"04 - Mirror of Ice by Gary Wright" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nebula Awards)

red, then deliberately winked twice. At the same time two
red rockets arced out over the valley and exploded into twin
crimson fireballs.
Two minutes.
On both sides of the starting ramp, cantilevered gracefully
from the mountainside, brightly bannered platforms were
crowded with people. He glanced at the hundreds of blankly
staring sunglasses, always the same, always turned to the ramp
as if trying to see inside the helmets of these men, as if trying
to pry into the reasons of their being there waiting to die. He
looked back to the deep valley; today he wondered too.
. . . just one last time, wasn't that what you told yourself?
One last race and that's the end of it and good-by to the
sleds and thank God! Wasn't that your personal promise?
Then what in hell are you doing here? That "last race" was
last month's race. Why are you in this one?
No answer.
All he could find inside were cold questions and a hollow
echo of the wind. He gripped the steering wheel, hard, until
cramps began in his hands; he would think about his sled. . . .
It was his eleventh sled, and like the others it was a brilliant
red, not red for its particular flash, but because of a possible
crash far from the course in deep snow. He wanted to be
found and found fast. Some of the Kin had never been found
in time.
. . . they didn't find Bob Lander until that summer
He forced himself back.
Empty, the sled weighed 185 pounds and looked very
much like the body-shell of a particularly sleek racer but with
a full bubble canopy and with runners instead of wheels. It
was a mean-looking missile, low and lean, hardly wider than
his shoulders, clearing the ice by barely two inches. He sat
nearly reclining, the half wheel in his lap, feet braced on the
two edging pedalsand this was the feature that made these
sleds the awesome things they were. They could tilt their
runnersfour hollowground, chrome-steel "skis"edging
them against the ice like wide skate blades. This was what bad
changed bobsiedding into . . . this: this special thing with its
special brotherhood, this clan apart, this peculiar breed of men
set aside for the wonder of other men. The Kin, they called
themselves.
. . . someone once, laughing, had said, "Without peer, we
are the world's fastest suicides."
He snapped himself back again and checked his brakes.
By pulling back on the wheel, two electrically operated
flapsactually halves of the sled's tail sectionswung out on
either side. Silly to see, perhaps. But quite effective when this
twelve and a half square feet hit the airstream at eighty mph.
A button under his right thumb operated another braking
system: with each push it fired forward a solid rocket charge