"Heinlein, Robert A - A Tenderfoot in Space - Original Version v1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

УDo you think,Ф Zecker answered angrily, Уthat I would let you take the dog if I hadnТt?Ф
УSorry.Ф
УJust keep him quiet, but not too quiet. Keep him awake.Ф
Charlie answered solemnly, УI will, Doctor NixieТs going to be all rightЧI know he is.Ф
Charlie stayed awake all night long, talking to Nixie, petting him, keeping him quiet but not -asleep. Neither one of his parents tried to get him to go to bed.


II


Nixie liked Venus. It was filled with a thousand new smells, all worth investigating, countless new sounds, each of which had to be catalogued. As official guardian of the Vaughn family and of Charlie in particular, it was his duty and pleasure to examine each new phenomenon, decide whether or not it was safe for his people; he set about it happily. -
It is doubtful that he realized that he had traveled other than -that first lap in- the traveling case to White Sands. He took up his new routine without noticing the five months clipped out of his life; he took charge of the apartment assigned to the Vaughn family, inspected it
- thoroughly, then nightly checked it to be sure that all was in order and safe before he tromped out his place on the foot of CharlieТs bed and tucked his tail over his nose.
He was aware that this was a new place, but he was not homesick. The other home had been satisfactory and he had never dreamed of leaving it, but this new home was still better. Not only did it have CharlieЧwithout whom
no place could be homeЧnot only did it have wonderfu] odors, but also he found the people more agreeable. Iii the past, many humans had been quite stuffy aboul flower beds and such trivia, but here he was almost nevei scolded or chased away; on the contrary people were anxious to speak to him, pet him, feed him. His popular. ity was based on arithmetic: Borealis had fifty-five thou. sand people but only eleven dogs; many colonists were homesick for manТs traditional best friend. Nixie did nol know this, but he had great capacity for enjoying the good things in life without worrying about why.
Mr. Vaughn found Venus satisfactory. His work foi Synthetics of Venus, Ltd. was the sort of work he had done on Earth, save that he was now paid more and given more responsibility. The living quarters provided by the company were as comfortable as the house he had left back on Earth and he was unworried about the future of his family for the first time in years.
Mrs. Vaughn found Venus bearable but she was homesick much of the time.
Charlie, once he was over first the worry and then the delight of waking Nixie, found Venus interesting, less strange than he had expected, and from time to time he was homesick. But before long he was no longer homesick; Venus was home. He knew now what he wanted to be: a pioneer. When he was grown he would head south, deep into the unmapped jungle, carve out a plantation.
The jungle was the greatest single fact about Venus. The colony lived on the bountiful produce of the jungle. The land on which Borealis sat, buildings and spaceport, had been torn away from the hungry jungle only by flaming it dead, stabilizing the muck with gel-forming chemicals, and poisoning the land thus claimedЧthen flaming, cutting, or poisoning any hardy survivor that pushed its green nose up through the captured soil.
The Vaughn family lived in a large apartment building which sat on land newly captured. Facing their front door, a mere hundred feet away across scorched and
poisoned soil, a great shaggy dark-green wall loomed higher than the buffer space between. But the mindless jungle never gave up. The vines, attracted by lightЧtheir lives were spent competing for light energyЧfelt their way into the open space, tred to fill it. They grew with incredible speed. One day after breakfast Mr. Vaughn tried to go out his own front door, found his way hampered. While they had slept a vine had grown across the hundred-foot belt, supporting itself by tendrils. against the dead soil, and had started up the front of the building. -
The police patrol of the city were armed with flame guns and spent most of their time cutting back such hardy intruders. While they had power to enforce the law, they rarely made an arrest. Borealis was a city almost free of crime; the humans were too busy fighting nature in the raw to require much attention from policemen.
But the jungle was friend as well as enemy. Its lusty life offered food for millions and billions of humans in place of the few thousands already on Venus. Under the jungle lay beds of peat, still farther down were thick coal seams representing millions of years of lush jungle growth, and pools of oil waiting to be tapped. Aerial survey by jet-copter in the volcanic regions promised uranium and thorium when man could cut his way through and get at
it. The planet offered unlimited wealth. But it did not offer it to sissies.

