"Charles Stross - Trunk and Disorderly" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

seemed like a competent sort, and I supposed IтАЩd just have to trust her
judgment. So I took a deep breath, waited another sixty seconds (until the
alarm chimed), then opened the door and stepped off the running board
over three hundred kilometers of hostile vacuum.

The drop went smoothlyтАФas I suppose you guessed, or I wouldnтАЩt be
here to bend your ear with the story, what? The adrenaline rush of standing
astride a ten centimeter thick surfboard as it bumps and vibrates furiously in
the hypersonic air-flow, trying to throw you off into the blast-furnace tornado
winds of re-entry, is absolutely indescribable. So is the sight of the circular
horizon flattening and growing, coming up to batter at your feet with angry
fists of plasma. Ah, what rhapsody! What delight! I havenтАЩt got a poetic
bone in my body, but when you tap into Toadsworth outside of the
club-houseтАЩs suppressor field thatтАЩs the kind of narcotic drivel heтАЩll feed
you. I think heтАЩs a jolly good poet, for an obsessive-compulsive clankie with
a staircase phobia and knobbly protrusions; but, at any rate, a more
accurate description of competitive orbital re-entry diving I havenтАЩt heard
from anyone recently.

A drop doesnтАЩt take long. The dangerous stage lasts maybe twenty
minutes from start to finish, and only the last five minutes is hot. Then you
slow to sub-sonic velocity and let go of your smoldering surfboard, and
pray to your ancestors that your parachute is folded smartly, because it
would be mortifying to have to be rescued by the refereeтАЩs skiff. Especially
if they donтАЩt get to you until after you complete your informal enquiry into
lithobraking, eh?

There was a high overcast as I came hurtling in across Utah, and I
think I might have accidentally zigged instead of zagging a little too firmly as
I tried to see past a wall of cloud ahead and below me, because when my
fireball finally dissipated I found myself skidding across the sky about fifty
kilometers off course. This would be embarrassing enough on its own, but
then my helmet helpfully highlighted three other competitorsтАФAbdul among
them!тАФwho were much closer to the target zone. I will confess I muttered
an unsportingly rude word at that juncture, but the gameтАЩs the thing and it
isnтАЩt over тАШtil itтАЩs over.

In the end I touched down a mere thirty-three thousand meters
off-base, and a couple of minutes later the referees ruled I was third on
target. Perry OтАЩPearyтАФwho had been leading meтАФmanaged to make
himself the toast of the match before he reached the tropopause by way of
a dodgy ring seal on his left knee. Dashed bad play, that, but at least he
died with his boots onтАФeven if they were glowing red-hot and welded to his
ankles.

I caught a lift the rest of the way to the drop base from one of the
referee skiffs. As I tromped across the dusty desert floor in my smoldering
armor, feeling fully alive for the first time in weeks, I found the party already
in full swing. AbdulтАЩs entourage, all wearing traditional kimonos and
burnooses, had brought along a modified camel that widdled champagne in