"Dafydd ab Hugh, Brad Linaweawer DOOM: Hell on Earth (english)" - читать интересную книгу автора

"The thingamabob would have come in useful for
landing. What do they call it? Oh yes, the aerial-
braking system."
She sighed. If there had been more room in our
little cocoon, she might have shrugged as well. "By-
gones," she said. "Sorry for the trouble I caused."
"Arlene, don't be ridiculous! I was having crazy
dreams and was about to go off the deep end myself.
You just went first because you're . . . smaller." It
occurred to me that we were having more of a
discussion than was wise under the circumstances.
"So how in hell do we land this puppy?" No sooner
were these words out of her mouth than Arlene
started yawning.
I figured we should try and set it down anywhere on
dry land. Live or die, I wasn't in the mood for a swim.
If we survived, we could get our bearings anywhere on
EarthЧpick a destination and then haul butt.
We didn't have any time to waste. Thanks to our
stunt with the oxygen, the O2 to CO2 ratio was
dropping. I was in even less mood for us to become
goofy from oxygen deprivation after watching Arlene
go nuts beforeЧthanks, Mr. Disney, but I'm not
going back on that ride.
I had to explain this to Arlene, but she was asleep
again so I explained it to the Martian instead. He was
a little green guy, about three feet high, and I was glad
to see him. "About time one of you showed up," I
said. "We always expected to see guys like you up here
instead of all this medieval stuff."
"Perfectly understandable," he said in the voice of
W. C. Fields. "These demons are a pain. But they're
welcome to Deimos."
"Why is that?" I asked.
"Confidentially, it's an ugly moon, don't you think?
Not at all a work of beauty like Phobos, a drinking
man's moon. Speaking of which, you wouldn't have
some whiskey on you?"
"Sorry, only water."
He was very offended. "You mean that liquid fish
fornicate in? We Martians don't care for the stuff. You
can drown in it, you know. Now ours is a nice, dry
planet, rusty brown like that car of yours after you
abandoned it to the elements. Mars is nice and cold,
good practice for the grave. Are you sure you don't
have any booze?"
I figured he was bringing up drowning just to scare
me. If Arlene and I didn't burn up in the atmosphere,
there was always a good chance of winding up in the
drink and drowning like the Shuttle pioneers had in