《Jetsam 》作者：- A. Bertram Chandler【EPUB】

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Bertram ChandlerWITH DECEPTIVE EASE the rocket drifted down down the flare of herexhaust vivid against the black sky the long downreaching streamer ofincandescent gas stirring the fine pumice dust to a coruscating flurry thenas she lost still more altitude fusing the almost impalpable powder to aslag that glowed red red beneath crusty thickening gray for minutes afterher passing.Auxiliary jets flared briefly fiercely to kill her lateral drift. Again theyflared and a third time. The rocket was all of ten feet above the almostfeatureless surface when suddenly main and auxiliary jets went out like asnuffed candle. She fell—but with an odd almost nightmarish slowness.She landed as silently as she had come tilting heavily at first thenslightly first one way and then the other as the powerful fluid-dampedsprings not unlike the recoil mechanism of a piece of artillery took theweight and the shock and after the preliminary swaying and quiveringallowed her to assume an upright position.She stood there then gleaming in the harsh sunlight a bright ovoidsuspended in to tripod that was her vaned landing gear. She shouldperhaps have looked strange alien—but she did not. She was as much partof the scheme of things as the plain of pumice dust as the ring craters asthe serrated ridge of the distant mountain range above which hungseeming almost to touch the jagged peaks looming huge in the blackdiamond-spangled sky the great cloudy opal that was Earth. She was newand bright her shell plating barely scarred by her swift screaming passagethrough the atmosphere of her mother world —but she belonged. She wasnew the first of her kind—but the dream was old old.She was part of the dream.Inside the rocket inside the cramped living cabin that was also the controlroom the men pulled their bulky cumbersome spacesuits on over theirthick porous plastic underwear. The biggest of them all the Captainadjusted clips and zippers stolidly did not so much as glance out of thenow unscreened ports on the shadowed side of the rocket. The Pilot theRadio Technician and the Engineers tried to follow his phlegmatic example.Only the Navigator—his slight body was still almost that of a boy and hehad yet to lose his boyish enthusiasm—stood staring out at the Lunarlandscape his fingers fumbling as he stared groping vaguely and clumsilythrough the routine of the airtight fastenings making foolish mistakes thatbrought a frown to his commanders face.This was all part of the dream—and he was living it.quotSparksquot said the Captain quotyoud better make sure that the Stargazer hasdone his suit up properly. Otherwise