"Robert A. Heinlein - Farmer In The Sky" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

you had one?тАЭ he asked. тАЬStick your head out the window and look for road signs? We can see anything
we need to see. Sam, heat up the video and show the kids.тАЭ

тАЬAye aye, Skipper.тАЭ The other chap swam over to his couch and started turning switches. He left his
sandwich hanging in the air while he did so.

I looked around. The control room was circular and the end we came in was bigger than the other end;
it was practically up in the nose of the ship and the sides sloped in. There were two couches, one for the
pilot and one for the co-pilot, flat against the wall that separated the control room from the passenger
compartments. Most of the space between the couches was taken up by the computer.

The couches were fancier than the ones the passengers had; they were shaped to the body and they
lifted the knees and the head and back, like a hospital bed, and there were arm rests to support their
hands over the ship's controls. An instrument board arched over each couch at the middle, where the
man in the couch could see the dials and stuff even when his head was pushed back into the cushions by
highg.

The TV screen lighted up and we could see Earth; it filled most of the screen. тАЬThat's 'View Aft',тАЭ the
copilot said, тАЬfrom a TV camera in the tail. We've got 'em pointing in all directions. Now we'll try 'View
Forward'.тАЭ He did, but it didn't amount to anything, just a few tiny little dots that might have been stars.
Hank said you could see more stars out a port.

тАЬYou don't use it to look at stars,тАЭ he answered. тАЬWhen you need to take a star sight, you use the
coelostats. Like this.тАЭ He lay back on the couch and reached behind his head, pulling an eye piece
arrangement over his face until the rubber guard fitted over one eye without lifting his head off the couch.
тАЬCoelostatтАЭ is just a trick name for a telescope with a periscope built into it. He didn't offer to let us look
through it, so I looked back at the instrument board. It had a couple of radar presentations, much like
you'll find in any atmosphere ship, even in a copter, and a lot of other instruments, most of which I didn't
understand, though some of them were pretty obvious, like approach rate and throat temperature and
mass ratio and ejection speed and such.

тАЬWatch this,тАЭ said the co-pilot. He did something at his controls; one of the tiny blips on the TV screen
lit up very brightly, blinked a few times, then died away. тАЬThat was Supra-New-York; I triggered her
radar beacon. You are not seeing it by television; it's radar brought on to the same screen.тАЭ He fiddled
with the controls again and another light blinked, two longs and a short. тАЬThat's where they're building the
Star Rover.тАЭ

тАЬWhere's theMayflower?тАЭ Hank asked.

тАЬWant to see where you're going, eh?тАЭ He touched his controls again; another light came on, way off to
one side, flashing in groups of three.

I said it didn't look much like we were going there. The Captain spoke up. тАЬWe're taking the long way
round, past the fair grounds. That's enough, Sam. Lock your board.тАЭ

We all went back where the Captain was still eating. тАЬYou an Eagle Scout?тАЭ he asked me. I said yes
and Hank said he was too.

тАЬHow old were you when you made it?тАЭ he wanted to know. I said I had been thirteen, so Hank said
twelve, whereupon the Captain claimed he had made it at eleven. Personally I didn't believe either one of