"ae2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Steele Allen)

It was one of the scariest moments of his life.
It had also been the first, last, and only time he had ever
struck one of his kids. He lost his temper and gave the boy a
slap. A glancing swat off the top of the head, not a solid punch
to be sure ... but Gene Jr. had never forgotten it, nor com-
pletely forgiven him. The following day they trudged out of
the desert without saying much to each other, and it was only
a few months later when Judith found a couple of joints hid-
den underneath a Captain America comic book in the boy's
bedside table drawer.
Hey, Gene? You copy? Lewitt's voice was crisp and clear
within his helmet.
Hell with it. "I'm here. just taking in the view." Parnell






186

ALLEN STEELE

reached forward, clamped the tether to the railing and ga-%
the line a swift, hard tug to make sure it was secure. -"Oka
I'm on the catwalk," he added.
We gotcha. Lewitt chuckled. Don't fall off now.
Coincidence. Jay was only joking. Gene had never told an
one, not even Judith, about the incident in Canyonlands.
He swallowed, gave the line another perfunctory tug, the
pushed himself off the catwalk. "I won't," he murmure
"Going out to check the antenna now."
He had originally intended to let the failure of the Ion
range radar system go unattended until they reached t
Moon. It was nonessential equipment, after all, at least as f
as their mission was concerned; it was there mainly to tra(
other vessels in cislunar space. Conestoga could easily ma
touchdown at Tranquillity Base without it, using the shor
range dish alone for the approach and final descent. Yet h
conscience had continued to bother him until, sometime du
ing lunch, he announced his intent to go EVA and fix t
damn thing once and for all.
Both Jay and Cris had argued with him, each maintaini
that a spacewalk wasn't necessary and that they could hand
the landing maneuvers without the LRR. Perhaps they coul
but the fact of the matter was that Gene wanted a reason
leave the vessel for a fewminutes. The tortured syntax of t
Germans, Leamore's remarks about obsolete American spa
technology, Dooley's inability to eat without throwing fo
all over the place, Rhodes and Bromleigh wanting to videota