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

above the place where the rocket motor ended. If this ship took offтАФ
"Lady Luna calling home. Reporting as per plan. Hull bent, tail fins ruined. Crater filled with
powdery pumice and I feel that the exhaust is packed. Shall I try a blast to clear it?"
While he waited for the answer Gordon found a bit of wire and shorted the battery for a second. He
had to fade out slowly enough to fool them completely.
"Lady Luna, do not try a clearing blast. You'll explode. Wait for instructions."
"Will do. Will do."
He shorted the battery a couple more times and watched the voltmeter drop.
"Lady Luna can you dig down to the exhaust port?"
"Will try. Note battery dropping. Nothing else in danger. Food, water, air all okay. Hull sound but
battery dropping."
Seconds went on and Holt could see the resources of the entire world collecting to prepare the First
Spacewreck Rescue. Complete with video, reporters, clergymen, politicians, and humanity waiting.
"Lady Luna repeat. You are fading."
Holt repeated, insisting that he was all right. "I can stick it out. I can stick it out."
He watched the radio battery fade. '
Let it fade. He could stand the silence for two months until rescue came.
A billion people listened to his voice die away. And when their radio networks went dead, they raced
to their telephones and clogged the land wires demanding that something had to be done.
Congressmen gave speeches and clergymen spoke and doctors gave opinions and scientists differed.
A government seldom known for its cooperation announced that its new atomic-powered rocket was
about to effect the rescue single-handedly. But the atomic part blew up in front of the video cameras and
took some of the landscape with it. The Council of the United Nations called a meeting. The newspapers
and networks covered everything.
A man known for his brilliance came on the air.
"The batteries of the Lady Luna have run down," he said.
"We must get there in less than ten days."
They tried to do it.
A second rocket exploded in France.
A third blew up in Germany. The fourth would not be ready for space for sixty days.
That was seventy long days after Holt's landing.
Without a miracle, Holt would be dead, even if the experts were wrong.
Protestants prayed, Catholics crossed themselves, and Mohammedans called it kismet and let it go
at that. A scientist suggested that since there was no habitable planet in the solar system and that mankind
could never reach the stars, there was small point in this effort to make space travel pay off. An
economist computed the sum of money shelled out already and called it damned foolishness. A Senator
Maculay suggested that taxes could be lowered if such expenditures were cut out.
And ten days after the accident there was a world-wide prayer said for Gordon Holt.
The other rocket at White Sands grew cobwebs in its empty fuel tanks.
And the Lady Luna slipped into the dark of the moon. It grew colder and colder as time went on ...