"Edmond Hamilton - Captain Future's Worlds of Tomorrow 02 - Pluto" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Edmond)

But a few believed in Wenzi. They were old space-
men like himself, men who had rocketed with him in
past years and knew his indomitable spirit better than
the public. They came in answer to his call. With
eleven men, in the ship he had called the Johnson,
Wenzi blasted off for Pluto on January 12, 2000.
THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND
The brave explorer refueled and restocked supplies
at the new post on Saturn. From there he vanished out
into the vast empty outer spaces of the System. Not one
person in a million expected him ever to return. But re-
turn he did - four years later the crippled commander
and four surviving men came roaring back to the inner
planets in their battered ship. He had achieved his great
ambition - he bad been first on Pluto.
Wenzi lived only a year after his return to Earth.
The government had decorated him, but refused to per-
mit him to leave the hospital in which he was a virtual
invalid, chafing at the inaction, he wasted away and
soon died. The last words muttered by the indomitable
explorer were, "Blast off!"
Wenzi's expedition had found Pluto a frigid, icy
world, but one where hardy Earthmen could live. Ice-
fields covered almost the whole planet except a narrow
equatorial region of frozen plains, and the great seas
whose salt-content was so high that they remained un-
frozen.
Wenzi had also been the first to discover the March-
ing Mountains, those amazing, titanic glaciers that
move around the planet in a regular path. He had pene-
trated as far southwest as the shores of the Lethe
Ocean, and as far southeast as the curious Ring Sea,
whose whirling tide circled a great central, mountain-
ous island that has never been successfully explored.
None to this day have visited that mysterious island and
returned.
ICE-CITIES OF A FROZEN WORLD
Wenzi had also found the strange ice-cities of the
native Plutonians and had established friendly contact
with that hairy race. He brought back tales of the enor-
mous animals that rove the ice-fields, or biburs and ice-
bears and ice-cats and other huge furred beasts. Also,
he brought back samples of minerals and precious
stones blasted from the frozen plains, which were badly
needed on Earth.
The lure of furs and gems and precious minerals led
further explorers to Pluto, and in 2008 an attempt was
made to establish a colony there. The attempt failed, the
little colony - men, women, and two infants - being
wiped out by one of the ferocious equatorial blizzards.