"James White - Lifeboat" - читать интересную книгу автора (White James)

Her small, strong hand pushed him back into the seat.
"I'll handle it," she said. "Until they are all trussed up and safe in their
acceleration couches they are my responsibility. Sit there, and save your
strength."
Chapter II.
Because it was a widely accepted fact that many people could undertake plane
trips and even interplanetary voyages without qualms and yet be scared silly
by three hundred feet of altitude, the elevator which took Eurydice's
passengers up to the main entry lock was completely enclosed. But that
low-ceilinged, windowless cage had a very subduing effect, Mercer noted. It
was as if the passengers realized that they were taking their first tiny step
spacewards and that there was still time to step back. Or was he simply
putting thoughts into the passengers' minds because the same thoughts were
going through his own?
The cage was uncomfortably crowded, but the passengers were somehow managing
to keep their distance from each other, and they did not even look at him.
Starting to introduce himself in these conditions was impossible-he would
simply make himself look and sound ridiculous. But he could at least nod at
young Mathewson without loss of dignity or doing irreparable harm to his
image.
But the boy tried to salute him and jabbed a passenger in the stomach with his
elbow, his mother grabbed his arm and began apologizing all round, and Mercer
retreated behind his personal wall of silence wondering, as they reached the
top and the passengers preceded him into the ship, if it was possible to
project an image so strong and silent that he would not have to speak to
anyone at all for the entire four months of the trip.
First Officer Prescott was waiting for him just inside the outer seal. He ran
his eyes quickly from Mercer's cap to his sneakers and back again, looking
faintly surprised, but when he spoke he sounded more than faintly
disappointed. "I thought you weren't going to make it. What kept you?"
"I was told to come aboard with the last coachload of passengers..." began
Mercer. But Prescott was obviously not listening, so he concentrated on being
strong and silent again as he passed into the lock antechamber. He could feel
his face burning, so the chances were that he was fooling nobody but himself.
The Captain was standing just inside the seal, looking cool, correct, and with
his features, if anything, stiffer than his too-erect body. He was looking
through Mercer and the double hull behind him at some remembered object or
event, which claimed all of his attention.
He had met Collingwood and the other officers very briefly during his
training, and the Captain had been the only -ship's officer who had not made
him feel like crawling under the nearest stone. But now it looked as if
Collingwood was angry about something, probably the misdemeanor of the girl
deserting half a coachload of passengers. Perhaps one of them had actually
complained to him about it, and now she was standing beside the Captain
looking as if she was about to cry.
Mercer felt sorry for her. She was very easy to like and even easier to feel
sorry for, and in a way he was responsible for her trouble because he had
agreed to her request. He wanted badly to apologize but remembered that she
did not like people who apologized too often. He stopped. The Captain was
still staring into the middle distance, not even seeing him.