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

training base had been tougher on him than on most of us,
and this was why.
I sat and dreaded this dinner that was coming up, and
looked out the window at a swimming pool and tennis court,
and wondered if anybody ever used them now that Walter
was gone. It seemed a queer thing for a fellow with a setup
like this to go out to Mars and get himself killed.
I took the satin cover off the bed so my shoes wouldn't
dirty it, and lay down and closed my eyes, and wondered
what I was going to tell them. The trouble was, I didn't
know what story the officials had given them.
"The Commanding Officer regrets to inform you that your
son was shot down like a dog . . ."
They'd never got any telegram like that. But just what
line had been handed them? I wished I'd had a chance to
check on that.
Damn it, why didn't all these people let me alone? They
started it all going through my mind again, and the psychos
had told me I ought to forget it for a while, but how could I?
It might be better just to tell them the truth. After all,
Walter wasn't the only one who'd blown his top out there. In
that grim last couple of months, plenty of guys had gone
around sounding off.
Expedition Three isn't coming!
We're stuck, and they don't care enough about us to send
help!
That was the line of talk. You heard it plenty, in those
days. You couldn't blame the guys for it, either. A fourth of
us down with Martian sickness, the little grave markers
clotting up the valley beyond the ridge, rations getting thin,
medicine running low, everything running low, all of us
watching the sky for rockets that never came.
There'd been a little hitch back on Earth, Colonel Nichols
explained. (He was our C.O. now (BSPGeneral Rayen had
died. ) There was a little delay, but the rockets would be on
their way soon, we'd get relief, we just had to hold on.
Holding onthat's what we were doing. Nights we'd sit in
the Quonset and listen to Lassen coughing in his bunk,
and it seemed like wind-giants, cold-giants, were bawling
and laughing around our little huddle of shelters.
"Damn it, if they're not coming, why don't we go home?"
Walter said. "We've still got the four rocketsthey could
take us all back."
Breck's serious face got graver. "Look, Walter, there's too
much of that stuff being talked around. Lay off."
"Can you blame the men for talking it? We're not story-
book heroes. If they've forgotten about us back on Earth,
why do we just sit and take it?"
"We have to," Breck said. "Three will-come."
I've always thought that it wouldn't have happened, what