"Journey To Centauri" - читать интересную книгу автора (Meier Sid)

He thought of the crew, the ten thousand crew, still in the sleep, still under his care. Faith would not release them, or repair a broken ship.
He felt his heart pounding, and felt a surge of warmth spreading out through his body. One of his hands struck soft rubber, the seal between the cryocell and the lid, and he dug his fingers in hard. He felt something tear, something give. The seal broke.
He pushed upwards, out of the cell. The lid swung open and cool stale air hit him in the face. He gasped for air, pulling in breaths as icy liquid ran off of his back.
Around him, row upon row of sleeping crew awaited him.
No transmission.

Journey to Centauri : Episode 4
"Captain. Captain, it is Pravin Lal. Please confirm this signal is reaching you. Over."
Silence.
"I read you, Mr. Lal. I'm awaiting your presence in the command module. It appears we have our work cut out for us."
Pravin smiled at the voice of his captain, sounding clearly from the comm unit woven into the fabric of his collar. He turned his head to respond. "Yes, John. I am outside of Bay Five, and I will reach you shortly."
He quickened his step, anticipating the cramped warmth of the command center after traversing the dark silent ship, and also the more important business of assisting the Captain in finding out what went wrong during their journey. A small asteroid, he guessed, or some kind of space debris...he remembered the odds tallied by the flight computer as being 470 to 1 against such an occurrence, but perhaps their luck had not held.
Or perhaps it was karma, following the humans from their tainted homeworld into the reaches of space.
Pravin stopped before another hatchway and pressed the unlocking studs. As the seal released he glanced around quietly; the ship felt hollow and vast around him, a groaning structure of metal stolen from Earth's crust and propelled into the heavens. When the hatch opened he climbed into a small elevator and pulled the activation lever, listening as the elevator began to whir beneath him, carrying him to the command module at the ship's periphery. He felt the gravity increase as the elevator moved toward the outer carousel of the ship.
The smooth shapes of the cryobays receded beneath him and he examined their surfaces dispassionately. Lonely again. He hoped his mood would improve as the effects of the 40-year sleep wore off. A session in one of the ship's gyropods would help to burn the poisons away, but he had no time for that now.
The elevator stopped and he opened the exit hatchway, then finally reached the red command module hatch. Unusual...the Captain had left it closed, requiring Pravin to punch in a security clearance that he had committed to memory before the journey. The red hatch swung open.
"Officer Lal."
Captain Garland stood on the other side of the command module, surrounded by computer screens and touchpanels that remained mostly dead, as cold as the space outside. The Captain looked tired, gaunt, his uniform hanging loosely on him, but he held himself straight as Pravin entered. A red Procedural Checklist rested at an angle on the metal table near the center of the command module.
"Captain. Good to see you again, sir."
"It feels like only yesterday, Pravin." The Captain crossed to him and they shook hands. "You and I believed in this mission more than anyone. Now I'm counting on you to help me salvage it."
Before Pravin could answer another of the three red security hatches hissed open. A slender form in the green uniform of a ship's scientist pushed her way into the command module and shook the dark hair from her face.
"Deirdre Skye, reporting for duty," she said, and straightened to face her captain.

Episode 4, Part 2
Captain Garland watched as Pravin Lal opened a panel and touched a series of activation studs. Around the perimeter of the command module dark screens flickered on and the slanted touchpanels hummed to life. The air began to crackle with a subtle energy as currents dormant for the last 40 years sprang to life, synthesized minds awakening.
Pravin sat up and flexed his fingers, waiting for the touchpanel in front of him to cycle through its extended wakeup period. As long as there were no medical emergencies on the ship he would man this console, coaxing information from the ship's databases as he might coax a diagnosis from a reluctant patient.
Garland looked around the command module as the screens warmed up. The module was donut shaped, about 10 meters across and ringed by a bank of large screens set in the wall over slanted consoles. The surface of the consoles consisted of flat smooth touchpanels, which accepted input as well as displaying information, reconfiguring themselves based on the user's command sequence. These panels were tied into extensive databanks, optical storage systems sealed in insulated containers in the very center of the ship.
Pravin began to work, his fingers dancing over the panel in from of him, his dark eyes narrowing as he became immersed in his relationship to the machine. Garland looked around again.
"Mister Lal," he said, and Pravin looked up. Garland motioned towards a panel on the other side of the module. As black and cold as space.
"Here too, Captain," came Deirdre's lilting voice with its soft Scottish overtones. Another panel out. Her voice remained calm but Garland could read the tension in her back. Lal crossed to the first broken panel.
"Nothing evident on a cursory glance, Captain. We have taken damage, and the duration of the journey may have taken its toll."
"Very well," Garland answered. "In the meantime let's fire up these consoles and find out what we're up against. Pravin, you know what we're looking for...damage reports, as quickly as possible, and how much we've jeopardized the mission. Deirdre, man the science console and ascertain the status of the crew...how many alive, how many awake, how many dead."
Lal nodded and took his seat, began to punch up the relevant data. A glittering array appeared on the screen before him and he thumbed through it to the damage reports.
"Captain, first reports indicate heavy damage to Hydroponics Mods two and three, as well as heavy structural damage in nearby bulkheads, penetrating through to the drive shield. It is a wonder the drive shut down without tearing the ship apart."
"Mods two and three, leaving only one functional. That plus the nutrient pastes in ship's stowage could support how much of the crew...a third? A half?"
"If revived from the freeze I would say so. It depends on how much of our journey remains."
"And how much of the crew remains, " said Deirdre. "I have no signals at all from cryobay seven."
"Past the shattered bulkhead," murmured Lal. "Dead, probably. All of them."
Just then the hatchway hissed open again, and the Captain looked up to see a shadow cross his threshold.
List of Fatalities
(Cryocell No Response)
Takala T
Vence H
Miller A
Stobie T
Luelmo F
Morin S
Lindahl P
Pettersson D
Landon K