"Stanislaw Lem - Tales of Pirx the Pilot" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lem Stanislaw)

First Bard Printing, August, 1981

BARD TRADEMARK REG. U. S. PAT. OFF. AND IN OTHER
COUNTRIES, MARCA REGISTRADA, HECHO EN U. S. A.

Printed in the U. S. A.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Contents

The Test
The Conditioned Reflex
On Patrol
The Albatross
Terminus




The Test

"Cadet Pirx!"
Bullpen's voice snapped him out of his daydreaming. He had just had visions of a two-crown
piece lying tucked away in the fob pocket of his old civvies, the ones stashed at the bottom of his locker.
A jingling, shiny silver coin -- all but forgotten. A while ago he could have sworn nothing was there, an
old mailing stub at best, but the more he thought about it, the more plausible it seemed that one might be
there, so that by the time Bullpen called out his name, he was absolutely sure of it. The coin was now
sufficiently real that he could feel it bulging in his pocket, so round and sleek to the touch. There was his
ticket to the movies, he thought, with half a crown to spare. And if he settled for some newsreel shorts,
that would leave a crown and a half, of which he'd squirrel away a crown and the rest blow on the slot
machines. Oh, what if the machine suddenly went haywire and coughed up so many coins into his waiting
hands that he couldn't stuff his pockets fast enough. . .? Well, why not -- it happened to Smiga, didn't it?
He was already reeling under the burden of his unexpected windfall when Bullpen roused him with a
bang.
Folding his hands behind his back and shifting his weight to his good leg, his instructor asked:
"Cadet Pirx, what would you do if you were on patrol and encountered a ship from an alien
planet?"
Pirx opened his mouth wide, as if the answer were there and all he had to do was to force it out.
He looked like the last person on Earth who knew what to do when meeting up with a vessel from an
alien planet.
"I would maneuver closer," he answered, his voice muted and strangely hoarse.
The class froze in welcome anticipation of some comic relief.
"Very good," Bullpen said in a fatherly sort of way. "Then what would you do?"
"I would stop," Pirx blurted out, sensing that he was drifting off into realms that lay vastly beyond
his competence. Furiously he racked his empty brains in search of the appropriate paragraphs from his
Space Manual, but it was as if he had never laid eyes on it. Sheepishly he lowered his gaze, and as he did
so, he noticed that Smiga was trying to prompt him -- with his lips only. One by one he deciphered
Smiga's words and repeated them out loud, before he had a chance to fully digest them.
"I'd introduce myself."