"Gordon R. Dickson - The Far Call 2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

Outside, the booster shuttles were now pointing away at an angle from Phoenix One.
"Booster Shuttle One to Phoenix One," said the phones in the helmets of Bap, Tad and Anoshi, "So
long, and good luck."
"So long, Phoenix One," said the different voice of the Shuttle Two pilot, "good luck to y'all."
"Same to you," said Tad. "So long."
Bright fire, barely visible in the sunlight of space, spurted from the jets of the two shuttles. They
seemed to hang there a moment, not moving; then they began to shrink, at first slowly, then more and
more rapidly, until they were suddenly gone.
Somewhere off the starboard of Phoenix One, Tad knew, the two booster shuttles of Phoenix
Two would also be retro-firing to head homeward into Earth orbit again.
"Mission Control," said Tad, punching up the Mission Control frequency on the console before him.
"Our booster shuttles have just taken off. We're now ready to restore Phoenix One to an active status."
"Roger, Phoenix One," came back the voice of Mission Control. "We copy that. You're now going
to restore Phoenix One to active status. Your next communication with us will be 1600 hours, according
to schedule."
"Roger," said Tad. "Copy, 1600 hours. Over and out for now, then."
"Over and out, Phoenix One," said Mission Control.
Tad switched back to communication with his two crewmates.
"O.K.," he said. "Let's get this ship unbuttoned and back in full operation."
He sat up on his couch and the other two rose with him. Still in their suits, they turned to the business
of bringing the ship around them up to operating conditions.
Primarily, this meant restoring the operational and life-support systems of the ship, which with the
exception of the biomedical lab, had been under storage conditions for the last nineteen days, since
loading had been completed of the two Mars mission ships which had been constructed in orbit. Chief of
these systems was the five-psi nitrogen-oxygen operating atmosphere of those sections of the ship where
the three of them would live and operate without suits, closely followed in importance by the thermal
control systems and the power distribution systems. Plus all the related mechanical activities of the ship
that would enable them to live and work aboard her for three years, until they saw Earth orbit again. In
his mind's eye Tad saw the duties to be done like soldiers standing at attention, waiting to be dealt with.
The three of them raised their couches into control position, and went to work on the consoles before
them where primary controls for all the systems were located. One by one, the small red sensing lights
began to burn in signal that the systems were up to full operational level. Then, one by one, for the benefit
of the ship's automatic log recorder as well as for their own, each of them went verbally through a
checklist of the systems he had brought to full activity.
"... and all systems full on," said Tad aloud, finally winding up the checklist. "Phoenix One in
completely active operating status. All right, let's start our visual check of the decks."
He led the others as they got to their feet and headed toward the tube running through the center of
all four of the ship's decks and giving access to each of them. In the absence of gravity, and still in their
spacesuits, they bumped somewhat clumsily against each other, opening the door to the access tube and
entering it. Tad went first, pulling his way along the tube—in the direction that "down" would be, once
Phoenix One and Phoenix Two were docked together and rotated to provide a substitute for gravity
until he reached the door opening on B Deck. This was the first deck below A, the control deck they had
just left; like A it consisted of a doughnut-shaped space, 'the outer wall of which was separated from the
skin of the ship only by insulation and a network of thermal tubes designed to balance interior
temperature between the heat of that side of the ship in direct sunlight and the chill of that side in the
shade. The interior wall of B Deck, like that of all the decks, was the wall of the access tube.
"Home," said Anoshi, cheerfully, when they had all emerged on B Deck. And, in fact, that was what
it was.
Unlike A Deck, which was all open space with the control consoles and other equipment spaced
about its floor, B Deck was partitioned. Three of the spaces enclosed by partitions were the individual