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

making a ragged drill-hole. Silently Foley produced a gleaming capsule of trinite and rammed it in.
 "Stand back to the mouth of the tunnel," he said. They retreated; Foley was left alone in the triple
glare of their headlamps. He raised his improvised sledgeтАФthe grip of an electric drillтАФand slammed it
down against the protruding stump of the crowbar.
In one awful moment, as Rawson saw it, there was the clashing jump of the bar, the reticulated
explosion across the face of the rock, and the roaring collapse of their tunnel as Foley sprang clear of
danger.

THEY surveyed the wreck blankly. A long silence was broken by a sobbing wail from Pyle.
"Trapped," he choked. "More than a mile under the surface of this damned moon!"
"Last chance gone," said Vogel grimly. "Now we sit down and die."
"So nobody was fooled?" asked Foley quietly. "Well, keep your heads now, at any rate. If we're
going to die let's do it like little gentlemen."
"A pair of dice or a deck of cards would help," said Rawson. "Or we can play word-games like
'Ghosts' if you know how to spell. I don't. I never could win at that game."
Foley sat down placidly, his back propped upon the pile of ore that choked the silent peristaltic tube.
"I don't know the game," he said. "Do you think we ought to pray?"
Pyle was aimlessly turning-over his head-lamp, which he had taken from his sweaty hat, and the solid
flare of green from the lens swung over the men and their cramped quarters. His hands were twitching.
"Put that damned thing down!тАЭ Vogel was irritated.
"No" said Pyle stubbornly. Then he cried out; turned to Foley suddenly. "Listen!" he yelled. "This
lamp is a radium-exciter!тАЭ
"Sure it is.тАЭ said Foley.
"Yeah, but listen! The tunnels are crawling with radium. Can't we open lamp and take out the
element? And turn it on the walls and blast our way to the surface?"
Vogel and Rawson looked up. Foley glanced at them, and slowly shook his head.
"No go," he said. "You could start the action, but how could you control it? The whole mineтАЩd burn
up, and it wouldn't stop thenтАФit would go on to all the other ores around that are rich in radium."
"And there are a lot of those." said Rawson, suddenly seeing the impossibility of the scheme. "The
whole planet's radioactive. It would he another sun, and we don't need one. Shelve the idea for
reference,"
Pyle nodded slowly, staring at them. There was a shattered look on his face, and his eyes gleamed in
the light of their lamps, "I see," he whispered. "You don't want to be saved. You won't take a chance for
your own lives."
"There's no chance in it," said Rawson harshly. "You open that lamp and the planet goes up in flames
before you can say scat. That means that everybody on the planet dies, and a lot of people on the other
moons of Jupiter die too. And then there's no radium at all to cure the Sickness except what they can get
on Mercury and Deimos. Forget it!"
Pyle stood up, still turning the lamp over in his trembling hands. Slowly he said, "If you won't, I will."
He took a tool from his pocket and pried at the lens of his light.
Vogel sprang to his feet and snatched the device from Pyle's hands. "Sit down," he ordered angrily,
"or IтАЩll knock you down.тАЭ The younger man looked at his empty hands for a moment, and with the
swiftness of a madman snatched VogelтАЩs lamp, cap and all, from his head, and darted to the other end of
the tunnel. He scrabbled madly at the rock, and hit a weak spot, a spot they hadnтАЩt tried because it led
down to the lower galleries of the mine. He quickly enlarged it, and rolled through,
The three started in pursuit, following the bobbing green light that Pyle was carrying, and came to a
confused halt when it winked out.
"We'd better go back," said Foley wearily, "The tunnels branch out down thereтАФwe'd never find
him." Draggingly they returned to the place of the second cave-in, to stare blankly at the tumbled rocks.