"Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle - Fallen Angels" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

anything but wait. But, of course, it was only gravity. When he realized
that, he laughed out loud, which was a mistake, because his ribs hurt worse
than ever.
What difference did it make why he was unable to move? Helpless was
helpless.
He tried the suit radio. "Gordon?"
Static for answer. Gordon must be dead or unconscious. In either case,
there was nothing he could do for him. Come to that, there wasn't much he
could do for himself. He tongued the uplink on his radio.
"Big Momma? Piranha here."
Hiss and crackle. Maybe the radio was broken. He tried again. "Big
Momma, do you read me?"
MaryтАЩs voice came through the noise. "Alex? Is that you?"
Who did she think it was? . . . Churlish. "Big Momma, this is MacLeod, I
am conscious. I do not appear to be seriously injured except that I cannot
move. This must be due to gravity. Tanner does not respond, I say again,
Gordon does not respond. Can you give me a reading on Gordon?"
"Roger your situation report, MacLeod. Alex, I'm glad to hear your
voice. Stand by one for report on Tanner."
Alex waited while she scanned the medical monitors. Medi-probes were
a pain in the ass-тАФliterally-тАФbut they had their uses. He wondered if Mary
had been standing by in Mission Control the whole time he was
unconscious, and whether it had been from duty or something else. That's
right, Alex. Build yourself a few fantasies. You've got nothing else to do.
"Tanner is all right I say again, no serious injuries," she said. "He's all
right, Alex. Unconscious, but his vital signs look good. I can't tell you about
 Rescue party? He started to sit up, but gravity and his ribs kept him
flat. He stifled a groan. "You mean you're coming to get us?"
"No," said Mary. "You know better than that." He heard the chill
embarrassment in her voice. Some things weren't talked about. There was
an etiquette to being marooned.
So much for fantasy, Alex thought. They say Love Conquers All; but it
doesn't conquer the fuel-to-thrust ratio or the law of diminishing returns.
Peace and Freedom were barely hanging on. There was nothing that could be
spared; least of all the rocket fuel needed to land and take off again, even if
there had been a ship capable of doing it. "I understand." He tried to keep
the bitterness out of his voice. It wasn't her fault he was here.
It was not that they wouldn't come that bothered him. They wouldn't
come to get him if he were Lonny Hopkins himself. But Station Chief
Hopkins would never have been on a dip trip in the first place. You don't
send indispensable personnel on potentially one-way missions. Dippers
were folks the station could afford to lose. Good at what they did, but not
particularly useful at anything else. Janitors, gophers, day-care fathers,
stilyagi like Gordon. A brotherhood of mediocrity, he thought. The habitats
would still function without him. Even the variety of the gene pool, small
as it was, was unthreatened. Gordon and he had already made their
deposits at the sperm bank.
"Then who is coming to get us?" he asked.
"I told you we have friends on Earth. There's a team heading for you
right now. They have an illegal Navstar link, so they know your precise