"Robert A. Heinlein - A tenderfoot in space (original version)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

around you. Never mind—how about a game before dinner?”
Charlie still resented being shut out of the nicest parts of the ship—he
had -never felt like a second-class anything (citizen, or passenger)
before in his life; the feeling was not pleasant. He decided to get rich
on Venus. He would make the biggest uranium strike in history; then
he would ride first class between Venus and Earth whenever he felt
like it—that would teach those stuck-up snobs!
He then remembered he had already decided to be a famous
spaceman. Well, he would do both. Someday he would own a
space line.. . and one of the ships would be his private yacht. But by
the time the Hesperus reached the halfway point he no longer
thought about it.
The emigrants saw little of the ship’s crew, but Charlie got acquainted
with Slim, the emigrants’ cook. Slim was called so for the reason that
cooks usually are; he sampled his own wares all day long and was
pear shaped.
Like all space ships, the Hesperus was undermanned except for
astrogators and engineers—why hire a cook’s helper when the space
can be sold to a passenger? It was cheaper to pay high wages to a
cook who could perform production-line miracles without a helper.
And Slim could.
But he could use a helper. Charlie’s merit badge in cooking plus a
willingness to do as he was told made him Slim’s favorite volunteer
assistant. Charlie got from it something to do with his time,
sandwiches and snacks whenever he wanted them, and lots of
knowledgeable conversation. Slim had not been to college but his
curiosity had never dried up; he had read everything worth reading in
several ship’s libraries and had kept his eyes open dirtside on every
inhabited planet in the Solar System.
“Slim, what’s it like on Venus?”


15
 “Mmm. . . pretty much like the books say. Rainy. Hot. Not too
bad at Borealis, where you’ll land.”
“Yes—but what’s it like?”
“Why not wait and see? Give that stew a stir. . . and switch on the
shortwaver. Did you know that they used to figure that Venus couldn’t
be lived on?”
“Huh? No, I didn’t.”
“struth. Back in the days when we didn’t have space flight, scientists
were certain that Venus didn’t have either oxygen nor water. They
figured it was a desert, with sand storms and no air you could
breathe. Proved it, all by scientific logic.”
“But how could they make such a mistake? I mean, obviously, with
clouds all over it and—”
“The clouds didn’t show water vapor, not through a spectroscope
they didn’t. Showed lots of carbon dioxide, though, and by the
science of the last century they figured they had proved that Venus
couldn’t support life.”