"Donald E. Wollheim - The Secret of the ninth Planet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wollheim Donald A)

out of each man.
Russell Clyde was the chief astrogator and astonomical expert. Assisting him was
the rather pedantic and sober Samuel Oberfield, a mathematical wizard and
astrophysicist, on leave from an assistant professorship at one of the great
universities. Clyde and Oberfield would also act as copilots relieving Lockhart.

Harvey Caton, blond Jurgen Detmar and the jovial Frank Shea were the three-man
engineering crew. Completing the members of the expedition was another trio
chosen to act as general crew, medical and commissary men while in flight, and
as a trained explorer-fighter unit while on planetside. Roy Haines, of whose
exploits in Africa and the jungles of South America Burl Denning had heard, was
the first of these, a rugged, weatherbeaten, but astonishingly alert explorer.
Captain Edgar Boulton, on leave from the United States Marines, was the second--
a man who had made an impressive record in various combat actions in his
country's service. The Antarctic explorer, Leon Ferrati, completed the listing.
Ferrati was an expert on getting along in conditions of extreme frigidity and
hostile climates. Of these men, only Lockhart, Clyde, Detmar and Ferrati had had
space experience in the platforms and in Moon-rocketry.
It was still, thought Burl, a large crew for a spaceship. No rocket built to
date had ever been able to carry such a load. But by then he had realized that
the strict weight limitations imposed by rocket fuels no longer applied to this
new method of space flight. Burl found himself more and more anxious to see this
wonderful craft.
It was not until the morning of the second day that Burl's chance came. He had
fallen asleep on the stiff army cot in the hastily improvised base on the
Wyoming prairie where the final work was being done. The day had been a confused
jumble of impressions, with little time to catch his breath. Now he had slept
the sleep of exhaustion, only to be awakened at dawn by Lockhart.
"Up and dress," the colonel greeted him. "We're taking you out to look the ship
over. Detmar will come along and explain the drive."
Burl threw his clothes on, gulped down breakfast in the company of the others at
the messhall, and soon was speeding along a wide, new road that ran up to the
mountains edging the wide western plain. As they neared the mountains, he saw a
high wooden wall blocking the road and view; this was the barrier that concealed
the ship nestled in the valley beyond.
They passed the guards' scrutiny and emerged into the valley. The A-G 17 loomed
suddenly above them, and Burl's first impression was of a glistening metal
fountain roaring up from the ground, gathering itself high in the sky, as if to
plunge down again in a rain of shining steel.
The ship was like a huge, gleaming raindrop. It stood two hundred feet high, the
wide, rounded, blunt bulk of it high in the air, as if about to fall upward
instead of downward. It tapered down to a thin, perfectly streamlined point
which touched the ground. It was held uprightly by a great cradle of girders and
beams. At various points the polished steel was broken by indentations or inset
round dots that were thick portholes or indications of entry ports. Around its
equator, girding the widest section was a ring of portholes, and there were
scattered rings of similar portholes below this.
As the three men drew near the tail, the great bulk loomed overhead, and Burl
felt as if its weight were bearing down on him as they walked beneath.
Two men were suspended from the scaffolding above. Burl twisted his neck and saw