"Zach Hughes - Pressure Man" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hughes Zach)

When he reached the low mountains the auto inched its way upgrade and bucketed
downgrade with the heavy tank trying to fishtail. He growled grand and manly
profanities at the car, the hot sands, the barren rocks, the decaying road. He
saved a few choice words for the Department of Space Exploration and all those
involved in sending him into the heat of the desert in a ground car which
should have been scrapped a decade ago.
A drone, the second he'd met since leaving the city which sprawled over every
available inch of land from the desert to the,sea, screamed a warning siren at
him. He found a lay-by, just in time, and the drone rumbled by, antennae
wriggling like the feelers of a giant insect. He could see the crest of the
low range of hills. He eased upward, the radiator on the verge of boiling.
Then it was downhill, the engine cooled, and the speed created an illusion of
coolness as wind whipped his hair into his face.
I Heat waves shimmered over the flat lands. He met an auto, a relatively--new
model, probably one of the last production run, making it less than ten years
old. It displayed a government seal on hood and doors. The driver was the
first human he'd seen since leaving the city. He felt a childish desire to
wave.
With easier driving, he allowed his mind to wander from the chore of keeping
the shock-wom vehicle on the road and speculated about the reason for his
being
PRESSURE MAN 3 -0idered to DOSEWEX, Department of
Space Exploation West. His conclusion was that he had no idea. "Vo, was an
engineer. He was a spacer. It was a
that he was not being called into the desert to be
anded. His record, for the past two years at "Prim lent, was clean. He hadn't
slugged a superior officer :.siace then, and he,had served his restriction
time for _,@@.that one. He'd spent one full year with all the little ox-'
@',tras forbidden, one year during which his special ra-
tions had been divided among the other crew members, one fall year without
ground leave, not even on Moon Base. Then, just when he thought he was set
for. a holiday, and was making good progress with that longlegged
communications officer in L.A. Operations, he got -orders to report, in all
haste, to DOSEWEX, way to hell and gone in the New Mexico desert.
The sun was low behind him,when he reached the outer perimeter of the base. He
got out of the car, stretched, knocked dust off his uniform, and allowed a
detection machine to snoop him. He stood aside as the vehicle was searched and
snooped. It was standard operating procedure. You couldn't control every yoyo
in a population of three hundred million potential nuts, but you could Emit
their access to prime areas.
WheA- he was passed through the perimeter guard post, he saw only more barren
country ahead, but he was near enough to be able to look forward to a drink, a
bath, a meal, in that order. A robot flagman slowed him. He steered the
guto-around-a_line,of construction machines moving-illowly in his own
direction. Halfway past the group of large machines the flagman signaled him
to puff in and he found himself directly behind a
huge transport mounting a hefty crane. The crane transport seemed to be the
control vehicle for the ell-
tire convoy of diggers and earthmovers. It was manned. He blew his hom, asking
for, a little coop ,eration in