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

then moved to his end of the bed.
Mrs. Vaughn said to Mr. Vaughn, “Charles, isn’t there anything we
can do for the boy?”
“Confound it, Nora. We’re getting to Venus with too little money as it
is. If anything goes wrong, we’ll be dependent on charity.”
“But we do have a little spare cash.”
“Too little. Do you think I haven’t considered it? Why, the fare for that
worthless dog would be almost as much as it is for Charlie himself!
Out of the question! So why nag me? Do you think I enjoy this
decision?”
“No, dear.” Mrs. Vaughn pondered. “How much does Nixie weigh? I. .
. well, I think I could reduce ten more pounds if I really tried.”
“What? Do you want to arrive on Venus a living skeleton? You’ve
reduced all the doctor advises, and so have I.”
“Well.. . I thought that if somehow, among us, we could squeeze out
Nixie’s weight—it’s not as if he were a St. Bernard! —we could swap
it against what we weighed for our tickets.”
Mr. Vaughn shook his head unhappily. “They don’t do it that way.”
“You told me yourself that weight was everything. You even got rid
of your chess set.”
“We could afford thirty pounds of chess sets, or china, or cheese,
where we can’t afford thirty pounds of dog.”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Let me explain. Surely, it’s weight; it’s always weight in a space ship.
But it isn’t just my hundred and sixty pounds, or your hundred and
twenty, not Charlie’s hundred and ten. We’re not dead weight; we
have to eat and drink and breathe air and have room to move—that
last takes more weight because it takes more ship weight to hold a
live person than it does for an equal weight in the cargo hold. For a
human being there is a complicated formula—hull weight equal to
twice the passenger’s weight, plus the number of days in space times
four pounds. It takes a hundred and forty-six days to get to Venus—
so it means that the calculated weight for each



5
of us amounts to six hundred and sixteen pounds before they even
figure in our actual weights. But for a dog the rate is even higher—
five pounds per day instead of four.”
“That seems unfair. Surely a little dog can’t eat as much as a man?
Why, Nixie’s food costs hardly anything.”
Her husband snorted. “Nixie eats his own rations and half of what
goes on Charlie’s plate. However, it’s not only the fact that a dog
does eat more for his weight, but also they don’t reprocess waste
with a dog, not even for hydroponics.”
“Why not? Oh, I know what you mean. But it seems silly.”
“The passengers wouldn’t like it. Never mind; the rule is: five pounds
per day for dogs. Do you know what that makes Nixie’s fare? Over
three thousand dollars!”