Charlie quickly bumped his nose into one respect in which Venus was not for sissies. His father placed him in school, he was assigned to a grade taught by Mr. deSoto. The school room was not attractiveЧФgrimФ was the word Charlie used, but he was not surprised, as most buildings in Borealis were unattractive, being constructed either of spongy logs or of lignin panels made from jungle growth.
But the school itself was Уgrim.Ф Charlie had been humiliated by being placed one grade lower than he had expected; now he found that the lessons were stiff and that Mr. deSoto did not have the talent, or perhaps the wish to make them fun. Resentfully, Charlie loafed.
After three weeks Mr. deSoto kept him in after school. УCharlie, whatТs wrong?Ф -
УHuh? I mean, СSir?Ф
УYou know what I mean. YouТve been in my class nearly a month. You havenТt learned anything. DonТt you want to?Ф
УWhat? Why, sure I do.Ф
УSurelyТ in that usage, not Сsure.Т Very well, so you want tO learn; why havenТt you?Ф
Charlie stood silent. He wanted to tell Mr. deSoto what a swell place Horace Mann Junior High School had been, with its teams and its band and its student plays and its student council (this crazy school didnТt even have a student council!), and its study projects picked by the kids themselves, and the Spring Outburst and Sneak Day. . . andЧoh, shucks!
But Mr. deSoto was speaking. УWhere did you last go to school, Charlie?Ф
Charlie stared. DidnТt the teacher even bother to read his transcript? But he told him and added, УI was a year farther along there. I guess IТm bored, having to repeat.Ф
УI think you are, too, but I donТt agree that you are repeating. They had an eighteen-year Jaw there, didnТt they?Ф -
УSir?Ф
УYou were required to attend school until you were eighteen Earth-years old?Ф
УOh, that! Sure. I mean Сsurely.Т Everybody goes to school until heТs eighteen. ThatТs to Сdiscourage juvenile delinquency,Ф he quoted.
УI wonder. Nobody ever flunked, I suppose.Ф
УSir?Ф
УFailed. Nobody ever got tossed out of school or left back for failing his studies?Ф -
УOf course not, Mr. deSoto. You have to keep age groups together, or they donТt develop socially as they should.Ф
УWho told you that?Ф
УWhy, everybody knows that. IТve been hearing that ever since I was in kindergarten. ThatТs what education is forЧsocial development.Ф
Mr. deSoto leaned back, rubbed his nose. Presently he said slowly; УCharlie, this isnТt that kind of a school at all.Ф
Charlie waited. He was annoyed at not being invited to sit down and was wondering what would happen if he sat down anyway.
УIn the first place we donТt have the eighteen-year rule. You can quit school today. You know how to read. Your handwriting is sloppy but it will do. You are quick in arithmetic. You canТt spell worth a hoot, but thatТs your misfortune; the city fathers donТt care whether you learn to spell or not. YouТve got all the education the City of Borealis feels obliged to give you. If you want to take a flame gun and start carving out your chunk of the jungle, nobody is standing in your way. I can write a note to the Board of Education, telling them that Charles Vaughn, Jr. has gone as far as he ever will. You neednТt come back tomorrow.Ф
Charlie gulped. He had never heard of anyone being dropped from school for anything less than a knife fight. It was unthinkableЧwhat would his folks say?
УOn the other hand,Ф Mr. deSoto went on, УVenus needs educated citizens. WeТll keep anybody as long as they keep learning. The city will even send you back to Earth for advanced training if you are worth it, because we need scientists and engineers. . . and more teachers. But this is a struggling new community and it doesnТt have a penny to waste on kids who wonТt study. We do flunk them in this school. If you donТt study, weТll lop you off so fast youТll think youТve been trimmed with a flame gun. WeТre not running the sort of overgrown kindergarten you were in. ItТs up to you. Buckle down and learn. . . or get out. So go home and talk it over with your folks.Ф