The Journey

Начало книги

It was the year Joe graduated from college, and he signed on the Mavourneen for one trip out and back. He wanted to do it, he explained carefully to his father, just to get used to standing on his own feet and earning his living the hard way before beginning to practice the profession his father had paid to have him study for. His father admitted that it was normal for a young man to want to spend a certain amount of time making a fool of himself.

“It’s a sort of honeymoon with life,” he told Joe, “when you and the cosmos seem especially made for each other and you’re sure you’ll never quarrel. All right. Go ahead.”

He did better than consent. He pulled some highly necessary wires so Joe could join the Mavourneen as a spaceman, second class, in spite of competition. And eventually he and Joe’s mother went down to see the Mavourneen lift off. The ship was not new or impressive. She carried cargo only, so Joe was visible to them only as a figure in a white duck crew-suit, working a cargo-crane as the last bales went on board. He saw them and waved, and presently the cargo port closed and sealed, and then the lift-warning horn blared. There was nothing overhead, so it didn’t make a bit of difference, but it was custom. Then came that curious rumbling sound which is a drive warming up, and Joe’s father and mother tried to get rid of the cotton-woolly feeling it made in their ears, and after a little the outside speaker said hollowly: “Seconds to lift:—ten,—nine—eight—seven—”

Читать дальше →