"Robert A. Heinlein - Orphans of the Sky " - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

behind him. Another hatch, staggered a few feet from the first, gave access
to a still lower deck. Down, down, down, and still farther down they dropped,
tens and dozens of decks, each silent, dimly lighted, mysterious. Each time
they fell a little faster, landed a little harder. Mahoney protested at last, „Let’s
walk the rest of the way, Hugh. That last jump hurt my feet.“
„All right. But it will take longer. How far have we got to go? Anybody
keep count?“
„We’ve got about seventy decks to go to reach farm country,“ answered
Tyler.
„How d’you know?“ demanded Mahoney suspiciously.
„I counted them, stupid. And as we came down I took one away for
each deck.“
„You did not. Nobody but a scientist can do numbering like that. Just because
you’re learning to read and write you think you know everything.“
Hoyland cut in before it could develop into a quarrel. „Shut up, Alan. Maybe
he can do it. He’s clever about such things. Anyhow, it feels like about
seventy decks—I’m heavy enough.“
„Maybe he’d like to count the blades on my knife.“
„Stow it, I said. Dueling is forbidden outside the village. That is the Rule.“
They proceeded in silence, running lightly down the stairways until increasing
weight on each succeeding level forced them to a more pedestrian pace.
Presently they broke through into a level that was quite brilliantly lighted and
more than twice as deep between decks as the ones above it. The air was
moist and warm; vegetation obscured the view.
„Well, down at last,“ said Hugh. „I don’t recognize this farm; we must have
come down by a different line than we went up.“
„There’s a farmer,“ said Tyler. He put his little fingers to his lips and whistled,
then called, „Hey! Shipmate! Where are we?“
The peasant looked them over slowly, then directed them in reluctant
monosyllables to the main passageway which would lead them back to their
own village.
A brisk walk of a mile and a half down a wide tunnel moderately crowded with
traffic: travelers, porters, an occasional pushcart, a dignified scientist
swinging in a litter borne by four husky orderlies and preceded by his master-
at-arms to clear the common crew out of the way. A mile and a half of this
brought them to the common of their own village, a spacious compartment
three decks high and perhaps ten times as wide. They split up and went their
own ways, Hugh to his quarters in the barracks of the cadets, young
bachelors who do not live with their parents. He washed himself and went
thence to the compartments of his uncle, for whom he worked for his meals.
His aunt glanced up as he came in, but said nothing, as became a woman.
His uncle said, „Hello, Hugh. Been exploring again?“
„Good eating, Uncle. Yes.“
His uncle, a stolid, sensible man, looked tolerantly amused. „Where did you
go and what did you find?“
Hugh’s aunt had slipped silently out of the compartment, and now returned
with his supper which she placed before him. He fell to; it did not occur to him
to thank her. He munched a bite before replying.
„Up. We climbed almost to the level-of-no-weight. A mutie tried to crack my
skull.“