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

A howl went up from the class. Bullpen struggled for a moment; then he, too, exploded with
laughter, only to assume a serious expression again.
"Cadet Pirx, you will report to me tomorrow with your navigation book. Cadet Boerst!"
Pirx sat down at his desk as if it were made of uncongealed glass. He wasn't even sore at Smiga
-- that's the kind of guy he was, always good for a gag. He didn't catch a word of what Boerst was
saying; Boerst was trying to plot a graph while Bullpen was up to his old trick of turning down the
electronic computer, leaving the cadet to get bogged down in his computations. School regs permitted
the use of a computer, but Bullpen was of a different mind. "A computer is only human," he used to say.
"It, too, can break down." Pirx wasn't sore at Bullpen, either. Fact is, he wasn't sore at anyone. Hardly
ever. Five minutes later he was standing in front of a shopwindow on Dyerhoff Street, his attention caught
by a display of gas pistols, good for firing blanks or live ammo, a set consisting of one pistol and a
hundred cartridges priced at six crowns. Needless to say, he only imagined he was window-browsing on
Dyerhoff Street.
The bell rang and the class emptied, but without all that yelling and stampeding of lowerclassmen.
No sir, these weren't kids anymore! Half of the class meandered off in the direction of the cafeteria
because, although no meals were being served at that time, there were other attractions to be had -- a
new waitress, for example (word had it she was a knockout). Pirx strolled leisurely past the glass
cabinets where the stellar globes were stored, and with every step saw his hopes of finding a two-crown
piece in the pocket of his civvies dwindle a little more. By the time he reached the bottom of the
staircase, he realized the coin was just a figment of his imagination.
Hanging around the lobby were Boerst, Smiga, and Payartz. For a semester he and Payartz had
been deskmates in cosmodesy, and he had him to thank for all the ink blots in his star atlas.
"You're up for a trial run tomorrow," Boerst let drop just as Pirx was about to overtake them.
"No sweat," came his lackadaisical reply. He was nobody's fool.
"Don't believe me? Read for yourself," said Boerst, tapping his finger on the glass pane of the
bulletin board.
He had a mind to keep going, but his head involuntarily twisted around on its axis. The list
showed only three names -- and there it was, right at the top, as big as blazes: Cadet Pirx.
For a second, his mind was a total blank.
Then he heard a distant voice, which turned out to be his own.
"Like I said, no sweat."
Leaving them, he headed down a walkway lined with flower beds. That year the beds were
planted with forget-me-nots, artfully arranged in the pattern of a descending rocket ship, with streaks of
now faded buttercups suggesting the exhaust flare. But right now Pirx was oblivious of everything -- the
flower beds, the pathway, the forget-me-nots, and even of Bullpen, who at that very instant was hurriedly
ducking out of the Institute by a side entrance, and whom he narrowly missed bumping into on his way
out. Pirx saluted as they stood cheek to jowl.
"Oh, it's you, Pirx!" said Bullpen. "You're flying tomor-row, aren't you? Well, have a good
takeoff! Maybe you'll be lucky enough to. . . er. . . meet up with those people from alien planets."
The dormitory was situated behind a wall of sprawling weeping willows on the far side of the
park. It stood overlooking a pond, and its side wings, buttressed by stone columns, towered above the
water. The columns were rumored to have been shipped back from the Moon, which was blatant
nonsense, of course, but that hadn't stopped the first-year students from carving their initials and class
dates on them with an air of sacrosanct emotion. Pirx's name was likewise among them, four years having
gone by since the day he had diligently inscribed it.
Once inside his room -- it was too cramped to serve as anything but a single -- he debated
whether or not to open the locker. He knew exactly where his old pants were stashed. He had held on to
them, despite the fact that it was against the rules -- or maybe because of that -- and even though he had
hardly any use for them now. Closing his eyes, he crouched down, stuck his hand through the crack in
the door, and gave the pocket a probing pat. Sure enough -- empty.