"Jack Vance - Sail 25" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vance Jack)

Lynch started to spit curses; Verona's shoulders slumped. "Let's get to work and fix it."
Another bearing was cast, machined, polished, mounted. The disks wobbled, scraped. Mars, an ocher disk,
shouldered ever closer in from the side. With the computer unreliable the cadets calculated and plotted the course
manually. The results were at slight but significant variance with those of the computer. The cadets looked dourly at
each other. "Well," growled Ostrander, "there's error. Is it the instruments? The calculation? The plotting? Or the
computer?"
Culpepper said in a subdued voice, "Well, we're not about to crash head-on at any rate."
Verona went back to study the computer. "I can't imagine why the bearings don't work better. . . . The mounting
bracketsтАФcould they have shifted?"
He removed the side housing, studied the frame, then went to the case for tools.
"What are you going to do?" demanded Sutton.
"Try to ease the mounting brackets around. I think that's our trouble."
"Leave me alone! You'll bugger the machine so it'll never work."
Verona paused, looked questioningly around the group. "Well? What's the verdict?"
"Maybe we'd better check with the old man," said Ostrander nervously.
"All well and goodтАФbut you know what he'll say."
"Let's deal cards. Ace of spades goes to ask him."
Culpepper received the ace. He knocked on Henry Belt's door. There was no response. He started to knock again,
but restrained himself.
He returned to the group. "Wait till he shows himself. I'd rather crash into Mars than bring forth Henry Belt and his
red book."
The ship crossed the orbit of Mars well ahead of the loom-ing red planet. It came toppling at them with a peculiar
clumsy grandeur, a mass obviously bulky and globular, but so fine and clear was the detail, so absent the perspective,
that the distance and size might have been anything. Instead of swinging in a sharp elliptical curve back toward Earth,
the ship swerved aside in a blunt hyperbola and proceeded out-ward, now at a velocity of close to fifty miles a
second. Mars receded astern and to the side. A new part of space lay ahead. The sun was noticeably smaller. Earth
could no longer be differentiated from the stars. Mars departed quickly and politely, and space seemed lonely and
forlorn.
Henry Belt had not appeared for two days. At last Cul-pepper went to knock on the doorтАФonce, twice, three times:
a strange face looked out. It was Henry Belt, face haggard, skin like pulled taffy. His eyes glared red, his hair seemed
matted and more unkempt than hair a quarter-inch should be. But he spoke in his quiet clear voice. "Mr. Culpepper,
your merciless din has disturbed me. I am quite put out with you."
"Sorry, sir. We feared that you were ill."
Henry Belt made no response. He looked past Culpepper, around the circle of faces. "You gentlemen are
unwontedly serious. Has this presumptive illness of mine caused you all distress?"
Sutton spoke in a rush. "The computer is out of order."
"Why then, you must repair it."
"It's a matter of altering the housing. If we do it in-correctlyтАФ"
"Mr. Sutton, please do not harass me with the hour-by-hour minutiae of running the ship."
"But, sir, the matter has become serious; we need your advice. We missed the Mars turn-aroundтАФ"
"Well, I suppose there's always Jupiter. Must I explain the basic elements of astrogation to you?"
"But the computer's out of orderтАФdefinitely."
"Then, if you wish to return to Earth, you must perform the calculations with pencil and paper. Why is it necessary
to explain the obvious?"
"Jupiter is a long way out," said Sutton in a shrill voice. "Why can't we just turn around and go home?" This last
was almost a whisper.
"I see I've been too easy on you cads," said Henry Belt. "You stand around idly; you chatter nonsense while the
ma-chinery goes to pieces and the ship flies at random. Every-body into spacesuits for sail inspection. Come now.
Let's have some snap. What are you all? Walking corpses? You, Mr. Culpepper, why the delay?"
"It occurred to me, sir, that we are approaching the asteroid belt. As I am chief of the watch, I consider it my duty to