"Lem - Seventh Voyage" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lem Stanislaw)

returning to his high connections, decorations and grandchildren,
till finally we shouted him down and ordered him to hold his tongue.

The next two vortices cruelly thinned our ranks. After the third,
not only was there more room, but all of those in spacesuits had
disappeared as well. One empty suit remained; we voted to hang it up
in the corridor, then went back to our deliberations. Then,
following another scuffle for the possession of that precious
garment, a new vortex came along and suddenly the place was
deserted. I was sitting on the floor, puffy-eyed, in my strangely
spacious cabin, surrounded by broken furniture, strips of clothing,
ripped up books. The floor was strewn with ballots. According to the
map, I had now passed through the entire zone of gravitational
vortices. No longer able to count on duplication, and thus no longer
able to correct the damage, I fell into numb despair.



Part 8. The Best of Me
Back to: TOC | Lem
About an hour later I looked out in the corridor and discovered, to
my great surprise, that the spacesuit was missing. But then I
vaguely remembered--yes--right before that last vortex two little
boys sneaked out into the corridor. Could they have possibly, both
of them, put on the one spacesuit?!
Struck by a sudden thought, I ran to the controls. The rudder
worked! So then, those little tykes had fixed it after all, while we
adults were stuck in endless disagreements. I imagine that one of
them placed his arms in the sleeves of the suit, and the other--in
the pants; that way, they could have tightened the nut and bolt with
wrenches at the same time, working on either side of the rudder. The
empty spacesuit I found in the air lock, behind the hatch. I carried
it inside the rocket like a sacred relic, my heart full of boundless
gratitude for those brave lads I had been so long ago! And thus
concluded what was surely one of my most unusual adventures. I
reached my destination safely, thanks to the courage and
resourcefulness I had displayed when only two children.
It was said afterwards that I invented the whole thing, and those
more malicious even went so far as to insinuate that I had a
weakness for alcohol, carefully concealed on Earth but freely
indulged during those long and lonely cosmic flights. Lord only
knows what other gossip has been circulating on the subject. But
that is how people are; they'll willingly give credence to the most
far-fetched drivel, but not to the simple truth, which is precisely
what I have presented here.