"James Patrick Kelly - The Prisoner of Chillon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

like Fats Waller?"
Yellowbaby's program was reassuring Basel even as we banked gracefully
toward the Jura Mountains. "No problem, Basel Control," the dead man's voice
drawled. "Malf on the main guidance computer. I've got backup. My L over D is
nominal. You just keep the tourists off the runway and I'll see you in ten
minutes."
I put the microcam in rest mode -- no sense wasting memory dots
shooting the inside of an EV suit -- and picked up the pressure helmet. Django
blew me a kiss. "Don't forget to duck," he said. He made a quacking sound and
flapped his arms. I put the helmet on and closed the seals. It was a relief
not to have to listen to him; we had disabled the comm units to keep the ops
from tracking us. He handed me one of the slim airfoil packs we had smuggled
onto and off of Orbital 7. I stuck my arms through the harness and fastened
the front straps. I could still hear Yellowbaby's muffled voice talking to the
Swiss controllers. "Negative, Basel Control, I don't need escort. Initiating
terminal guidance procedures."
At that moment I felt the nose dip sharply. The wing was diving
straight for the summit of Mont Tendre. To fight the panic, I queried
Infoline's fact checker, built into the goggles' system unit, "At elevation
one thousand six hundred seventy-nine meters," came the whisper in my ear,
"Mont Tendre is the tallest of the Swiss Juras. It is located in the canton of
Vaud." I crouched behind Django in the airlock, tucked my head to my chest,
and tongued the armor toggle in the helmet. The thermofiber EV suit stiffened
and suddenly I was a shock-resistant statue, unable to move. I began to count
backward from one thousand; it was better than listening to my heart
jackhammer. I promised myself that if I survived this, I'd never go into space
again. Never hundred and ninety-nine, never hundred and ninety-eight, never
hundred and...
I remembered the way Yellowbaby had smiled as he unbuttoned my shirt,
that night before we had shuttled up to 7. He was sitting on a bunk in his
underwear. I had still not decided to cover the raid; he was still trying to
convince me. But words weren't his strong point. When I turned my back to him,
he slipped the shirt from my shoulders, slid it down my arms. l stood there
for a moment, facing away from the bunk. Then he grabbed me by the waist and
pulled me onto his lap. I could feel the curly hair on his chest brushing
against my spine. Sitting there half-naked, my face glowing hot as any heat
shield, I knew I was in deep trouble. He had nibbled at my ear and then conned
me with that slow Texas drawl. "Hell, baby, only reason ain't no one never
tried to jump out of a shuttle is that no one who really needed to jump ever
had a chute." I had always been a fool for men who told me not to worry.
Although we were huddled in the airlock, my head was down, so I didn't
see the hatch blow. But even with the suit in armor mode, I felt like the
clapper inside a cathedral bell. The wing shuddered and, with an explosive
last breath, spat us into the dazzling Alpine afternoon.
The truth is that I don't remember much about the jump after that. I
know I unfroze the suit so I could guide the airfoil, which had opened
automatically. I was too intent on not vomiting and keeping Django in sight
and getting down as fast as I could without impaling myself on a tree or
smashing into a cliff. So I missed being the only live and in-person witness
to one of the more spectacular crashes of the twenty-first century.