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

But Charlie signalled “hold & quiet,” so Ni-xie remained silently
poised in salute until the clapping died away. He returned to heel just
as silently, though quivering with excitement. The purpose of the
ceremony may not have been clear to him—if so, he was not the first
tenderfoot Scout to be a little confused. But it was perfectly clear that
he was the center of attention and was being approved of by his
friends; it was a high point in his life.
But all in all there had been too much excitement for a dog in one
week; the trip to White Sands, shut up in a travel case and away from
Charlie, was the last straw. When Charlie came to claim him at the
baggage room of White Sands Airport, his relief was so great that he
had a puppyish accident, and was bitterly ashamed.
He quieted down on the drive from airport to spaceport, then was
disquieted again when he was taken into a room which reminded him
of his unpleasant trips to the veterinary—the smells, the white-coated
figure, the bare table where a dog had to hold still and be hurt. He
stopped dead.
“Come, Nixie!” Charlie said firmly. “None of that, boy. Up!”
Nixie gave a little sigh, advanced and jumped onto the examination
table, stood docile but trembling.
“Have him lie down,” the man in the white smock said. “I’ve got to get
the needle into the large vein in his foreleg.”

11
Nixie did so on Charlie’s command, then lay tremblingly quiet while
his left foreleg was shaved in a patch and sterilized. Charlie put a
hand on Nixie’s shoulder blades and soothed him while the veterinary
surgeon probed for the vein. Nixie bared his teeth once but did not
growl, even though the fear in the boy’s mind was beating on him,
making him just as afraid.
Suddenly the drug reached his brain and he slumped limp.
Charlie’s fear surged to a peak but Nixie did not feel it. Nixie’s tough
little spirit had gone somewhere else, out of touch with his friend, out
of space and time— wherever it is that the “I” within a man or a dog
goes when the body wrapping it is unconscious.
Charlie said shrilly, “Is he all right?”
“Eh? Of course.”
“Uh. . . I thought he had died.”
“Want to listen to his heart beat?”
“Uh, no—if you say he’s all right. Then he’s going to be okay? He’ll
live through it?”
The doctor glanced at Charlie’s father, back at the boy, let his eyes
rest on Charlie’s lapel. “Star Scout, eh?”
“Uh, yes, sir.”
“Going on to Eagle?”
“Well . . . I’m going to try, sir.”
“Good. Look, son. If I put your dog over on that shelf, in a couple of
hours he’ll be sleeping normally and by tomorrow he won’t even know
he was out. But if I take him back to the chill room and start him on
the cycle—” He shrugged. “Well, I’ve put eighty head of cattle under