"Fredrik Pohl - Callistan Tomb" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pohl Frederick)

vein, dripping with water condensed by the pressure that obtains a mile beneath the surface of a planet.
The men did not risk "bends," the terrible disease of most high-pressure workers, for their atmosphere
was insoluble in their blood. Krypton and neon replaced the nitrogen of Earth that dissolved under
pressure and reappeared in great bubbles when the pressure was released.
They picked up the tools abandoned by the last shift and trotted in formation down the long dim
corridor, past the mouths of the peristaltic tubes and the heaps of slag, coming to a halt at the jagged
tunnel wall of pitch-blende.
"Back up," said Foley, removing a slim metal tube from his kit. "We're going to try a shot."
With a gleaming drill he bit into the wall some dozen feet and rammed home the blasting charge. The
men braced themselves against the walls and tensed their muscles as he swung a hammer against the
ramrod.
There was the dull, coughing roar characteristic of trinite as the bomb exploded, and a spider's web
of cracks and seams spread slowly over the raw face of the rock. As the foreman sprang back the
surface collapsed into a pile of rubble. Smoothly the crew shoved wooden shoring into the loose heap
and swung heavy beam braces against the roof. A second crew plunged oversized shovels into the ore
and dashed their loads into the mouth of the peristaltic tube that led a mile up to the surface. The tube
buzzed a warning signal as it went into operation. Its massive bands of metal contracted and expanded
rhythmically and the ore flung into its cavity slowly started for the surface; a lift of over a mile.
"Eighteen cubic yards," announced Foley sonorously as he checked the estimate off on his
tally-board. He turned on a man savagely. "Batten than timber down," he yelled. "We can't take chances
with anything down here." The worker touched his cap ironically, swung a sledge against a plank.
The last of the rubble had vanished into the tube and the tunnel was safe тАФor as safe as it ever
wasтАФfor another blast, shored walls already slick with water.
"We're blasting," cried Foley. He picked up the electric drill and cut it into the surface, bearing down
as the bit sank into the rock. Another gleaming capsule vanished into the drill-hole, was thrust home by
the ramrod. The little Irishman raised a maul and slammed it against the mushroomed end of the rod.
With appalling suddenness the charge exploded and a geyser of rock sprayed out from the
mine-face. Rawson spun about as a chunk of ore shot by him. He saw it smash into a great beam that
should have held, but didn't.
"Cave-in!" he screamed, and in the greenish glare of his headlamp he saw the beam slowly topple
over and a great collapse of the rock ceiling down the whole length of the corridor. Chunks of ore fell
about his head and he felt a sickening shock at the base of his skull as he dropped. Screams rang in the
air, but he was falling asleep; unconscious.

SOMEONE was shaking his shoulder, and little shocks of pain ran down his arm. "If you're dead," a
voice shouted in his ear, "stay dead, but if you're not get up and make yourself useful!"
"Hello, Foley," he said dizzily as he sat up. "Who's left?"
The little foreman helped him to his feet. "You, me, Pyle, and Vogel," he said. "All the others are
gone for good." Rawson didn't know Pyle, but Vogel and he had exchanged greetings now and then. The
four men cast their lamps about them and surveyed their position.
"More than a mile underground," said Vogel flatly. "And our power's off, so we can't use the drills
and scoops. We're in a little pocket at the very end of what used to be the tunnel. So I guess we're going
to . . . I guess we're going to die. . . ."
Foley stared at him for a moment, then suddenly smashed his palm across the man's face. Evenly,
then, he said: "Remember that my commission as foreman doesn't expire at the option of the crew. So
long as you're alive you take my orders. And you obey them."
Pyle, a thin young man, seemed overcome with a fit of ague. He was trembling in every limb and his
eyes rolled wildly, returning again and again to the fading patch on Vogel's cheek where the foreman had
struck him.
"We're going to dig with our bare hands.тАЭ said Foley. "We have hours of life left to us, and it's a sin