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who would go on ahead?
 Altitude twenty-one kilometers! shouted Gorbovsky.  I m switching over to
horizontal.
Now come the endless minutes of horizontal flight, thought Sidorov. The
ghastly minutes of horizontal flight. Minute after minute of jerks and nausea,
until they ve enjoyed their explorations to the full. And Vll sit here like a
blind man, with my stupid smashed machine.
The craft lurched. The blow was very strong, enough to cause a momentary
vision blackout. Then Sidorov, gasping for breath, saw Gorbovsky smash his
face into the control board, and Falkenstein stretch out his arms, fly over
the couch, and slowly, as if in l68 " THE PLANET WITH ALL THE CONVENIENCES
a dream, come to rest on the deck. He remained there, face down. A piece of
strap, broken in two places, slid over his back evenly, like an autumn leaf.
For a few seconds the craft moved by inertia, and Sidorov, seizing the clasp
of his straps, felt that everything was falling. But then his body became
heavy once again.
Finally he unfastened the clasp and stood up on legs of cotton. He looked at
the instruments. The needle of the altimeter was climbing upward, the yellow
zigzags of the monitoring system rushed about in blue hops, leaving behind
foggy traces which slowly faded out. The cybernavigator was heading the craft
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away from Vladislava. Sidorov jumped over Falkenstein and went up to the
board. Gorbovsky was lying with his head on the control keys. Sidorov looked
back at Falkenstein. He was already sitting up, propping himself up on the
deck. His eyes were closed. Then Sidorov carefully lifted up Gorbovsky and
laid him on the back of the seat. To hell with the autolab, he thought. He
turned off the cybernavigator and rested his fingers on the sticky keys. The
Skiff-Aleph began to swing about, and suddenly dropped a hundred yards.
Sidorov smiled. He heard Falkenstein wheeze angrily behind him,  Don t you
dare!
But he didn t even turn around.
 You re a good pilot, and you made a good landing. And in my opinion you re an
excellent biologist, said Gorbovsky. His face was all bandaged.  Excellent. A
real go-getter. Isn t that so, Mark?
Falkenstein nodded, and, parting his lips, he said,  Undoubtedly. He made a
good landing. But he wasn t the one who raised ship again.
 You see, Gorbovsky said with great feeling,  I read your monograph on
protozoa it s superb. But we have come to the parting of the ways.
Sidorov swallowed with difficulty and said,  Why?
Gorbovsky looked at Falkenstein, then at Bader.  He doesn t understand.
Falkenstein nodded. He was not looking at Sidorov. Bader also nodded, and
looked at Sidorov with a sort of vague pity.
 Well? And? Sidorov asked defiantly.
 You re too fond of excitement, Gorbovsky said softly.  You know, Sturm und
Drangy as Director Bader would say.
 Storm and stress, Bader translated pompously.
 Precisely, said Gorbovsky.  Entirely too fond. And we can t have that. It s
a rotten character trait. It s deeply ingrained. And you don t even
understand.
 My lab was smashed, said Sidorov.  I couldn t do anything else.
Gorbovsky sighed and looked at Falkenstein. Falkenstein said with disgust,
 Let s go, Leonid.
 I couldn t do anything else, Sidorov repeated stubbornly.
 You should have done something else. Something quite different, said
Gorbovsky. He turned and started down the corridor.
Sidorov stood in the middle of the corridor and watched the three of them
leave, Bader and Falkenstein each supporting Gorbovsky by an arm. Then he
looked at his own hand and saw red drops on the fingers. He started for the
med section, leaning against the wall because he was swaying from side to
side. / wanted to do what was right, he thought. / mean, that was the most
important thing, landing. And I brought back the containers of mi-crofauna. I
know that s very valuable. It s valuable for Gorbovsky too: after all, sooner
or later he himself will have to land and carry out a sortie across
Vladislava. And the bacteria will kill him if I don t neutralize them. I did
what I had to. On Vladislava, on a planet of a blue star, there is life. Of
course I did what I had to. He whispered several times,  I did what I had to.
But he felt that it wasn t quite so. He had first felt this down there, down
below, when they were standing by the spaceship, waist deep in seething
petroleum, with geysers on the horizon rising up in enormous columns, and
Gorbovsky had asked him,  Well, what do you intend to do now, Mikhail? and
Falkenstein had said something in an unfamiliar language and had climbed back
into the spaceship. He had felt it again when the Skiff-Aleph had forced her
way off the surface of the fearsome planet for the third time, and once again
had flopped down into the oily mud, struck back by a blow of the storm. And he
felt it now.
 I wanted to do what was right, he said indistinctly to Dickson, who was
helping him lie down on the examining table.
 What? said Dickson.
 I had to land, Sidorov said.
 Lie down/ said Dickson. He muttered,  Primordial enthusiasm ....
I70 " THE PLANET WITH ALL THE CONVENIENCES
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Sidorov saw a large white pear-shape coming down from the ceiling. The
pear-shape hung quite close, over his very face. Dark spots swam before his
eyes, his ears rang, and suddenly Falken-stein started singing in a heavy
bass,
But had you not come back that day, Then who would go on ahead?
 Anybody at all, Sidorov said stubbornly with closed eyes.  Anyone would go
on ahead.
Dickson stood by, and watched the cybersurgeon s delicate shining needle enter
the mutilated arm. There s sure enough blood! thought Dickson. Oceans and
oceans. Gorbovsky barely got them out of there in time. Another half hour, and
the kid would never again be making excuses. Well, Gorbovsky always comes back
in time. That s the way it ought to be. Assaultmen ought to come back, or else
they wouldn V be Assaultmen. And once upon a time, every Assaultman was like
Athos here.
*
12. Deep Search
The cabin was rated for one person, and now it was too crowded. Akiko sat to
Kondratev s right, on the casing of the sonar set. To keep out of the way, she
squeezed herself against the wall, bracing her feet against the base of the
control panel. Of course she was uncomfortable sitting like that, but the seat
in front of the panel was the operator s station. Belov was uncomfortable too.
He was squatting beneath the hatch, from time to time stretching his numbed
legs carefully by turns, first the right, then the left. He would stretch out [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]