"Robert A. Heinlein - Stranger in a Strange Land - Original Ve" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

name with these to run trial problems through the machines to determine whether
or not a possible combination would be acceptable. This would account for his
action in jetting to Australia and proposing marriage to Doctor Winifred Coburn,
a horse-faced spinster semantician nine years his senior. The Carlsbad Archives
pictured her with an expression of quiet good humor but otherwise lacking in
attractiveness.
Or Brant may have acted without inside information, solely through that
trait of intuitive audacity necessary to command an exploration. In any case
lights blinked, punched cards popped out, and a crew for the Envoy had been
found:
Captain Michael Brant, commanding-pilot, astrogator, relief cook, relief
photographer, rocketry engineer;
Dr. Winifred Coburn Brant, forty-one, semantician, practical nurse, stores
officer, historian;
Mr. Francis X. Seeney, twenty-eight, executive officer, second pilot,
astrogator, astrophysicist, photographer~
Dr. Olga Kovalic Seeney, twenty-nine, cook, biochemist, hydroponicist;
Dr. Ward Smith, forty-five, physician and surgeon, biologist;
Dr. Mary Jane Lyle Smith, twenty-six, atomics engineer, electronics and
power technician;
 Mr. Sergei Rimsky, thirty-five, electronics engineer, chemical engineer,
practical machinist & instrumentation man, cryologist;
Mrs. Eleanora Alvarez Rimsky, thirty-two, geologist and selenologist,
hydroponicist.
The crew had a well-rounded group of skills, although in some cases their
secondary skills had been acquired by intensive coaching during the last weeks
before blast-off. More important, they were mutually compatible in their
temperaments.
Too compatible, perhaps.
The Envoy departed on schedule with no mishaps. During the early part of
the voyage her daily reports were picked up with ease by private listeners. As
she drew away and signals became fainter, they were picked up and rebroadcast by
Earth's radio satellites. The crew seemed to be both healthy and happy. An
epidemic of ringworm was the worst that Dr. Smith had to cope with-the crew
adapted to free fall quickly and no antinausea drugs were used after the first
week. If Captain Brant had any disciplinary problems, he did not choose to
report them to Earth.
The Envoy achieved a parking orbit just inside the orbit of Phobos and
spent two weeks in photographic survey. Then Captain Brant radioed:
"We will attempt a landing at 1200 tomorrow GST just south of Lacus Soli." No
further message was ever received.


II


IT WAS A QUARTER of an Earth century before Mars was again visited by humans.
Six years after the Envoy was silent, the drone probe Zombie, sponsored jointly
by the Geographic Society and La Soci├йt├й Astronautique Internationale, bridged
the void and took up an orbit for the waiting period, then returned. The