"Chapter 06" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gordon Dickson - Forever Man)

CHAPTER 6

SO BEGAN WAITING IT OUT.
They gave him a first lieutenant and a sergeant who knew
reverything that was needed to know to keep his office run
ning. There wene about fifteen nunutes' worth of decisions he
had to make daily; after that there was nothing for him to do.
He was in Procurement and Supplies, and very junior in that,
as far as he decisions went, anyway. The paperwork he put his
signature to was either for things that obviously had to be
ordered, or for things that, if they represented a bad decision,
Iit was a bad decision that would not prove itself to be so for
months or even years. He listened to the advice of his heuten-
ant and his sergeant, especially that of the sergeant, and in
consequence he could have done the job in his sleep.
Like all Frontier pilots, he was used to playing hard, fast
1and furious during his time off. But now, for all practical
purposes, almost all his tirne was time off. He could run,
swim, play tennis or golf, go to the gym and work out, or go
and camp in the Officers' Club night and day, if that was what
he wanted.
He did it all. The Officers' Club was not emltty in the
daylight hours of the ordinary work week, because there were
always people working night and off-shifts of various kinds,
Iand people coming and going fiom the Base. But by compari-
Ison to the S P.M. to closing hours, it was deserted. Of course,
there were likely to be Frontier pilots in there at almost any
time of the night or day; and when he ran into those he had
instant companionship.
But his pleasure in even this grew thin. As the weeks went
by, and he became more and more removed from his own time
of being out on the Frontier, he became less and les' one of
them. Also, they were out for the same reasons he had been
out, to play, to find women and raise hell generally, as a relief
from a tension he no longer shared; and he found that what
once had been rare and precious, became dull and tasteless
when it was available all the time.
He could not go off Base with the other pilots, which can-
celled him out of most of their adventures and the chance of
finding female playmates, anyway. He learned that Mollen
had been only too correct in forecasting that only a need to
report to someone in Washington or an equal occasion of duty
was considered sufficiently important a reason to allow him
past the gates of the Base. And he also found, gradually, that
he did not really enjoy being with half-drunk friends before
noon, even with his Frontier sidekicks~that he did not enjoy
being with them before dinner time-that, indeed, he no
longer enjoyed being in the usual sort of Earthside celebration
Iof survival at any time at all. He, at least, had nothing to