"Stanislaw Lem - Eden" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lem Stanislaw)

"There was a cosmic probe twelve years ago, when Altain disappeared with his ship.
Remember?"
"But no men landed?"
"No, none."
The inner hatch was overhead, at an angle. Their feeling of unfamiliarity -- because the walls were
floors and the ceilings walls -- gradually passed.
"Here we will need a living ladder," declared the Captain. He began a careful inspection of the
inner hatch with the Doctor's flashlight. The hermetic seal was intact.
"Looks good," said the Cyberneticist, craning his neck.
"Yes," agreed the Engineer. He had feared that the terrific force that bent the girders and crushed
the main instrument panel between them might also have jammed the inner hatch -- but he had kept the
thought to himself. The Captain asked the Chemist to stand by the wall and bend over.
"Legs apart, hands on your knees -- it'll be more comfortable for you that way."
"I always wanted to be in the circus!" the Chemist said, crouching. The Captain placed a foot on
his shoulder, climbed up, and, pressing against the wall, caught hold of the nickel-plated lever with his
fingertips.
He tugged at it, then hung from it. With a grating sound, as though the lock mechanism were full
of crushed glass, it made a quarter-turn and stopped.
"Are you pulling in the right direction?" asked the Doctor, who was shining the flashlight from
below. "The ship is on its side."
"I've taken that into account."
"You can't pull it a little harder?"
The Captain said nothing. Hanging from the lever with one hand, he tried bringing the other hand
up as well. This was difficult because of his position, but he finally managed it. He drew up his knees to
avoid kicking the Chemist beneath him and gave the lever several jerks -- by pulling himself up and then
dropping with the full weight of his body. He grunted when his torso hit the wall.
On the third or fourth drop, the lever moved a little more. There were still about two inches to
go. The Captain braced himself and did one more drop. The lever engaged the catch with an awful
squeak: the bolt had been pulled.
"Perfect, perfect," said the Physicist, delighted.
The Engineer said nothing, his mind elsewhere.
Now they worked at opening the inner hatch -- a more difficult task. The Engineer tried the
handle of the chamber door, but knew it was hopeless: the pipes had burst in a number of places and all
the fluid had leaked out. In the light of the Doctor's flashlight, the wheel gleamed above them like a halo,
too high for their gymnastic abilities: more than twelve feet.
They gathered broken equipment, cushions, books. The library proved particularly useful, with its
thick celestial atlases. Under the Engineer's direction, after a few false starts, the men built a pyramid of
these, like bricks. It took them almost an hour to make a six-foot pile.
"I hate physical work," wheezed the Doctor. The flashlight, wedged into an aperture in an
air-conditioning unit, lit their way as they hurried to the library and returned, their arms filled with books.
"I would never have believed that such makeshift measures could be taken -- on stellar voyages." He was
the only one talking now. At last the Captain, helped by his colleagues, gingerly climbed the pyramid and
touched the wheel with his fingers.
"Not quite," he said. "Two inches short. If I jump, the whole thing will come down."
"I happen to have here The Theory of Tachyons," said the Doctor, hefting a volume in his hand.
"That should do the trick."
The Captain clung to the wheel; as the flashlight moved, his shadow leaped across the white
plastic that covered what was now the ceiling. Suddenly the mountain of books shifted.
"Careful," said the Physicist.
"There's nothing to push against," complained the Captain in a muffled voice. "Damn!" The wheel