"James E. Gunn - Station In Space" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gunn James E)

miles above, staring out at the stars.

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Hoax
BY DAYLIGHT THE ROOM was small and shabby. Amos had outgrown it, as he had outgrown the
bed.

But at night it still had its magic.

When the venetian blinds were closed and the light was off, the stars still came out fluorescently, and the
planets, spinning gently in the smallest breath of air, seemed real and close. And the moonтАФpocked and
familiarтАФa boy could almost reach up and touch it.

Best of all was the S.1.2.тАФthe DoughnutтАФglowing right above the bed, and the boy, lying there, was
free-falling in space, one of the heroes, one of the spacemen.

The boy was grown now, and the sun bleached the stars into tiny spots of paint and exposed the black
thread that held up the planets and the S.1.2. The time for dreams was over.

She bustled around the room. The models spun and swayed. "You'll want this," she said briskly, holding
out the book.

He took it, the thumbed, batteredConquest of Space with the achingly beautiful Bonestells, and put it
back on the shelf. "Gosh, Mom," he pleaded, trying to make her understand. "I don't need that. I'm
through with all this. Give this junk to Tommy."

"The way you talkтАФa person would think you weren't coming back," she complained, her voice breaking
in the middle.

"Now, Mom." He slipped an arm around her shoulder and squeezed. "We've talked this out. I'm grown
up; I'm not a boy any more. All these things"тАФhe dismissed them with a careless handтАФ"I've got to put
away. But I'll be back on leaves and Earth-duty and things."

She's faded,he thought. Since he had been at the Academy. It had been a long time since he had thought
she was the most beautiful woman in the world. His mother had grown old.

It had been a sad trip home. Maybe it had been a mistake, coming home. Maybe it would have been
better to have refused the leave. He had wanted to. But that wouldn't have been fair, either.

He folded over the thin, blue nylon of the spacepack and zipped it shut on his few personal belongings.
Her eyes misted. Irritation crossed his face. "Now what's the matter?"
"You're taking so little," she said and caught her lower lip between her teeth.

"You know the weight limit," he said sharply. Then his voice softened. "Ten pounds. To put that on the
Doughnut takes sixteen hundred pounds of fuel. Whatever else I need will be there. The Air Force won't
let me go naked."

"I know." She sighed. She brightened determinedly "If you're packed, come right downstairs. I saved a
piece of pie."