"John D. MacDonald - Flaw" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacDonald John D)

With his arm around me, with the cool night air of Arizona touching our
faces, we looked up at the sky and talked of the home we would make
millions of miles away.

Childish, wasnтАЩt it?

Last night after looking in the mirror, I walked down to the rocks. The
Government money was given to me when Johnny didnтАЩt come back. It is
enough. It will last until I die and I hope it will not be too long before I die.

The sea, washing the rocks, asked me the soft, constant question.
тАЬWhy? Why? Why?тАЭ I looked at the sky. The answer was not there.

Fourteen months after I met Johnny, a crew of two in the Destiny I
made the famous circuit of the moon and landed safely. Johnny was not
one of them. He had hoped to be.

тАЬA test run,тАЭ he called it. The first step up the long flight of stairs.
 You certainly remember the headlines given that flight of Destiny I.
Even the New York Times broke out a new and larger type face for the
headlines. Korby and Sweeny became the heroes of the entire world.

The world was confident then. The intervening years have shaken that
confidence. But the world does not know yet. I think some suspect, but they
do not know. Only I know for a certainty. And I, of course, am quite mad. I
know that now.

Call it a broken heartтАФor broken dreams.

****

Johnny was selected for Destiny II. After he told me and after the tears
came, partly from fear, partly from the threat of loneliness, he held me
tightly and kissed my eyes. I had not known that the flight of Destiny II, if
successful, would take fourteen months. The fourteen months were to
include a circuit of Mars and a return to the takeoff point. Fourteen months
before I would see him again. Fourteen months before I would feel his
arms around me.

A crew of four. The famous Korby and Sweeny, plus Anthony
Marinetta and my Johnny. Each morning when I went to work I could see
the vast silver ship on the horizon, the early sun glinting on the blunt nose.
JohnnyтАЩs ship.

Those last five months before takeoff were like the five months of life
ahead of a prisoner facing execution. And JohnnyтАЩs training was so
intensified after his selection that I couldnтАЩt see him as often as before.

We were young and we were in love and we made our inevitable