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

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 Chapter 3
On one of these nights I dream that the Captain is falling again. He is falling through the capsule into the
center of the sun. "Out," he says, "enough of this. I’m calling a halt to the bullshit before they turn me into a
machine." Backed into a bulkhead, I beg him to be controlled and assume command of the voyage again, but
he says he cannot because of the forces of gravity. Gravity is making him fall into the sun.

"I can’t do all this myself," I cry as he begins to slither away again. "I’m only equipped to be the copilot. My
certification is limited."

"I’m sorry," he says with infinite regret, disappeared to the neck now, his fine eyebrows poised as if for sex or
intricate testimony. "I misjudged the whole thing totally. It is a mystery. You will have to do the best you can,
Evans: find some answers of your own," and then he disappears, not saying goodbye. The ship convulses
slightly as if the Captain were excrement just cleansed.

I wonder why I do not follow my commander into the sun and be done with it, but there is not time for
reflection; I have many things to do to keep the ship on course lest it miss Venus and follow the Captain into
the solar region. I resolve to follow it through; perhaps this is another simulation testing my psychological
strength.

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Chapter 4
The personnel in this large and rather homey institution warn me that I cannot go on this way indefinitely, that
I must start acting in a reasonable fashion. "This is a convenient escape for you," they remind me, "and we’ve
allowed it to go on as long as this because we thought you needed some compensatory adjustment, but now
it must come to an end. You must grow up, Evans, face reality again. It is time. It is necessary. You must
remember what happened to you. You must tell us all of this; we need the information to save others. You
would not want to cause the death of a hundred others on the crews because you were too selfish to speak,
would you?"

"You wouldn’t send them out until I had spoken, would you?" I reply, my only response in weeks, and then I
begin to laugh. I laugh heartily in a most unseemly manner and eventually the institutional personnel go
away, although they are scheduled to return to me tomorrow and press me further. The routine is really quite
organized. Some of them are young, but on the other hand, some of them are old. Some of them are male,
but then again a good many of them are female and these, even unto the ugliest and most professionalized, I
eye with vague lust, thinking about connection. I wonder if they will trade a fuck for some information but
decide that their procedures are none of my affair; in addition to that, my lust is idle, idle—the magic rays
from space rendered me impotent at last, which is a blessing. The fury will overtake me no more. I return to
thoughts of the novel I will write, which will be my single attempt to give the full and final truth of the voyage in
such a way that all those who understand will surely admire my strength.

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Chapter 5