly. "To die out there, look-
ing at stars like angels . . ."
I got up to go, and she didn't look up. I went out the door
of the little grocery store, and Valinez came with me.
He shook my hand. "Thank you, Sergeant Haddon. Thank
you very much."
"Sure," I said.
I got into the cab. I took out my letters and tore that one
into bits. I wished to God I'd never got it. I wished I didn't
have any of the other letters I still had.
a.
I took the early plane for Omaha. Before we got there I
fell asleep in my seat, and then I began to dream, and that
wasn't good.
A voice said, "We're coming down."
And we were coming down, Rocket Four was coming