"Henry Kuttner - The Sky is Falling UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kuttner Henry)

The Sky Is Falling

JOHNNY WONDERED when the spaceship would get there. He didn't know where "there" wasЧ nobody knew. But he was anxious for landing-day to come. It would give day a real meaning, after the endless artificial days and nights of the ship.

Not that the ship wasn't comfortable, and not that there wasn't purpose in that comfort. Johnny would have to be hi perfect shape when the hour of landing finally came and his job would begin. Because he wanted to be in condition to do the job, he had trained his mind to complete relaxation.

So he lay back in his deep chair and watched the viziports with their troubling tri-dimensional visions of what no longer existed. Blue sky, white clouds, birds, the tops of buildingsЧhe closed his eyes. Perhaps it had been a mistake, after all, this hiding the blackness of space by camouflage. He didn't want to remember Earth. There was no Earth. There was a shaking white blaze among the stars, somewhere a long way back now, and that was all. No Earth.

All that remained of it was himself, this ship, the robot that took care of them both, and the images that filled the viziports with nostalgic pictures.

The rest was over, finished. He didn't often let himself think about the unpleasant past, or how, for himself, the beginning of the end had happened. . . .

Leaning back against the bulkhead, Johnny Dyson smiled. "Go on," he said to the hooked fish named Benjy

White.

White tipped his head back cautiously because of the cumbersome helmet he wore, sprouting wires like Medusa-

hair. He looked at Ms own foreshortened image reflected dimly in the steel ceiling and nodded sagely at himself. "Yeah," he said, "I learned about women from her. I sure did. Toughest tomato I ever met, then or since. Only one thing ever scared PoochieЧI called her PoochieЧ"

Beyond the steel walls lay the endless red hills of Mars. Beyond the steel ceiling hung Orion in a blue-black sky lighted by tumbling moons. Somewhere between here and Orion rolled a time-bomb called Earth with its fuse set and lighted and the hours ticking along toward Blow-Up.

"I called her Poochie," White said. "If I told you her real name you'd be surprised. After she swiped my dough and divorced me she went right on to the top. What a woman. Now she owns half ofЧ"

Johnny Dyson thought of the take-off, scheduled for noon tomorrow. Back to Earth. Back to the eve of Armageddon. "Back to the world I never made," he thought fiercely. "Ч7, a stranger and afraidЧ'"

Well, he had a right to be afraid. He knew what was coming. He thought:

Problem: To keep the ship on Mars.

Method: To steal the atomic fuel.

It was perfectly simple. All good plans were simple. Unfortunately it depended on the simple mind of White whether or not the plan worked out. And White was a well-hooked fish, all right, but he wasn't landed yet. He wore the transmitter that controlled the ship's robot. And the robot was the key to the fuel supply which could bridge the long jump between Mars, where life could be an Eden, and Earth, where life was doomed. Sooner , or later, sooner or later...

"Oh, well," White was saying, "Funny thing is, there's a warrant out for my arrest back on Earth, and the company that issued it belongs to Poochie lock, stock and barrel. She don't know about it, of course." He chuckled sardonically.

"Think I could get her to quash that warrant? No, sir. Only one thing ever scared that woman. Thunder. If I went to Poochie right nowЧonly it'd be a long walkЧ if I went to her and said, 'Poochie, remember how you used to try to crawl in my pocket whenever it thundered? Well, now, for old time's sakeЧ' "

He grinned, shaking his head until the Medusa-wires whined against each other.

"That woman," he said admiringly. "That woman. She'd put the cuffs on me herself. Tough as pig-iron. Never was very pretty, but "she looks like a hippo these days. My opinion, if she ever got the idea of conquering die world, she'd do it. Qh^well. She went up. I didn't."

"What's the warrant for?" Dyson asked, not caring.

"Larceny. I guess I sort of miscalculated there." White grinned again. "Not so good, is it? I look older than I am, the life I led, but I'm under fifty. And I always felt I had my best years ahead. Still feel that way. I'd hate to waste 'em in jail. I'll tell you, Johnny, I kind of like your idea of staying on here. Not going back. Nobody to say, 'Move along, bud.' And then there's lots of things I always wanted to do, never been let. Lots of things. On Earth, I'd never get a chance."

Now they were getting to it. Dyson kept the eagerness out of his voice with rigid control. All he said was, "We're in Eden, Benjy. We've got all the power we need in the batteriesЧsafe power. Safe atomic power. We've got the robot. People were right when they said heaven was in the sky, Benjy. Mars is heaven."

"Mm-m. Sometimes Mars is underneath, too. Still, the closer I get to that larceny rap, the more I like your idea. Just like Paradise. Milk and honey for free. All we'd need is some houris," White said, mispronouncing it.