"John Morressy - Rimrunners Home" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morressy John)

Dalton burst into laughter. "You say exactly what you think, Captain. I admire
that."

"Good," Vanderhorst said. His expression did not change. He felt the crowd
pressing in on him, and stepped back to distance himself. His jaw was set tight.

"Tell me, Captain, is it difficult out there?" Doree Fosset asked.

"Is what difficult?"

"The work. The mission."

"Easiest job I ever had. The machines do all the work. Even the thinking."

"I didn't mean difficult in that sense. I was thinking of the isolation. It must
be terrible. All that time, and so far from home. Confined in a small space, no
outlet. ..." Doree looked at him innocently and made a vague gesture with her
hand.

Vanderhorst looked her up and down slowly, appraisingly, and said nothing. The
silence drew to an uncomfortable length. Korry leaned forward and said, "Van has
four circuits to his credit. He knows how --"

"Mostly, you're asleep," Vanderhorst broke in. His voice was bland, almost
clinical, as if he were lecturing to an academy. "It's bad when you're awakened,
because that means there's trouble. You hope it's not something that's sent you
shooting out into the universe with the sleep tank out of commission. That's big
trouble. You hope it's something you can fix pretty damned fast. Once you're
awake, you can't wait to go back in the tank, because you don't like what you're
thinking. You curse yourself for being fool enough to go up, and you begin to
hate the people who sent you. You think of letting a big one slip by and give
them a good scare. Then you hate yourself for thinking that way, and wonder if
you're going crazy. But you make the repairs and get back into the tank and hope
for sweet dreams. That's how the time passes."

Jake Fosset asked, "Why send people out at all?"

"Can't trust the machines."

"Then why use machines?"

"Can't trust people, either. You need both."
"Do we, really? A lot of people question the rimrunner program. From what you
say, they may have a point," Fosset said.

Long periods of isolation had sharpened Vanderhorst's receptiveness to unspoken
communication; he sometimes felt that he could read people as easily as he read
an instrument screen. Fosset was not very subtly probing for reactions while his
wife assisted and his boss observed. Vanderhorst had encountered their types in
every generation.