"Robert A. Heinlein - Have Space Suit Will Travel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

See that? Out of my silly head! Oscar didn't really speak; I had let my
imagination run wild too long. So I quit patting him, hauled the crate out and
took a wrench from his belt to remove the gas bottles.
I stopped.
Both bottles were charged, one with oxygen, one with oxy-helium. I had
wasted money to do so because I wanted, just once, to try a spaceman's mix.
The batteries were fresh and power packs were charged.
"Oscar," I said softly, "we're going to take a last walk together.
Okay?"
("Swell!")
I made it a dress rehearsal -- water in the drinking tank, pill
dispensers loaded, first-aid kit inside, vacuum-proof duplicate (I hoped it
was vacuum-proof) in an outside pocket. All tools on belt, all lanyards tied
so that tools wouldn't float away in free fall. Everything.
Then I heated up a circuit that the F.C.C. would have squelched had they
noticed, a radio link I had salvaged out of my effort to build a radio for
Oscar, and had modified as a test rig for Oscar's ears and to let me check the
aiming of the directional antenna. It was hooked in with an echo circuit that
would answer back if I called it -- a thing I had bread hoarded out of an old
Webcor wire recorder, vintage 1950.
Then I climbed into Oscar and buttoned up. "Tight?"
("Tight!")
I glanced at the reflected dials, noticed the blood-color reading,
reduced pressure until Oscar almost collapsed. At nearly sea-level pressure I
was in no danger from hypoxia; the trick was to avoid too much oxygen.
We started to leave when I remembered something. "Just a second, Oscar."
I wrote a note to my folks, telling them that I was going to get up early and
catch the first bus to the lake. I could write while suited up now, I could
even thread a needle. I stuck the note under the kitchen door.
Then we crossed the creek into the pasture. I didn't stumble in wading;
I was used to Oscar now, sure-footed as a goat.
Out in the field I keyed my talkie and said, "Junebug, calling Peewee.
Come in, Peewee."
Seconds later my recorded voice came back: " 'Junebug, calling Peewee.
Come in, Peewee.'"
I shifted to the horn antenna and tried again. It wasn't easy to aim in
the dark but it was okay. Then I shifted back to spike antenna and went on
calling Peewee while moving across the pasture and pretending that I was on
Venus and had to stay in touch with base because it was unknown terrain and
unbreathable atmosphere. Everything worked perfectly and if it had been Venus,
I would have been all right.
Two lights moved across the southern sky, planes I thought, or maybe
helis. Just the sort of thing yokels like to report as "flying saucers." I
watched them, then moved behind a little rise that would tend to spoil
reception and called Peewee. Peewee answered and I shut up; it gets dull
talking to an idiot circuit which can only echo what you say to it.
Then I heard: "Peewee to Junebug! Answer!"
I thought I had been monitored and was in trouble -- then decided that
some ham had picked me up. "Junebug here. I read you. Who are you?"
The test rig echoed my words.