"James Tiptree Jr. - Houston, Houston Do You Read" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tiptree James Jr)

He often says that too. A ritual, out here in

eternal night. Lorimer watches the sparkle of Spica drift by the reflection of
Bud's curly face-bush. His own whiskers are scant and scraggly, like a blond
Fu Manchu. In the aft corner of the window is a striped glare that must be the
remains of their port energy accumulators, fried off in the solar explosion
that hit them a month ago and fused the outer layers of their windows. That
was when Dave cut his head open on the sexlogic panel. Lorimer had been banged
in among the gravity wave experiment, he still doesn't trust the readings.
Luckily the particle stream has missed one piece of the front window; they
still have about twenty degrees of clear vision straight ahead. The brilliant
web of the Pleiades shows there, running off into a blur of light.

Twelve minutes . . . thirteen. The speaker sighs and clicks emptily. Fourteen.
Nothing.

"Sunbird to Houston, Sunbird to Houston. Come in, Houston. Sunbird out." Dave
puts the mike back in its holder. "Give it another twenty-four."

They wait ritually. Tomorrow Packard will reply Maybe.

"Be good to see old Earth again," Bud remarks.

"We're not using any more fuel on attitude," Dave reminds him. "I trust Doc's
figures."

It's not my figures, it's the elementary facts of celestial mechanics, Lorimer
thinks; in October there's only one place for Earth to be. He never says it.
Not to a man who can fly two-body solutions by intuition once he knows where
the bodies are. Bud is a good pilot and a better engineer; Dave is the best
there is. He takes no pride in it. "The Lord helps us, Doc, if we let Him."

"Going to be a bitch docking if the radar's screwed up," Bud says idly. They
all think about that for the hundredth time. It will be a bitch. Dave will do
it. That was why he is hoarding fuel.

The minutes tick off.

"That's it," Dave says-and a voice fills the cabin, shockingly.

"Judy?" It is high and clear. A girl's voice.
"Judy, I'm so glad we got you. What are you doing on this band?"

Bud blows out his breath; there is a frozen instant before Dave snatches up
the mike.

"Sunbird, we read you. This is Mission Sunbird calling Houston, ah, Sunbird
One calling Houston Ground Control. Identify, who are you? Can you relay our
signal? Over."