"Gordon R. Dickson - Space Winners" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

It was a little, Jim Rawlins thought at last on Sunday night, like being the fastest gun west
of Tombstone.

He had no liking for the reputation he had picked up, especially these last two years, for
being stubborn. He tried to duck it. But somebody was always coming around to challenge
him.

Sunday night, sitting out in the Rawlins carport, wrestling a rebuilt bearing into the
gyrostabilizer of his motorbike, it had happened again. This time about odds. And with
Ward Stuyler, who had been with him al! through the last five years of junior and senior
high school.

"You say it and then you take it back in the next breath!" Ward finally exploded. He was
perched on a five-gallon oil can, watching Jim tap the bearing into place in the torn down
gyro system.

"No, I don't," said Jim.

"But you admit nearly a million to one is long odds!" Ward yelled. "Then you turn around
and say there'd be nothing impossible about being one of the three winners the Aliens'11
pick from the continental U.S. testing area. Three out of nearly three million graduating
high-school seniors!"

"I say it, because there wouldn't," said Jim, doggedly. "Practically impossible has to mean I
can figure safely that for practical purposes something's not going to happen. But this is
going to happenтАФfor three people. For those three, like the seventeen other winners the
Aliens are supposed to pick in the other testing areas around the world, it never was
practically impossible."

"ButтАФ" Ward tried hard to break in, but Jim plowed ahead.

"тАФIn fact," said Jim, "it was a cinch. Those three just happened to be the ones with the
exact chance combination of talent and character that the Alien Federation's looking for.
For the three we're talking about, then, it was certain from the startтАФthey just didn't know
it. And 'them' might include you, or me."

"There!" said Ward. "You said it yourselfтАФ 'Chance.' Chance is luck, isn't it?"

"No," said Jim, scowling. "Anyway, not for me. It'dbebadluck."

"Sure, sure I know!" said Ward. "You've got your future all planned. So you wouldn't want
to go-"

"That's right," said Jim, stiffly.

"You must be the only one out of the entire three million who thinks that way; that's all I've
got to say," said Ward. "Catch me turning it down if I was one of the ones picked! You know
our area got its tests finished firstтАФthat means our three will probably be the first humans
into interstellar space. Catch me turning down something like that! I'd come back to Earth
full of Alien information no one else here on Earth knew, and be fixed for life. Anyway, you