"Baldwin, Bill - The Helmsman 03 - The Trophy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Baldwin Bill)

"Start by calling out the altitude every couple thousand irals or so," Brim said grimly. "My altimeter conked out this morning."
"Twelve thousand irals," Hamlish announced presently. "I guess we've slowed some, haven't we?"
"Yeah," Brim agreed, "the rate indicator shows that." It was better, but still awfully fast. "Button up the cargo holds, Mr. Morris," he warned, speaking into the display.

"Cargo holds are secure, Mr. Brim," Morris replied calmly.
Brim envied him his space suit; it would be a big help in a crash landfall. Since passengers didn't wear them, however, bridge crews couldn't either.
"Ten thousand irals, and the checkout panel's lit, Mr. Brim," Hamlish reported.
"Got you—read the checklist to me as it displays."
"Aye, Mr. Brim. Shoulder harnesses?"
"Check," Brim answered, struggling into a network of faded webbing. He wondered how strong it actually was after all these years.
"Buoyancy chambers?"
Brim checked an emergency area beside the altimeter readout. Three green lights—the old rustbucket thought she could float, anyway. "Ready," he said hopefully.
"Eight thousand irals."
"Check." The undercast seemed to be coming up at them faster as the distance narrowed. He shuddered.
"Steering engine on continuous power?"
"Continuous power—check."
"Autoflight panels?"
"Off," Brim said emphatically. Under these circumstances, he wasn't about to trust anybody's hundred-year-old autohelm.
"Emergency beacon?"
"It'll be on soon as you hit the green panel under your forward Hyperscreen."
"It's on."
"Check."
"Six thousand irals. That's the last item from the panel checklist, Mr. Brim."
"Very well," Brim acknowledged. "Just stay where you are. I'll call out a few more items myself in a moment."
Suddenly, they plunged into the clouds. At once, torrents of rain began to thunder against the fiery Hyperscreens, transformed instantly to steam while the old starship bounced and groaned in the darkening gloom. They were soon in such dense vapor that their forward position light bathed the outside world in a ghostly white glow, while the rotating beacon blinked dazzling green across it like disrupter fire.
"Speed brakes?" Brim asked. "Five lights over there on panel two."

"Five lights... on."
"Good work, Hamlish," Brim said. Then, "Pam, are you strapped in down there?"
"With my back against a bulkhead, Wilf."
"What about the passengers?"
"Safe as I can make 'em."
"Wish me luck, then."
"You bet—real good luck, sweetie."
"Three thousand irals..."
A heartbeat later, they broke out into driving snow over a seascape of whitecapped swells. Brim glanced at the leaden gray combers below while ice suddenly frosted the fast-cooling Hyperscreens. He switched on the heat and melted it, but he didn't need ice to tell him that it was cold down there.
An altitude warning horn sounded. "One thousand irals," Hamlish reported.
"Thanks," Brim acknowledged, almost wholly consumed in setting up his landing. "What's our airspeed?" Now, he was clumsily turning upwind across the troughs of the swells. They suddenly looked bigger than battleships.
"Airspeed one sixty-three." Hamlish's voice was getting tight and squeaky.
Brim chuckled to himself. He wasn't the only one terrified by the view through the forward Hyperscreens. Only a few hundred irals separated them from the rolling violence of those swells. "Brace yourself," he warned. "Here we go."
"Pull up! Pull up!" cautioned the ship's altitude alert.
He punched the alarm into silence as he rolled the port radiator into a rogue gust, then dropped the nose slightly. Speed meant lift, and he'd soon need all of the latter he could get. Somehow, he had to set her down on the relative calm of an upward slope while traveling in the opposite direction. Long patterns of lacy spume marked the troughs parallel to his flight path. A sudden gust threw Jamestown's nose to starboard again; this time, she began to crab sideways. Grinding his teeth, Brim rolled the port radiator lower. After what seemed like an eon, she began to line up again—but now, no more than thirty irals separated her belly from the crest of an oncoming swell. Time to get her down. Brim carefully raised her nose till she slowed, barely maintaining lift. Timing was everything now; a false move and they were all dead. The old starship trembled vio-

lently as the radiators began to stall, but Brim deftly willed her airborne with the steering engine at full forward until—moments before the next crest passed beneath the hull—he brought the nose up sharply, then plunged behind the mountainous wavetop as it surged astern, dousing the Hyperscreens with foam and spume.
A split click later, old Jamestown smashed onto the back of the wave, launching two massive cascades of green water high overhead and shuddering back in the air while Brim struggled to raise her nose from the next impact. Suddenly he stiffened. In the corner of his eye he caught a large inspection hatch hanging from the leading edge of the port radiator. It had clearly torn open at the first violent impingement, and was now scuffing the surface in short bursts of mist. Before he could react, it caught the roiled surface, then separated in an explosive cloud of spray, dropping the wingtip precipitously. In desperation, he put the helm hard to starboard, but it was too late. The radiator's tip dug into the water and the starship cartwheeled. With the steering engine at full detent, he struggled to whipsaw back on course, and almost made it—but not quite. When the ship slammed into the next wave, her nose was still down. The concussion knocked out the local gravity and pushed the City of Jamestown violently back to starboard. Loose equipment cascaded wildly along the bridge floor while the air filled with screams from the lower decks and Brim's face smashed into the readout panel. The starboard Hyperscreens gave way to a tempest of dazzling high-voltage sparks. Before Brim could move, green water erupted onto the flight bridge like an explosion.
Spluttering and coughing, Brim fought against the shoulder straps in a desperate effort to keep his head above the flood. Whining emergency pumps began to labor in the background as waves surged in all directions through the flight bridge. Then the water stopped pouring in as the old starship reared her nose skyward, hung for awful clicks, and plunged back in a great welter of spray. Moments later, she careened to a stop, rolling wildly, parallel to the endless ranks of swells. Somehow, she was down.
With Hamlish back at his station anxiously contacting various manned compartments to see who might have survived, Brim secured the few controls that yet needed attention, then leaned out the side window and looked sadly back along James-

town's listing hull. Here and there, her plates were wrinkled like cheap tissue paper. The spaceframe had clearly given way in a number of locations. He'd done his best for the old girl. It simply hadn't been good enough.
He shook his head as he watched a tug materialize out of the driving snow overhead and begin setting up a landfall. Clearly, this was the end of the line for old City of Jamestown—and probably StarFleet Enterprises as well. Then he took a deep breath and pursed his lips grimly. For all practical purposes, he supposed, it was also the end of the line for Wilf Ansor Brim, at least economically.