"Tom Purdom - Moon Rocks" - читать интересную книгу автора (Purdom Tom)

vehicles.
The four screens blank again. He turns his head and searches the landscape for
Three. There was nothing between him and Three when he set the course. Two of
the buggies will lose contact in about seventy-five seconds but Three is supposed to
stay in contact until he reaches the next halt point.
The screens light up again. Three rises out of the ground. It has slipped into a
depression he didn't see. It blanked out before its computer could react to the new
situation and raise its antenna.
The other two buggies lose contact right on schedule. Their screens come on
again thirty seconds later and he stops at another halt point. He pulls a plastic bottle
out of a compartment and rolls two tiny drops of liquid down his tongue.
Warm, pleasant sensations spread through his body. His brain is still functioning
but every important muscle in his body is relaxing for forty-five seconds. He is a
muscle cramper when he gets tense. Three sips on the bottle during his working day
can fight off fatigue better than any energizing drug on the market.
He is only eighteen kilometers from his ultimate destination. If he can keep on
moving without stopping to rest, he will be there in about eight hours.
He puts the bottle back in its compartment and studies the screens. Orders go out
to the gun buggies. They move forward thirty meters and the screens blank once
again.


His hands tighten on the steering wheel. He searches the terrain on his left and
sees a thin cloud of dust moving across the area between two small craters. Three
has rolled into another shallow depression before its computer can raise its antenna.
The sun is approaching its maximum altitude above the horizon and he is having
trouble seeing the smaller variations in the surface.
Three's black and white framework rises out of the depression. Two screens light
up on the console. The other two screens are still blank.
The halt order leaps out again. His fingers tap out more orders. Gun Buggy Four
rolls away from its position and starts creeping along the bottom of the big, rolling
hill directly in front of him.
The two blanked-out screens belong to the two buggies spread out on his right.
Gun Buggy One is supposed to send its signals to Two and Two is supposed to
relay its signals through Three. Two is the buggy the Europs will probably hit first if
they're ambushing him. Knock out Two and One will be isolated. The first shot in
the battle will leave him with two working gun buggies in contact with the command
vehicle.
His eyes dart across the screens and the landscape outside his windows.
Electronic probes leap out from every vehicle. He moves Three closer to the
command vehicle and guards his left flank.
Four rolls its front end around a boulder at the bottom of the big hill. Its camera
pans across low rises and small, shallow craters.
There is no danger he is going to die. The bottle in the compartment is looming in
his mind as if it is as big as Mount Bradley but there is no danger he is going to die.
The stakes are high but the Europs know they will be exposed to retaliation if they
actually kill someone.
The stakes are high but they are not decisive. One hundred over-populated,
technologically advanced nations are jockeying for position in the world economy
and bigger gold reserves can give a country a stronger currency and a temporary,