Citizen in Spase. Stories / Гражданин в Космосе. Рассказы. Книга для чтения на английском языке

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“Save it for your doctorate,[5 - Save it for your doctorate – Прибереги это для своей диссертации]” Morrison said, and the interpreter grinned cheerfully.

By late afternoon it was time for the destruction of the mountain without a name. Lerner went on a last inspection. Dengue, for once acting like an observer, went down the line jotting down diagrams of the charge pattern. Then everyone retreated. The explosions men crouched in their shelters. Morrison went to Control Point Able.

One by one the section chiefs reported their men in. Weather took its last readings and found conditions satisfactory. The photographer snapped his last “before” pictures.

“Stand by,” Morrison said over the radio, and removed the safety interlocks from the master detonation box.

“Look at the sky,” Lerner murmured.

Morrison glanced up. It was approaching sunset, and black clouds had sprung up from the west, covering an ocher sky.

Silence descended on the camp, and even the drums from nearby hills were quiet.

“Ten seconds… five, four, three, two, one – now!” Morrison called, and rammed the plunger home. At that moment, he felt the wind fan his cheek.

Just before the mountain erupted, Morrison clawed at the plunger, instinctively trying to undo the inevitable moment.

Because even before the men started screaming, he knew that the explosion pattern was wrong, terribly wrong.

Afterward, in the solitude of his tent, after the injured men had been carried to the hospital and the dead had been buried, Morrison tried to reconstruct the event.

It had been an accident, of course: A sudden shift in wind direction, the unexpected brittleness of rock just under the surface layer, the failure of the dampers, and the criminal stupidity of placing two booster charges where they would do the most harm.

Another in a long series of statistical improbabilities, he told himself, then sat suddenly upright.

For the first time it occurred to him that the accidents might have been helped.

Absurd! But planetary construction was tricky work, with its juggling of massive forces. Accidents happened inevitably. If someone gave them a helping hand, they could become catastrophic.

He stood up and began to pace the narrow length of his tent. Dengue was the obvious suspect. Rivalry between the companies ran high.