"Alan E. Nourse - Rocket to Limbo" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nourse Alan E)

"John, I wish we could go along."
• He patted her shoulder. "I know. I do too. But our work Is here."
"A hundred years, maybe two hundred! How can they hope to make it?"
He watched the last of the ground-crew scurrying down the ramps, heard the expectant
hush falling over the crowd. "I don't know, but they'll make it," he said firmly. "They wiH."
There was a restless stirring as the seconds passed. Then, like thunder gathering in the
distance, rising louder and-founder, the roar began. White flame blossomed from the jet of
the ship, billowed out in a searing mushroom against the fallout dampers, as the roar
echoed and re-echoed down the valley. Slowly, as if lifted gently on the magic fire the ship
rose; slowly, then faster, higher and higher. The mushroom became a tongue of fire as the
roar rose to a scream and the ship drove heavenward. The eyes of Earth followed the
8 ROCKET TO LIMBO
great finger of light into the sky, not daring to breathe, waiting, waiting-
And then the ship was gone. A sigh rippled through the crowds of people, and they
turned their faces away from the sky. Slowly the crowd began to melt away, leaving the
granite pedestal with the bronze plaque sitting in the gathering dusk, waiting to receive the
ship when she returned. When? No one knew. No one there would live to see it.
The Long Passage had begun.
The young woman clenched her husband's hand, and without a word they turned away.
She felt her child move within her, and she smiled.
He will be proud of his grandfather, she thought, if he's a he.
She did not know that the great-grandson of this unborn son of hers would be the man
who would give mankind a Short Passage to the stars.
Silently, John and Mary Koenig turned and left the field as darkness gathered.


Chapter One

STAR SHIP GANYMEDE
ad astha, the words on the bronze plaque read.
The block of granite that held the plaque was darkened with age; the bronze itself was
green, the words obscure and hard to'make out. Lars Heldrigsson shifted his Spacer's pack
down from his broad shoulder and bent over, squinting, to make out the letters.
Launched: March 3, 2008 Returned:
ROCKET TO LIMBO 9
There was no date on the second line. Slowly the young man ran his eyes down the
names of the crewmen and felt the old familiar prickle of wonder and excitement starting at
the base of his spine. They must have been brave ones, those people, he thought. Trying to
make a Star-jump with ordinary unassisted thrust engines! It seemed incredible, and yet
they had done it. Where were they now? Dead long since, of course, but what about their
grandchildren and great-grandchildren? Lars tried to imagine being born and raised in a
Star Ship, depending upon tapes and films for knowledge of Earth and Earthmen left
behind, never knowing the crunch of gravel under the feet, or the warm flush of a summer
breeze on the cheek. Had they finally reached a landfall, ever, anywhere?
Certainly they had never returned to Earth. After three hundred and fifty years the granite
launching rack still stood empty. The rocket port had grown up around it, engulfing it .as the
years passed, until it stood in the great central lobby of the busy Terminal, a silent monument
to the desperation and bravery of the ship that was launched there. " Nor had the Argonaut
ever reached the planets of Alpha Centauri, its intended destination, for modern
Koenig-drive ships had searched those planets long and diligently and found no trace, no