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

make one more circle over the woods if I can and try for the north end of this
meadow."
A startled croak: "I'll jet off—give you room." Paul saw the squirt of green flame.
Ed's boat darted westward like a squeezed apple seed. Paul dipped and leveled off
as much as he dared. "We're—all right."
He lived with it a timeless time. Knowing it would happen. They were circling
over jungle, pointed into sunset. The jet would only make matters worse—rip the
heart out. Soon the meadow would come around again…
But the moment was now. An end of the moaning vibration. A lurch. Paul's hand
leaped stupidly for the charlesite ignition and checked itself.
Calm, but for the reeling of sunset. I must tell Dorothy not to fight the straps:
L-46 is solid—is solid—
Then the smash, the tearing and grinding. Somehow no death. Sky in the
window changed to a gloom of purple and green. No death. Elastic branches? Metal
whimpered and shrieked. Is that us? They built them solid…
There was settling into silence. The pressure on Paul's cheek, he knew, was the
wonderfully living pressure of Dorothy's hand, because it moved, it pinched his ear,
it groped for his mouth. A hiss. Through the wrenched seams the old air of Earth
yielded to the stronger weight of Lucifer's. The starboard wing parted with a squeal
like amusement, letting the boat's body rest evenly on the ground, and Christopher
Wright said, "Amen."




2
«^»

The earphones were squawking: "speak up! can you hear me? Can you—"
"Not hurt. Seams open, and there goes Sears' thirty-six-hour test for air-borne
bacteria. Down and safe, Ed."
"Listen." In relief, Ed Spearman was heavily didactic again. "You are three
quarters of a mile inside the jungle. I will land near the woods. It will be dark in
about an hour. Wait there until we—"
"One minute," Paul said in sudden exhaustion. "We can find you, easier. Sears'
test is important. We're already exposed to the air, but—"
"What? Can't hear—damn it—" The voice dimmed and crackled.
"Stay sealed up!" Nothing. "Can you hear?" Nothing. "Oh, well, good," said Paul,
discarding the headset, adding foolishly: "I'm tired."
Dorothy unfastened his straps; her kiss was warm and quick.
"Radio kaput, huh?" Wright flexed lean cautious legs. "Pity. I did want to tell
Sears one I just remembered after eleven years, about poor lackadaisical Lou, who
painted her torso bright blue, not for love, not for money, not because it looked
funny, but simply for something to do."
"You're not hurt, Doc," Dorothy said. "Not where it counts."
"Can't kill an anthropologist. Ask my student Paul Mason. Leather hides, pickled
in a solution ten parts curiosity to one of statistics. Doctors are mighty viable too.
Ask my student Dorothy Leeds."
Paul's forehead was wet. "Dark in an hour, he reminded me."
"How close are we to the nearest of those parallel lines?"