"Russell, Eric Frank - Symbiotica" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russell Eric Frank)

A smirk passed over his seasick complexion. "I took a
walk to the noisy end and found that a couple of those
stern-gang bums have beaten everyone to the mark. They
didn't wait for orders. They're outside right now, playing
duck-on-the-rock."

"Playing what?" I yelped.

"Duck-on-the-rock," he repeated, deriving malicious
satisfaction from it.

I went to the tail-end, Brennand following with a wide
grin. Sure enough, two of those dirty mechanics who service
the tubes had pulled a fast one. They must have crawled
out through the main driver, not yet cool. Standing ankle-
deep in green growths, the pair were ribbing each other and
slinging pebbles at a small rock poised on top of a boulder.
To look at them you'd have thought this was a Sunday
school picnic.

"Does the skipper know about this?"

"Don't be silly," advised Brennand. "Do you think he'd
pick that pair of unshaven tramps for first out?"

One of the couple turned, noticed us staring at him
through the port. He smiled toothily, shouted something
impossible to hear through the thick walls, leaped nine feet
into the air and smacked his chest with a grimy hand. He
made it plain that the gravity was low, the oxygen-content
high and he was feeling mutinously topnotch. Brennand's
face suggested that he was sorely tempted to crawl through
a tube and join the fun.

"McNulty will skin those hoodlums," I said, dutifully
concealing my envy.

"Can't blame them. Our artificial gravity is still switched
on, the ship is full of fog and we've come a long, long way.

"It'll be great to go outside. I could do some sand-castling
myself if I had a bucket and spade."

"There isn't any sand."

Becoming tired of the rock, the escapees picked
themselves a supply of round pebbles from among the growths,
moved toward a big bush growing fifty yards from the
Marathon's stern. The farther away they went, the greater
the likelihood of them being spotted from the skipper's