"Clark Ashton Smith - Marooned in Andromeda" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Clark Ashton)

intellectual ability and prime physical fitness, for all had been subjected
to examinations of the most rigorous and prolonged order. A high knowledge
of mathematics, chemistry, physics, astronomy, and other branches of
science had been required, as well as a mastery of mechanics; and perfect
sight, hearing, equilibrium and a flawless constitution were likewise
requisite. Also, it goes without saying that they belonged to a most
active, adventurous type: for no ordinary men would even have volunteered
for such a project as Volmar's. Innumerable voyages had already been made
to the moon and the nearer planets; but, previous to this, aside from the
one trip made to Alpha Centauri by the Allen Farquhar expedition, no one
had dared the outer deep and the constellations.

Volmar and the three who had remained faithful to him were all of the
same breed: men of religious, well-nigh inhuman devotion to an idea,
scientists to whom nothing mattered apart from science, who were capable of
martyrizing themselves and others if by so doing they could prove a theory
or make a discovery. And in Volmar himself there was a spirit of mad
adventure, a desire to tread where no man had been before; the cold flame
of an imperial lust for unexplored immensitude. The mutineers were more
human; and the years of bleak confinement in the space-flier, among the
terrific pits of infinity, remote from all that is life to normal beings,
had broken down their morale in the end. Few, perhaps, could have endured
it as long as they.

"Another thing," the chill voice of Volmar went on: "I shall put you
off without weapons, provisions or oxygen-tanks. You will have to shift for
yourselves -- and of course, the chances are that the atmosphere, if there
is any, will prove unfit for human respiration. Jasper will now proceed to
truss you up, so that there won't be any more foolishness."

Alton Jasper, a well-known astronomer, who was first mate of the
flier, stepped forward and bound the hands of the mutineers behind them
with rope. Then they were locked in a lower apartment of the vessel, above
the manhole that gave entrance and egress. This apartment was insulated
from all the rest; and the manhole could be opened from the higher rooms by
means of an electrical device. There the mutineers lay in absolute
darkness, except when someone entered with a meager allotment of food and
drink.

Aeons seemed to pass, and the three men abandoned all efforts to keep
a reckoning of time. They spoke little, for there was nothing to speak of
but failure and despair and the dreadful unknown fate ahead of them.
Sometimes one of them, particularly Roverton, would gallantly try to crack
a jest; but the laughter that answered the jest was the last flare of a
courage tried almost beyond human endurance.

One day, they heard the voice of Volmar addressing them through the
speaking-tube. It was far-off and high and thin, like a voice from some
sidereal altitude.