"Becalmed In Hell by Larry Niven" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nebula Awards)

Back to Venus, with a difference. This is the astronomical
Venus, not the romantic vision of "The Doors of His Face, the
Lamps of His Mouth." (But notice the sea images, even in this
rationalist's view of the Planet of Love.)
Like all Lorry Niven's stories, this one is solidly based on
present-day science and technology, and it contains a neat,
nasty problem: if something goes wrong with a spacecraft
whose control system is a Cyborgpart human, part wires and
transistorsis the trouble mechanical or psychological? And
how do you find out before it kills you?

BECALMED IN HELL

Larry Niven
I could feel the heat hovering outside. In the cabin it was bright
and dry and cool, almost too cool, like a modem office building
in the dead of the summer. Beyond the two small windows it
was as black as it ever gets in the solar system, and hot enough
to melt lead, at a pressure equivalent to three hundred feet
beneath the ocean.
"There goes a fish," I said, just to break the monotony.
"So how's it cooked?"
"Can't tell. It seems to be leaving a trail of breadcrumbs.
Fried? Imagine that, Eric! A fried jellyfish."
Eric sighed noisily. "Do I have to?"
"You have to. Only way you'll see anything worthwhile in
thisthis" Soup? Fog? Boiling maple syrup?
"Searing black calm."
"Right."
"Someone dreamed up that phrase when I was a kid, just
after the news of the Mariner II probe. An eternal searing black
calm, hot as a kiln, under an atmosphere thick enough to keep
any light or any breath of wind from ever reaching th8 surface."
I shivered. "What's the outside temperature now?"
"You'd rather not know. You've always had too much
imagination, Howie."
"I can take it, Doc."
"Six hundred and twelve degrees."
"I can't take it, Doc!"
This was Venus, Planet of Love, favorite of the science-fiction
writers of three decades ago. Our ship hung below the Earth-
to-Venus hydrogen fuel tank, twenty miles up and all but
motionless in the syrupy air. The tank, nearly empty now, made
an excellent blimp. It would keep us aloft as long as the internal
pressure matched the external. That was Eric's job, to regulate
the tank's pressure by regulating the temperature of the
hydrogen gas. We had collected air samples after each ten mile
drop from three hundred miles on down, and temperature
readings for shorter intervals, and we had dropped the small