"Barry N. Malzberg - Beyond Apollo" - читать интересную книгу автора (Malzberg Barry N)


It is in the mirror
When you wake
Anticipating.

It is there
Before you wake
Dancing; its hair
A wheel of hair, its hair
Afire.
You wake, the shadows just
Coming out from behind the chairs.

You try to pull that dance together
From the air.
Quit, capsized
In mere day.

Trim Bissell: 1968

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Chapter 1
I loved the Captain in my own way, although I knew that he was insane, the poor bastard. This was only
partly his fault: one must consider the conditions. The conditions were intolerable. This will never work out.

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Chapter 2
In the novel I plan to write of the voyage, the Captain will be a tall, grim man with piercing eyes who has no
fear of space. "Onward!" I hear him shout. "Fuck the bastards. Fuck control base; they’re only a bunch of
pimps for the politicians anyway. We’ll make the green planet yet or plunge into the sun. Venus forever! To
Venus! Shut off all the receivers now. Take no messages. Listen to nothing they have to say; they only want
to lie about us to keep the administrators content. Venus or death! Death or Venus! No fear, no fear!"

He has also had, in the book, a vigorous and satisfying sex life, which lends power and credence to his
curses and his very tight analysis of the personalities at control. "We will find our humanity under the gases
of Venus," the Captain will say, and then the sounds of the voyage overwhelm us and momentarily he says
nothing more. I sit with hands clasped, awaiting further word.

The novel, when I write it, should find a large commercial outlet. People still love to read stories of space, and
here for the first time they will learn the sensational truth. Even though it is necessary for me to idealize the
Captain in order to make the scheme more palatable, the novel will have great technical skill and will make
use of my many vivid experiences in and out of the program. They cannot do this kind of thing to us and leave
us nothing. I believe that passionately. The novel will be perhaps sixty-five thousand words long, and I will
send it only to the very best publishers.