"Robert A. Heinlein - Waldo" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

тАШOh, rats! YouтАЩre old-fashioned.тАЩ
тАШI may be. Nevertheless, any peculiarities I have
managed to retain to my present age I plan to
hang on to. No.тАЩ
тАШLook - IтАЩll polarize the hull before we raise. How about it?тАЩ
тАШOpaque?тАЩ
тАШOpaque.тАЩ
Grimes slid a regretful glance at his own frumpish boat,
but assented by fumbling for the barely visible port of
the speedster. Stevens assisted him; they climbed in
and straddled the stick.
тАШAtta boy, Doc,тАЩ Stevens commended, тАШIтАЩll have you
there in three shakes. That tub of yours probably wonтАЩt
do over five hundred, and Wheelchair must be all of
twenty-five thousand miles up.тАЩ
тАШIтАЩm never in a hurry,тАЩ Grimes commented, тАШand donтАЩt
call WaldoтАЩs house тАЬWheelchairтАЭ - not to his face.тАЩ
тАШIтАЩll remember,тАЩ Stevens promised. He fumbled,
apparently in empty air; the hull suddenly became
dead black, concealing them. It changed as suddenly
to mirror bright; the car quivered, then shot up out of sight.

Waldo F. Jones seemed to be floating in thin air at the centre
of a spherical room. The appearance was caused by the fact
that he was indeed floating in air. His house lay in a free orbit,
with a period of just over twenty-four hours. No spin had
been impressed on his home; the pseudo gravity of
centrifugal force was the thing he wanted least. He had left
Earth to get away from its gravitational field; he had not been
down to the surface once in the seventeen years since his
house was built and towed into her orbit; he never intended
to do so for any purpose whatsoever.
Here, floating free in space in his own air-conditioned shell,
he was almost free of the unbearable lifelong slavery to his
impotent muscles. What little strength he had he could spend
economically, in movement, rather than in fighting against the
tearing, tiring weight of the EarthтАЩs thick field.
Waldo had been acutely interested in space flight since early
boyhood, not from any desire to explore the depths, but
because his boyish, overtrained mind had seen the enormous
advantage, to him, in weightlessness. While still in his teens
he had helped the early experimenters in space flight over a
hump by supplying them with a control system which a pilot
could handle delicately while under the strain of two or three
gravities.
Such an invention was no trouble at all to him; he had simply
adapted manipulating devices which he himself used in
combating the overpowering weight of one gravity. The first
successful and safe rocket ship contained relays which had
once aided Waldo in moving himself from bed to wheelchair.