"Oltion-PyramidHoax" - читать интересную книгу автора (Oltion Jerry)

NASA had stubbornly scheduled the flyby for last, holding out for a legitimate
scientific discovery, but time was running short. A few planners had secretly
hoped the survey plane would malfunction before the end of the mission and the
public would have to make do with more pictures from orbit, but for once the
machinery had performed as designed. They would be able to do the flyby after
all, and as the time drew nearer, more and more of their hopes rested on it.

And fear that it, too, would be a bust began to weigh heavily on the crew.
Nobody who knew anything about Mars seriously expected the face to amount to
anything more than a chance arrangement of impact craters on a hillside, and the
"pyramids" around it were almost certainly just mountains that had eroded with
unusual symmetry. So when Muriel had said, "There's always the Face," David had
responded with, "Oh sure. That ought to be good for about fifteen seconds of
drama."

They'd already done their usual getting-ready-for-bed show with the lace nightie
and the spandex bikini briefs, and had turned off the cameras for the night.
They'd been enjoying their precious few moments of privacy by scratching and
belching and trimming their nose hair like normal people, but Muriel had turned
away from the mirror where she was flossing her teeth and said, "Maybe longer,
if we do it right."

David had blown his nose, then said, "Oh? And what do you think we can do to
make the Face more exciting than a mountain with old craters on it?"

"I don't know," she'd replied, beginning to pace the narrow confines of the
dome. Ten steps took her from the glitzy chrome bathroom~kitchen on the north
wall past the lab/dining table in the center of the room to the bed on the
opposite side. "We'll have to see it up close first. But once we know what's
actually there we could choose our approach angle to enhance the illusion, or
maybe even use the exhaust from the emergency takeoff boosters to carve out the
features a little better."

"With the cameras running all the time, documenting everything we do. Uh huh."

She'd paced back into the kitchen. "We can shut off the real-time cameras in the
plane and just use the still cameras with our personal film reserve. Mission
Control doesn't ever have to know we were there, but we'll have documentation if
we need it."

"You don't think they'll notice when our signal suddenly stops?" he'd asked
sarcastically.

"That's why we go at night." She'd walked back over to the bed, picked up his
pile of discarded clothing, and tossed it to him. "Mission Control thinks we're
about to hit the sack; we can rig the computer to keep sending fake heartbeat
and respiration telemetry while we go check it out. "

"Tonight?"