Читать книгу The Science Fiction Anthology онлайн

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He dropped back to the pilot seat, cursing. Two months of being cramped up in this cubicle, sweating out the trip to Mars without knowing how the new engine would last; three weeks on Mars, mapping frantically to cover all the territory he could, and planting little flags a hundred miles apart; now a week on the trip back at high acceleration most of the way—and this! He’d expected adventure of some kind. Mars, though, had proved as interesting as a sandpile, and even the “canals” had proved to be only mineral striations, invisible from the ground.

He looked for something to do, but found nothing. He’d developed his films the day before, after carefully cleaning the static traps and making sure the air was dust-free. He’d written up the accounts. And he’d been coasting along on the hope of getting home to a bath, a beer, and a few bull sessions, before he began to capitalize on being the first man to reach another planet beyond the Moon.

He cut on full acceleration again, more certain of his motors than of himself. He’d begun to notice the itching yesterday; today he was breaking out in the rash. How long would whatever was coming take? Good God, he might die—from something as humiliating and undramatic as this!