"Pohl, Frederik - The High Test" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pohl Frederick)

The High TestTHE HIGH TEST
Fredrik Pohl

Version 1.0


Of all the science-fiction writers who inspired and delighted my youth, the one
who most completely saturated the pleasure centers of my brain was the late
Edward Elmer Smith, Ph.D. I wasn't the only one who felt that. Doc Smith
invented the "space opera, the high-tech deep-space adventuring that set the
style for everything from John Campbell's first stories to Star Wars and beyond.
It's a crying shame that Doc's The Skylark of Space has never been made into a
movie; it's as thrilling and colorful as the best of them, and a lot more
intelligently imagined. One of the joys of growing up to be an editor was that I
was able to get Doc to write new stories for me ("Skylark DuQuesne was the most
important of them), so that I could carry on into middle age the joys of my
youth. When Doc died, I mourned deeply. His daughter and son-in-law, Verna and
Albert Trestrail, are long-term and well-loved friends and when, a summer or two
ago, I stayed for a few days at their comfortable home in central Indiana, I was
enchanted to find that Verna still owned Doc's own personal typewriter, a
four-square old Woodstock as
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THE HIGH TEST 77


big as a breadbasket. Could I write a story on it? I begged. Of course, Verna
answered, and kindly kept my coffee cup filled and fresh ashtrays within reach
as, over two long days, I wrote the first draft of "The High Test. The former
cabin boy had grown to command the Q.E. 2! Of course, "The High Test is not
exactly a Doe Smith story. But it's not exactly a typical Fred Pohl story,
either, and I expect the reason is that I was thinking of Doc all the time I was
writing it.
2213 12 22 1900UGT
Dear Mom:
As they say, there's good news and there's bad news here on Cassiopeia 43-G. The
bad news is that there aren't any openings for people with degrees in quantum-
mechanical astrophysics. The good news is that I've got a job. I started
yesterday. I work for a driving school, and I'm an instructor.
I know you'll say that's not much of a career for a twenty-six-year-old man with
a doctorate, but it pays the rent. Also it's a lot better than I'd have if I'd
stayed on Earth. Is it true that the unemployment rate in Chicago is up to
eighty percent? Wow! As soon as I get a few megabucks ahead I'm going to invite
you all to come out here and visit me in the sticks so you can see how we live
here-you may not want to go back!
Now, I don't want you to worry when I tell you that I get hazardous duty pay.
That's just a technicality. We driving instructors have it in our contracts, but
we don't really earn it. At least, usually we don't-although there are times
like yesterday. The first student I had was this young girl, right from Earth.
Spoiled rotten! You know the kind. rich, and I guess you'd say beautiful, and
really used to having her own way. Her name's Tonda Aguilar- you've heard of the