"George O. Smith - Spaceman's Luck" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith George O)

to Luna? Not a hell of a lot. He was not headed for an adventure and he knew it; with everything
precalculated, including the risk, what adventure could he have? To land and collect a quart of pumice
and a pound of rock and maybe a shiny stone. Look for lichen or moss. Listen to the Geiger.
This sort of dry action would sell no books, collect no royalties, make no moving pictures, bring in no
dough.
Gordon took a deep breath as soon as the motor shut off. He was on his way and he knew how to
handle everything from here on in.
He had seen enough of human nature to foresee it all. A slight mishap and a call for help would start
it. A landing just hard enough to bend the control vanes or to plug up the rocket exhaust. Maybe to ding
up the spacecraft enough to make it unspaceworthy. Then:
The cry for help and the whole world crying in return that a Human Being was marooned out there,
helpless and alone.
They'd come.
They'd turn handsprings to get out there. Time and money would be tossed down the drain, and men
would strive and women would cry, and the news would be filled with daily columns of how the rescue
was progressing.
Drop a man in the ocean and the navies of every country go out and comb the sea to find him. Put a
cat on the telephone pole and three hundred people struggle to get the animal down. Drop a child in a
well and the countryside turns out en masse to help.
Well, maroon a man on the moon and watch 'em struggle.
He had air for ninety clays and food and water And just about anything a man would need. He could
sit it out and he knew it. And he knew that there was a second rocket that could be put in space within a
couple of months. Sixty days he'd sit it out and thenтАФ
It would be the story of his life, the tale of his rescue, the bright lights and the personal appearances.
Radio and television and endorsing this junk and that googoo. Women and liquor and money.
He came down in the Crater Plato, tail first but far too fast. The tailfins crumpled and the sifting
pumice drove up into the exhaust and packed like cement. A seam whistled far below to let out some air
from a sealed compartment, cracked in the bump.
The crash staggered him a bit, but all he suffered was a nosebleed and a set of sprained chest
muscles. He sat up and looked around.
The radio. He snapped it on and called: "Lady Luna Gordon Holt reporting. Made a crash landing.
May be dangerous. Will check and call at 0300."
He eyed the radio thoughtfully; it only took about three seconds for an answer, but in that time
Gordon considered smashing the radio in the middle of the next broadcast and. then discarded the idea
because it might lead people to think that he, too, had been smashed. Gordon wanted to be rescued, not
given a hero's brief hail and farewell.
"Calling Lady Luna. Holt! Are you all right? Explain!"
"I am all right. I am not hurt. Crash landing rather rough but nothing broken. No air leakage, nothing
completely ruined that I can tell. Landed as per program in the dead center of Plato, but a little too
hard."
That ought to do it. Let 'em get excited slowly. They'll forget me less slowly.
"Lady Luna what happened?" They were worried.
"I don't know. I have a hunch that the pumice does not provide a true ground-plane for the radar.
We landed as though the ground were about thirty feet below the surface."
That sounds logical. Such things are entirely possible, I'm told. Powdery, filmy stuff with no water
shouldn't have a firm ground-plane.
"Lady Luna inspect your damage and report as planned at 0300."
Holt checked his air first. Plenty of it. Not a bit gone. Water next and food next. He checked the hull
as well as he could from the inside and then went out in his space suit to view the damage.
 He had done an admirable job. The tail fins were bent messily and the hull was crumpled a bit, just