"Theodore Sturgeon - Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sturgeon Theodore)

"Check your hatch."

"Dogged down, sir."

"Make it ninety feet as a start, and hold it."

"Ninety feet, sir."

The Congressman was still staring slackjawed at the herculite nose. When he found something to
say, it was, "But the cost of a thing like that..."

The grizzled old Bureau head laughed aloud. "The cost was met by Admiral Nelson here, and his
ways and means boys, and several million school kids, and his own patent and process holdings.
She's bought and paid for, Mr. Parker, and was before he asked to have her commissioned by the
government. We had to start a new Bureau to accommodate her. She's non-Navy, but federal. She's
available for weapons testing, and for that alone she's worth her maintenance times fiftyтАФjust her
availability. Her real business is research."

"Research," said the Congressman, at last able to fix on something he knew he disliked. He made the
two syllables speak a whole paragraph about blue-sky puttering with useless chemicals resulting in
useless mixtures, invoices for elaborate testing devices to determine the molecular changes in bread
as it's toasted.

"OhтАФlook!" said Dr. Susan Hiller. She pointed downward, and a great shimmering cloud of mullet
writhed past.

"Research," said Nelson, and his two syllables had a sound like a key opening an old lock. "We'll
ride herd on those mullet some day, the way old timers did sheep. Maybe some day folks'll live
down there under herculite domes, ranching the fish and farming sea plants. On a planet that's 74 per
cent sea-floor, Congressman, there's an awful lot to be researched out. Research can make this a
bigger world than ever you thought it was. There's mines for us down there, and oil wells, and hot-
vents for power, there's food there and work and study for generations to come."

Without appreciable tilting, for this was not a crash dive, the ship began to go down. So smooth and
silent were the mighty engines that their presence was only a vague steady tremble. The waterline
crept upward over the giant panes, and the light in the huge chamber took on the blue-green cast of
the silent world. Susan Hiller clasped her slim hands together and stood breathless, moving her head
from side to side in something like disbelief. The captain, now well on the way to what he later
called to himself The Big Brag, affected a studied professional boredom which he hardly felt, so
acutely did the awe of the visitors communicate itself. He stood with his back to the wonder of the

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Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea by Theodore Sturgeon

surging water ahead, and his eyes flicked alertly over the "Christmas Tree"тАФthe banks of lights and
repeaters on his console.

"Run the ship from here, do you?" asked Congressman Parker, whose capacity for awe was
apparently reached.