"Robert L. Forward - Rocheworld 02 - Return to Rocheworld" - читать интересную книгу автора (Forward Robert L)

surface of the moon-sized planetoid Roche -- one lobe of the double planet
Rocheworld. Behind them, hanging motionless in the sky and covering almost
ninety degrees of the sky, was the other lobe, Eau, covered with a deep
ammonia-water ocean. Far off in the distance was the only other planet
orbiting Barnard, the large gas giant Gargantua, with its retinue of twelve
moons.
The two lobes of Rocheworld orbited around each other with a period of
six hours. The centrifugal force from this co-rotation was enough to keep
their mutual gravity from pulling them together, but the tides from their
close proximity were so strong that they pulled the two planetoids into




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distinct egg shapes, with the two pointed ends separated by only eighty
kilometers distance.
The pointed part of Roche was a region of giant volcanos and deep
fissures. The volcanos were now in full eruption because of the greatly
increased tidal strains on the crust from the close approach of Rocheworld to
Barnard during this part of its highly elliptical orbit. The pointed part of
Eau was a one hundred fifty kilometer high mountain of water with sixty degree
slopes, held that way by the unusual gravity field pattern produced in the
region between the two massive planetoids. Although Roche was dry during most
of its short year, this was the flood season, and there was now plenty of
water, a veritable wall of water that had come from a gigantic waterfall that
occurred once a year during the time of close passage -- an interplanetary
waterfall from the top of the water mountain of Eau onto the volcano covered
dome of Roche.
Ahead of the wall of water raced an airplane, striving to reach the
return rocket before the wall of water got there. Designed to fly in any
atmosphere, the aerospace plane had a nuclear rocket in the tail for long
range flights, and VTOL fans in its long, glider-like wings for hovering. But
the rocket engine had failed and the fans were damaged. The only thing keeping
them in the air was the skill of their pilot, Arielle Trudeau.
Arielle made one tiny adjustment to the controls, tightened her seat
belt and shoulder harness, then put her hands into her lap, allowing the
semi-intelligent computer of the airplane to act as autopilot during their
long pre-programmed glide. She turned to look at George Gudunov out of her
helmet, her glowing personal imp arranged across her short curly light-brown
locks in a combined hairband piece and pilot earphones.
"We have hard landing," she reminded him.
"And just ten minutes to get the six of us up the side of the lander,"
George said as he tightened his seat belt and held a conversation with chief
engineer Shirley Everett through the colorful robotic imp riding on his
shoulder inside his spacesuit.
"You four get into the exit lock and cycle it, but don't open the outer
door until we've stopped moving. Put your backs to the front wall and take
some bedding to protect your helmets. Jinjur will never forgive us if we add
anyone to her butcher bill."