"Robert A. Heinlein - The Green Hills of Earth (Collected Stor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

 Delilah and the Space-Rigger

SURE, WE HAD TROUBLE building Space Station One-but the trouble
was people.
Not that building a station twenty-two thousand three hundred miles out
in space is a breeze. It was an engineering feat bigger than the Panama
Canal or the Pyramids-or even the Susquehanna Power Pile. But "Tiny"
Larsen built her and a job Tiny tackles gets built.
I first saw Tiny playing guard on a semi-pro team, working his way
through Oppenheimer Tech. He worked summers for me thereafter till he
graduated. He stayed in construction and eventually I went to work for him.
Tiny wouldn't touch a job unless he was satisfied with the engineering.
The Station had jobs designed into it that called for six-armed monkeys
instead of grown men in space suits. Tiny spotted such boners; not a ton of
material went into the sky until the specs and drawings suited him.
But it was people that gave us the headaches. We bad a sprinkling of
married men, but the rest were wild kids, attracted by high pay and
adventure. Some were busted spacemen. Some were specialists, like
electricians and instrument men. About half were deep-sea divers, used to
working in pressure suits. There were sandhogs and riggers and welders and
ship fitters and two circus acrobats.
We fired four of them for being drunk on the job; Tiny had to break one
stiff's arm before he would stay fired. What worried us was where did they get
it? Turned out a ship fitter had rigged a heatless still, using the vacuum
around us. He was making vodka from potatoes swiped from the
commissary. I hated to let him go, but he was too smart.
Since we were falling free in a 24-hour circular orbit, with everything
weightless and floating, you'd think that shooting craps was impossible. But a
radioman named Peters figured a dodge to substitute steel dice and a
magnetic field. He also eliminated the element of chance, so we fired him.
We planned to ship him back in the next supply ship, the R.S. Half
Moon. I was in Tiny's office when she blasted to match our orbit. Tiny swam
to the view port "Send for Peters, Dad," he said, "and give him the old heave
ho. Who's his relief?"
"Party named G. Brooks McNye," I told him.
A line came snaking over from the ship. Tiny said, "I don't believe she's
matched." He buzzed the radio shack for the ship's motion relative to the
Station. The answer didn't please him and he told them to call the Half Moon.
Tiny waited until the screen showed the rocket ship.
C.O. "Good morning, Captain. Why have you placed a line on us?"
"For cargo, naturally. Get your hopheads over here. I want to blast off
before we enter the shadow." The Station spent about an hour and a quarter
each day passing through Earth's shadow; we worked two eleven-hour shifts
and skipped the dark period, to avoid rigging lights and heating suits.
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 Tiny shook his head. "Not until you've matched course and speed with
us."
"I am matched!"
"Not to specification, by my instruments."
"Have a heart, Tiny! I'm short on maneuvering fuel. If I juggle this entire