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

"Yes, butЧlook here, there might be trouble if IЧ"

"Marline's busy, I tell you."

"I mean robot trouble. Suppose we need the critter in an emergency? After ajl, the robot's the lad who's got to pilot us home." I

"Not if we don't go. Look, Benjy. We won't be leaving Mars. Got that?"

White screwed up his face dubiously. "Yeah," he said.

"Okay. That means the ship will be immobilized. Got that too?"

White blew smoke aind studied it, squinting.

"Sure."

"So we don't have to worry about the robot. All it's going to do is take the fuel out and hide it where Martine can't find it. Got that?"

White snorted and inhaled smoke.

"Sure I got it. I ain't dumb. Even if they did pick three beat-up techs like us for this crazy trip, that don't mean my head's soft yet. I get it, all right. Only, I got my orders about this robot. Martine would blow his top if he caught you with the helmet on."

"I know how to handle the thing. I've done it before."

"Not since the Chief caught you passing the buck to the robot," White said with the air of one capturing a minor pawn.

That had happened a month before when Dyson, wearing the transmitter, had sent the robot down a deep crevasse to test rock strata. Martine had objected violently. While the robot was far stronger and more agile than a man, it was also much heavier and more fragile, even in the decreased gravity of Mars. Obviously too, Martine considered the robot much less expendable than Johnny Dyson. Insofar as this argument applied to the social unit it was true, since the piloting of the ship depended on the precision, memory and integration of the robot. Dyson, however, remained unconvinced.

Now he grinned. "You learn by experience," he said. "This tune he won't catch me. Just hand the transmitter over. I know what I'm doing."

"Well," White said, "wellЧof course if we do it at all, the robot's the boy to send. If a shield or a damper should slip I'd rather the robot was carrying the stuff

than me. I'd hate to get my bones sunburned. Only, what about afterwards?"

"Martine? Oh, he'll come around. He'll have to. He can't get away without fuel. He'll find out Mars is a nice place to liveЧnot td visit."

"I wonder about that," White murmured, and Dyson's eyes narrowed. He drew a deep breath. So much depended on this fool, this foolЧ

"I thought you were convinced," he said, after a safe interval.

"Take it easy. I didn't say no, did I? I got that larceny rap to think of. ButЧ" he made a wrinkled grimace of indecision and touched the control button at his forehead with a hesitating hand.

"Go on," Dyson urged. "Take it off. From now on you can relax. You're free. You can do anything you want. Only give me the helmet."

White put both hands to the steel crown of the thing, lifted it a little, rolled frightened eyes at Dyson and then suddenly, with a gesture of abnegation, raised it from his head and held it out. The white line its pressure had left on his forehead turned pink. He wrinkled his brow anxiously.

"Careful, now, careful," he said unnecessarily. "Look out for that cord. And cut down to minimum before you put it on. Easy, now. Turn it up easy, Johnny."

Dyson paid no attention to him. This was his moment of triumph, and Benjy White had ceased to exist. A slow warmth seeped through his skull from the contact of the helmet, and the remote vibrations he felt were like the vibrations of music heard from far away. The music of the spheres, he thought. With this on his head he could control a planetЧif Martine gave nun another five minutes of freedom.