"Bud Sparhawk - Primrose and Thorn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sparhawk Bud)

trying so damn hard to get across to you is that sailing is an art, not a bloody damn science. That means
you have to sail with your heart, as well as your mind. When you're on the sea, managing the sails and the
wheel, the rest of the Universe could disappear, for all that you care. When everything works right,
there's a rhythm, a reverie that transforms you, that makes you one with the Universe. If you put
everything you have into it, mind and body, your ego disappearsтАФits just you, the boat, the wind, and
the water."

She turned back to stare out the viewport at the advancing planet and slumped into her seat. "If it was
just science, JBI wouldn't be paying the big bucks to haul my ass all the way out here. No, they'd get
some double-dome Ph. and D. to build a little machine to do it, and the hell with the beauty of a good line
and a strong wind.

"But the fact that I am here to sail on Jupiter's orange seas says that there's still a human element to sailing
that's better than the most refined engineering approach. It says that a human being can still stand on a
ship's deck and dare the wind and the seas to do their worst. It tells me that even some damn overgrown
pig of a planet can't tame the human spirit!"
The silence prevailed for long minutes. "Well," said Al, apropos of nothing. "Well."

Louella said nothing for the rest of the trip down into the thick atmosphere. Pascal tried to ignore the
view as sunrise raced across Jupiter's face, too far below.

Rams's destination was floating along at twenty-odd meters per second to the east of his present position.
Her track was so reliably managed that the station's precise location could be calculated to within a
kilometer.

Somewhere on the other side of CS-42 a whirling hurricane was advancing. Given the right spin and
direction these storms could grow beyond reasonable bounds, turning into blows that made Earth's
hurricanes look like a faint puff of air. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred Jupiter's hurricanes dissipated
quickly, within two or three of his ten-hour rotations. If Rams was lucky, this one would do the same.

Rams was dismayed to discover that Primrose fell even farther westward off of her planned track
whenever he turned to the north. That meant two things: the winds were continuing to shift, and the storm
was deeper than expected. It looked as if he'd hit the edges of a major storm.

For the thousandth time he wished that Jupiter wasn't so electronically active. The ambient white noise on
the radio bands was so intense that even pulse-code modulation couldn't punch a signal through. Just one
crummy satellite picture, one quick radar image, one short broadcast was all he'd need to find out what
was happening with the storm.

Instead, all he knew about the storm was its rough starting position, Weather's predicted track, and the
data the station master provided about prevailing winds. He also had the data from his own inertial
system. From those weak components he had to navigate through a dark eight thousand kilometers, face
unknown winds, and find the tiny station that was his destination

.

"A little bit cramped, isn't it?" Pascal remarked as they inspected Thorn, their tiny, nine-hundred ton,
double-masted barque. He sat with one leg extended into the cockpit and the other in the "stateroom,"
which also served as kitchen, bath, and bedroom. A single bunk stretched for two meters across the
overhead with a single small seat below, which, when lifted, revealed the toilet. A tiny shelf with a built-in