"Donald Westlake - SH3 - Heaven" - читать интересную книгу автора (Westlake Donald E)

HEAVEN

by Donald Westlake

FROM THE BEGINNING of Time, Man has been on the move, ever outward. First he spread over his
own planet, then across the Solar System, then outward to the Galaxies, all of them dotted, speckled,
measled with the colonies of Man.

Then, one day in the year eleven thousand four hundred and six (11,406), an incredible discovery was
made in the Master Imperial Computer back on Earth. Nearly 500 years before, a clerical error had
erased from the computer's memory more than 1000 colonies, all in Sector F.U.B.A.R.3. For half a
millennium, those colonies, young and struggling when last heard from, had had no contact with the rest of
Humanity. The Galactic Patrol Interstellar Ship Hopeful, Captain Gregory Standforth commanding, was
at once dispatched to re-establish contact with the Thousand Lost Colonies and return them to the
bosom of Mankind.



On the command deck of Interstellar Ship Hopeful, Lieutenant Billy Shelby watched the image of Heaven
grow larger on the view screen. "We're coming in," he said. "Pam? All secure?"

Astrogator Pam Stokes, beautiful arid brainy and blind to passion, paused in her contemplation of her
antique slide rule to check the webbing that held her to the pod. "All set."

"What an exciting moment," Billy said. A handsome young idealist, he was the Hopeful's
second-in-command and probably the person aboard who believed most fervently in the ship's mission.
"I wish the captain were up here."

Captain Gregory Standforth himself wandered onto the command deck at that moment, holding a stuffed
bird mounted on a black-plastic-onyx pedestal. "Isn't she a beauty?" he asked and held up this unlovely
creature that in death, as in life, was blessed with a big belly, a pink tuft on top of its orange head and a
lot of bright scarlet feathers on its behind. The captain had bagged it on their last planet fall, Niobe IV,
a.k.a. Casino. "I just finished stuffing her," he explained. Taxidermy was all he cared for in this life, and
only the long, glorious traditions of the Standforth family had forced him into the Galactic Patrol.
Conversely, only those traditions had forced the patrol to accept him.

"Heaven ahead, sir," Billy said. "Secure yourself."

The captain studied his trousers for open zippers. "Secure myself?"

"Take a pod, Captain, sir," Billy explained. "Landing procedure."

"Ah." Settling himself into a pod, the captain slid his bird onto a handy flat surface, thereby inadvertently
pushing a lever. A red light flashed on all the control consoles, and there came a sudden, brief whoosh.
"Oh, dear," the captain said. "Did I do something?"

Billy studied his console. "Well, Captain," he said, "I'm sorry, sir, but you just ejected the laundry,"