"Stanley G. Weinbaum - The Worlds of If" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weinbaum Stanley G)

I was rushing over the ground toward the glittering, silver-winged projectile that was the Baikal. A
glowering officer waved me on, and I dashed up the slant of the gangplank and into the ship; the port
dropped and I heard a long "Whew!" of relief.

"Sit down!" barked the officer, gesturing toward an unoccupied seat. I fell into it; the ship quivered under
the thrust of the catapult, grated harshly into motion, and then was flung bodily into the air. The blasts
roared instantly, then settled to a more muffled throbbing, and I watched Staten Island drop down and
slide back beneath me. The giant rocket was under way.

"Whew!" I breathed again. "Made it!" I caught an amused glance from my right. I was in an aisle seat;
there was no one to my left, so I turned to the eyes that had flashed, glanced, and froze staring.

It was a girl. Perhaps she wasn't actually as lovely as she looked to me; after all, I was seeing her through
the half-visionary screen of a psychomat. I've told myself since that she couldn't have been as pretty as
she seemed, that it was due to my own imagination filling in the details. I don't know; I remember only
that I stared at curiously lovely silver-blue eyes and velvety brown hair, and a small amused mouth, and
an impudent nose. I kept staring until she flushed.

"I'm sorry," I said quickly. "IтАФwas startled."

There's a friendly atmosphere aboard a trans-oceanic rocket. The passengers are forced into a crowded
infirmary for anywhere from seven to twelve hours, and there isn't much room for moving about.
Generally, one strikes up an acquaintance with his neighbors; introductions aren't at all necessary, and the
custom is simply to speak to anybody you chooseтАФsomething like an all-day trip on the railroad trains of
the last century, I suppose. You make friends for the duration of the journey, and then, nine times out of
ten, you never hear of your traveling companions again.

The girl smiled. "Are you the individual responsible for the delay in starting?"
I admitted it. "I seem to be chronically late. Even watches lose time as soon as I wear them."

She laughed. "Your responsibilities can't be very heavy."

Well, they weren't of course, though it's surprising how many clubs, caddies, and chorus girls have
depended on me at various times for appreciable portions of their incomes. But somehow I didn't feel
like mentioning those things to the silvery-eyed girl.

We talked. Her name, it developed, was Joanna Caldwell, and she was going as far as Paris. She was an
artist, or hoped to be one day, and of course there is no place in the world that can supply both training
and inspiration like Paris. So it was there she was bound for a year of study, and despite her demurely
humorous lips and laughing eyes, I could see that the business was of vast importance to her. I gathered
that she had worked hard for the year in Paris, had scraped and saved for three years as fashion
illustrator for some woman's magazine, though she couldn't have been many months over twenty-one.
Her painting meant a great deal to her, and I could understand it. I'd felt that way about polo once.

So you see, we were sympathetic spirits from the beginning. I knew that she liked me, and it was obvious
that she didn't connect Dixon Wells with the N. J. Wells Corporation. And as for meтАФwell, after that
first glance into her cool silver eyes, I simply didn't care to look anywhere else. The hours seemed to drip
away like minutes while I watched her.

You know how those things go. Suddenly I was calling her Joanna and she was calling me Dick, and it