JК
Crashlander :: Нивен Ларри
Страница: 16 из 199I climbed back into my chair, tied myself in with the net, now hanging facedown,and turned on the dictaphone. I told my story in such nit-picking detail that my hypothetical listeners could not but doubt my hypothetical sanity. «I think this is what happened to the Laskins,» I finished. «If the pull increases, I'll call back.»
Think? I never doubted it. This strange, gentle pull was inexplicable. Something inexplicable had killed Peter and Sonya Laskin. QED.
Around the point where the neutron star must be, the stars were like smeared dots of oil paint, smeared radially. They glared with an angry, painful light. I hung facedown in the net and tried to think.
It was an hour before I was sure. The pull was increasing. And I still had an hour to fall.
Something was pulling on me but not on the ship.
No, that was nonsense. What could reach out to me through a General Products hull? It must be the other way around. Something was pushing on the ship, pushing it off course.
If it got worse, I could use the drive to compensate. Meanwhile, the ship was being pushed away from BVS-1, which was fine by me. But if I was wrong, if the ship was not somehow being pushed aWay from BVS-1, the rocket motor would send the Skydiver crashing mito eleven miles of neutronium.
And why wasn't the rocket already firing? If the ship was being pushed off course, the autopilot should be fighting back. The accelerometer was in good order. It had looked fine when I had made my inspection tour down the access tube.
Could something be pushing on the ship and on the accelerometer but not on me? It came down to the same impossibility: something that could reach through a General Products hull.
To hell with theory, said I to myself, said I. I'm getting out of here. To the dictaphone I said, «The pull has increased dangerously. I'm going to try to alter my orbit.»
Of course, once I turned the ship outward and used the rocket, I'd be adding my own acceleration to the X-force. It would be a strain, but I could stand it for a while. If I came within a mile of BVS-1, I'd end like Sonya Laskin.
She must have waited facedown in a net like mine, waited without a drive unit, waited while the pressure rose and the net cut into her flesh, waited until the net snapped and dropped her into the nose, to lie crushed and broken until the X-force tore the very chairs loose and dropped them on her.
I hit the gyros.
The gyros weren't strong enough to turn me. I tried it three times. Each time the ship rotated about fifty degrees and hung there, motionless, while the whine of the gyros went up and up.
Think? I never doubted it. This strange, gentle pull was inexplicable. Something inexplicable had killed Peter and Sonya Laskin. QED.
Around the point where the neutron star must be, the stars were like smeared dots of oil paint, smeared radially. They glared with an angry, painful light. I hung facedown in the net and tried to think.
It was an hour before I was sure. The pull was increasing. And I still had an hour to fall.
Something was pulling on me but not on the ship.
No, that was nonsense. What could reach out to me through a General Products hull? It must be the other way around. Something was pushing on the ship, pushing it off course.
If it got worse, I could use the drive to compensate. Meanwhile, the ship was being pushed away from BVS-1, which was fine by me. But if I was wrong, if the ship was not somehow being pushed aWay from BVS-1, the rocket motor would send the Skydiver crashing mito eleven miles of neutronium.
And why wasn't the rocket already firing? If the ship was being pushed off course, the autopilot should be fighting back. The accelerometer was in good order. It had looked fine when I had made my inspection tour down the access tube.
Could something be pushing on the ship and on the accelerometer but not on me? It came down to the same impossibility: something that could reach through a General Products hull.
To hell with theory, said I to myself, said I. I'm getting out of here. To the dictaphone I said, «The pull has increased dangerously. I'm going to try to alter my orbit.»
Of course, once I turned the ship outward and used the rocket, I'd be adding my own acceleration to the X-force. It would be a strain, but I could stand it for a while. If I came within a mile of BVS-1, I'd end like Sonya Laskin.
She must have waited facedown in a net like mine, waited without a drive unit, waited while the pressure rose and the net cut into her flesh, waited until the net snapped and dropped her into the nose, to lie crushed and broken until the X-force tore the very chairs loose and dropped them on her.
I hit the gyros.
The gyros weren't strong enough to turn me. I tried it three times. Each time the ship rotated about fifty degrees and hung there, motionless, while the whine of the gyros went up and up.