"Stanley G. Weinbaum - Flight on Titan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weinbaum Stanley G)

brought back from Titan? The one Mrs. Advent paid half a million dollars for, just so she could wear it to
the opera?"
"I remember the story, Tim. I never heard of Titan."
"One of Saturn's moons. United States possession; there's a confirmatory settlement on it. It's
habitable."
"Oh!" she said, puzzled. "ButтАФwhat about it?"
"Just this: Last year half a dozen traders went up there after more. One of 'em returned to-day with
five of the things; I saw it on the news broadcast. He's rich, Di. Those things are almost priceless."
Diane began to see. "Tim!" she said huskily.
"Yes. That's the idea. I'm going to leave you all I can, except what money I must have, and go up
there for a year. I've read up on Titan; I know what to take." He paused. "It's coming near Perigee now.
There'll be a rocket leaving for NiviaтАФthat's the settlementтАФin a week."
"Tim!" murmured Diane again. "TitanтАФoh, I did hear of it! That'sтАФthat's the cold one, isn't it?"
"Cold as Dante's hell," replied Tm. He saw her lips form a word of protest and his blue eyes went
narrow and stubborn.
She changed her unspoken word. "I'm going with you," she said. Her brown eyes narrowed to meet
his.

Diane had won. That was over nowтАФthe long hours of argument, the final submission, the months of
insufferably stuffy air abroad the rocket, the laborious struggle to erect the tiny hemispherical
metal-walled shack that served as living quarters. The rocket had dropped them, cargo and all, at a point
determined after a long conference back on Earth with Simonds, the returned trader.
He had been an agreeable sort, but rather discouraging; his description of the Titan climate had
sounded rather like a word picture of an Eskimo hell. He hadn't exaggerated, either; Tim realized that
now and cursed the weakness that had made him yield to Diane's insistence.
Well, there they were. He was smoking his one permitted daily cigarette, and Diane was reading
aloud from a history of the world, taken because it had some thousand pages and would last a long time.
Outside was the unbelievable Titanian night with its usual hundred-mile gale screaming against the curved
walls, and the glitter of ice mountains showing green under the glare of Saturn wills its rings visible
edgewise from the satellite since it revolved in the same plane.
Beyond the Mountains of the DamnedтАФso named by Young, the discovererтАФa hundred miles
away, lay Nivia, the City of Snow. But they might as well have been on a planet of Van Maanen's star so
far as human contacts went; surely no one could survive a cross-country journey here through nights that
were generally eighty below zero, or even days that sometimes attained the balmy warmth of just above
freezing. No; they were marooned here until the rocket returned next year.
Tim shivered as the grinding roar of a shifting mountain sounded above the scream of the wind. That
was common enough here; they were always shifting under the enormous tidal pull of the giant Saturn and
the thrust of that incredible wind. But it was disquieting, none the less; it was an ever-present danger to
their little dwelling.
"Br-r-r!" he shuddered. "Listen to that!"
Diane looked up. "Not used to it yet, after three months?"
"And never will be!" he returned. "What a place!"
She smiled. "I know what'll cheer you," she said, rising.
From a tin box she poured a cascade of fire. "Look, Tim! Six of them. Six flame-orchids!"
He gazed at the glowing eggs of light. Like the flush of life itself, rainbow rings rolled in a hundred
tints beneath their surfaces. Diane passed her hand above them, and they responded to its warmth with a
flame of changing colors that swept the entire keyboard of the spectrum, reds merging into blues, violets,
greens, and yellows, then orange and scarlet of blood.
"They're beautiful!" Tim whispered, staring fascinated. "No wonder rich women bleed themselves dry
for them. Diane, we'll save one outтАФthe prettiestтАФfor you."