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

"Strange?"
"She's designed for a load factor of twenty, and before the screen blew, I saw with my own eyes
how the arrow jumped off the scale. The scale goes up to thirty."
"And how about us?"
"What do you mean?"
"How were we able to withstand a constant deceleration of thirty g's?"
"Not constant. At the maximum, yes. After all, the retarders gave their all. That's what started the
pulsation."
"But the autopilot equalized. It was the air compressors. . ." said the Cyberneticist with
annoyance in his voice. In the depths of the ship something began rolling. It sounded like iron wheels on
sheet metal. Then it stopped.
"Don't blame the air compressors," said the Engineer. "If we went to the engine room, I could
show you that they did five times more than they were supposed to do. Remember, they're only auxiliary
units. First of all, their bearings were loosened, and when the pulsation began --"
"You think there was resonance?"
"Resonance is a different matter. The fact is, we should have been smeared across several miles
of space, like that freighter on Neptune -- remember? You'll believe me when you see the engine room. I
can tell you now what's there."
"I'm in no hurry to see the engine room. What's taking them so long? I can't see a thing."
"We'll have light, don't worry," said the Engineer, unaware that he still had his fingertips on the
shoe of the Captain, who remained silent and did not move.
"Let's go to the engine room, then. It'll kill time. What else can we do?"
"You really think we won't get out of here?"
"I was just joking. I always joke."
"Enough of that," said the Captain, coming alive. "Anyway, in a pinch, there's the emergency
hatch."
"Which happens to be underneath us. The ship must have cut one hell of a trench, and I'm not
even sure the outer hatch is above ground."
"We have tools. We can dig a tunnel."
"And the loading bay?" asked the Cyberneticist.
"Submerged," the Engineer said. "I looked into the shaft. One of the main tanks must have burst.
There's at least six feet of water there. And probably radioactive."
"How do you know?"
"The reactor cooling system always gives out first -- you didn't know that? Forget the loading
bay. We'll have to get out this way, unless --"
"Unless we dig a tunnel," the Captain said softly.
"Yes, that is possible," the Engineer agreed, and fell silent. There was the sound of footsteps;
sudden light in the corridor beneath them made them blink.
"Ham, crackers, tongue, whatever you like. Everything in cans! There's chocolate, too, and we
have thermoses," the Doctor shouted, clambering up first. He shined the flashlight for the others as they
entered the chamber and passed out cans and aluminum plates.
"The thermoses are intact," the Cyberneticist observed, pouring coffee into his mug.
"Yes, and the cans held up well, too. But the refrigeration units, the ovens, the small molecular
synthesizer, the water filters -- they're all smashed."
"And the purifier?"
"That, too. We could repair it if we had the tools. But it's a vicious circle -- to get a repair robot
going you need current, but you can't get current unless you fix the generator, and to fix the generator you
need a repair robot."
"So you've been deliberating, my scientific colleagues? What ray of hope have you to offer us?"
asked the Doctor, spreading crackers with butter and laying slices of ham on top. Not waiting for a reply,