"Arkady and Boris Strugatsky_Destination Amaltheia" - читать интересную книгу автора (Strugatski Arkady)

There was general laughter. "The law of high magnitudes is on mine!" A
face crumpled with sleep looked in through the door.
"Potapov here? Vadim, there's a storm on Jupe!"
"You don't say so," Potapov said, jumping up.
The face disappeared, then popped into view again:
"Get my biscuits for me, will you."
"Hoak won't give us them," Potapov answered the retreating figure and
glanced at Uncle Hoak.
"Why not?" said Hoak. "Konstantin Stetsenko, half a pound of biscuits
and two ounces of chocolate. He's entitled to it."
The chief rose, wiping his mouth with a paper serviette. Kozlov said:
"Comrade chief, any news of the Tahmasib?"
All present fell silent and turned their faces to the chief.
Deeply-tanned young faces, already drawn a little. The chief replied:
"No news."
He walked slowly down the aisle and to his office. The trouble was that
the "fungus invasion" that had struck Callisto was highly inopportune. It
wasn't starvation yet. But if Bykov did not arrive with the food.... Bykov
was somewhere not far away, in fact he had already been located but had
ceased reporting since and had not been heard for sixty hours now. We must
cut the rations again, thought the chief. Anything could happen and their
base on Mars was a long way off. Anything could happen here. Spaceships from
Earth and from Mars had disappeared before. It doesn't happen often, not
oftener than the fungus invasions. But it's bad enough that it does happen
at all. It's a nuisance.


CHAPTER ONE

THE CARGO PHOTON ROCKET "TAHMASIB"

1. The spaceship approaches Jupiter while her captain has a row with
the navigator and takes sporamin.

Alexei Petrovich Bykov, captain of the cargo photon rocket
Tahmasib,
emerged from his cabin and carefully closed the door behind him. His hair
was wet and well brushed. The captain had just had his shower. As a matter
of fact he'd had two showers-one of water and one of ions-but he still
wanted to sleep so badly that his eyes would not stay open. Over the last
three days and nights he had not slept for more than five hours in all. The
flight was not proving easy.
The gangway was bare and light. Bykov headed for the control room,
making an effort not to shuffle, shaking off the stupor of a short nap he'd
just had. His way lay through the mess. Its door stood open and through it
Bykov thought he heard quarrelsome voices. They belonged to the
planetologists Dauge and Yurkovsky and sounded strained and unusually
muffled. Up to something again, those two, thought Bykov. No peace from
them. It's not easy for me to give them a ticking off either. After all,
they're my friends and jolly glad to be all together on this flight, It's