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

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 EarthтАЩs 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: тАЮWe will
attempt a landing at 1200 tomorrow GST just south of Lacus Soli.тАЬ 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 photographs taken by the robot vehicle showed a land
unattractive by human standards; her recording instruments confirmed the
thinness and unsuitability of the Arean atmosphere to human life.
But the ZombieтАЩs pictures showed clearly that the тАЮcanalsтАЬ were engineering
works of some sort and there were other details which could only be
interpreted as ruins of cities. A manned expedition on a major scale and
without delay surely would have been mounted had not World War III
intervened.
But the war and the delay resulted eventually in a much stronger, safer
expedition than that of the lost En my. The Federation Ship Champion,
manned by an all-male crew of eighteen experienced spacemen and carrying
more than that number of male pioneers, made the crossing under Lyle Drive