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

crackerjack of a jumper, a terrific dancer, and, like it or not, he was handsome to boot -- very handsome
in fact, something that could not exactly be said of Pirx.
They walked the distance of the catwalk, threading their way between the girders, filing past the
rockets parked next to each other in a row, before emerging in the shaft of light that fell vertically through
a 200-meter sliding panel in the ceiling. Two cone-shaped giants -- somehow they always reminded Pirx
of giants -- each measuring 48 meters in height and 11 meters in diameter, in the first-stage booster
section, stood side by side on an assembly of concrete exhaust deflectors.
The hatch covers were open and the gangways already in place for boarding. At about the
midway point, the gangways were blocked by a lead stand, planted with a little red pennon on a flexible
staff. He knew the ritual. Question: "Pilot, are you ready to carry out your mission?" Answer: "Yes, sir, I
am" -- and then, for the first time in his life, he would proceed to move aside the pennon. Suddenly he
had a premonition: during the boarding ceremony he saw himself tripping over the railing and taking a
nose dive all the way to the bottom -- accidents like that happened. And if such accidents happened to
anyone, they were bound to happen to Pirx. In fact, there were times when he was apt to think of himself
as a born loser, though his instructors were of a different opinion. To them he was just a moron and a
bumbler, whose mind was never on the right thing at the right moment. Granted, he had no easy time of it
when it came to words; between his thoughts and his deeds there yawned. . . well, if not an abyss, then at
least an obstruction, some obstacle that was forever making life difficult for him. It never occurred to
Pirx's instructors -- or to anyone else, for that matter -- that he was a dreamer, since he was judged to
be a man without a brain or a thought in his head. Which wasn't true at all.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that Boerst had stationed himself in the prescribed place,
a step away from the gangway, and that he was standing at attention, his hands pressed flat against the
rubber air pouches of his space suit.
On him that wacky costume looks tailor-made, thought Pirx, and on me it looks like a bunch of
soccer balls. How come Boerst's looked uninflated and his own all puffy in places? Maybe that's why he
had so much trouble moving around, why he had to keep his feet spread apart all the time. He tried
bringing them together, but his heels refused to cooperate. Why were Boerst's so cooperative and not his
own? But if it weren't for Boerst, it would have slipped his mind completely that he was supposed to
stand at attention, with his back to the rocket, facing the three men in uniform. Boerst was the first to be
approached. Maybe it was a fluke, and maybe it wasn't, or maybe it was simply because his name began
with a B. But even if accidental, it was sure to be at Pirx's expense. He was always having to sweat out
his turn, which made him nervous, because anything was better than waiting. The quicker the better --
that was his motto.
He caught only snatches of what was said to Boerst, and, ramrod-stiff, Boerst fired off his
answers so quickly that Pirx didn't stand a chance. Then it was his turn. No sooner had the CO started
addressing him than he suddenly remembered something: there were supposed to be three of them flying.
Where was the third? Luckily for him, he caught the CO's last words and managed to blurt out, just in the
nick of time:
"Cadet Pirx, ready for lift-off."
"Hm. . . I see," said the CO. "And do you declare that you are fit, both physically and mentally. .
. ahem. . . within the limits of your capabilities?"
The CO was fond of lacing routine questions with such flourishes, something he could allow
himself as the CO.
Pirx declared that he was fit.
"Then I hereby designate you as pilot for the duration of the flight," said the CO, repeating the
sacred formula, and he went on.
"Mission: vertical launch at half booster power. Ascent to ellipsis B68. Correction to stable
orbital path, with orbital period of four hours and twenty-six minutes. Proceed to rendezvous with
shuttlecraft vehicles of the JO-2 type. Probable zone of radar contact: sector III, satellite PAL, with
possible deviation of six arc seconds. Establish radio contact for the purpose of maneuver coordination.