"Edgar Pangborn- West of the Sun" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pangborn Edgar)

oxygen-happy—if we go down… Well, Dorothy—two continents, two oceans, both
smaller than the Atlantic, connected narrowly at north and south polar regions.
Dozens of lakes bigger than the Caspian. The proportion of land to water surface
works out nearly the same as on Earth. No mountains to match the Himalayas, but
some pretty high ranges. Unlimited forest, prairie, desert." He closed bloodshot
eyes, pressing the lids. Paul Mason thought: I should never try to paint Ed. The
portrait would always come out as Hercules Frustrated, and he wouldn't care for
it… Spearman said, "Even most of the tallest mountains look smooth—old. If there
were glaciers it was a long time ago."
"Geologically a quiet phase," Sears Oliphant remarked. "As Earth looked in the
Jurassic and may look again." Born fifty years ago in Tel Aviv, brought up in
London, Rio, and New York because his parents were medical trouble shooters for
the Federation, and possessed of a doctorate in biology (more exactly, taxonomy)
from Johns Hopkins, Sears Oliphant claimed that his original Polish name could
not have been spelled with the aid of two dictionaries and a crowbar. His fat face
blinked at" Dorothy with little kind eyes. "I forget, sugar—you weren't around in the
Jurassic, were you?"
"Maybe." Her slow smile was for Paul. "As a very early mammal."
Wright said, "No artifacts… At first it looked like Venus." His crinkled
asymmetrical face probed at them with a wistful half smile like a child's. "May we
call this planet Lucifer, son of the morning? And if we land and found a city (or am
I being ridiculous?)—let it be Jensen City, in honor of a more-than-solar myth."
Shading closed lids, Spearman said with harshness, "Myth?"
"Why, Ed, yes—like all remembered heroes who continue in the love of others, a
love that magnifies. How else would you have it?"
"But"—Ann Bryan was high-voiced, troubled—"Lucifer—"
"My dear, Lucifer was an angel. Devils and angels have a way of turning out to be
the same organism. I noticed that first when I was a damned interne. I noticed it
again when I switched to anthropology. I even noticed it on a space ship with the
five persons I love best… No artifacts, huh?"
Dorothy said, "You haven't seen these latest pictures, Doc."
"Something?" Wright hurried over, gray eyes wide and sparkling. "I'd quit
hoping." Ann joined him, quick-motioned in her slimness, too taut. Wright slipped
an elderly arm around her. "Parallel lines, in jungle? Ah… Now, why none in the
open ground?"
Spearman suggested: "We could take more shots. But…"
Paul Mason broke the darkening silence. "But what, Ed?"
"We're falling, some. I could move us out into a self-sustaining orbit by using
more of the reaction mass. We have none to waste. Jensen's death eleven years
ago—"
Spearman shook his gaunt but heavy head. "Thirty pre-calculated
accelerations—and the rest periods they allowed us were insufficient, I think. You
remember what wrecks we were when it was finished; that's why I tried to allow
more time in deceleration." His brassy voice slowed, fetching out words with care:
"The last acceleration, as you know, was not pre-calculated. Jensen was already
dead (must have been heart) when his hand took us out of automatic, made another
acceleration that damn near flattened us—"
"Still here though." Sears Oliphant chuckled and patted his middle. "We made it,
didn't we, boy?" It sounded a little forced.
"In deceleration I had to allow for the big step Jensen never meant; more of the