"Robert A. Heinlein - Space Family Stone" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

Space Family Stone

Robert Heinlein
© 1952 Robert A Heinlein
FIRST NEL PAPERBACK EDITION FEBRUARY 1971


1
THE UNHEAVENLY TWINS


The two brothers stood looking the old wreck over. ‘Junk,’ decided Castor.
‘Not junk,’ objected’ Pollux. ‘A jalopy - granted. A heap any way you look at it
A clunker possihly. But not junk.’
‘You’re an optimist, Junior.’ Both boys were fifteen; Castor was twenty
minutes older than his brother.
‘Im a believer, Grandpa - and you had better be, too. Let me point out that we
don’t have money enough for anything better. Scared to gun it?’
Castor stared up the side of the ship. ‘Not at all - because that thing will
never again rise high enough to crash. We want a ship that will take us out to
the Asteroids - right? This superannuated pogo stick wouldn’t even take us to
Earth.’
‘It will when I get through hopping it up - with your thumb-fingered help. Let’s
look through it and see what it needs.’
Castor glanced at the sky. ‘Its geting late.’ He looked not at the Sun making
long shadows on the lunar plain, but at Earth, reading the time from the
sunset line now moving across the Pacific.
Look, Grandpa, are we buying a ship or are we getting to supper on time?’
Castor shrugged. ‘As you say, Junior.’ He lowered his antenna, then started
swarming up the rope ladder left there for the accommodation of prospective
customers. He used his hands only and despite his cumbersome vacuum suit
his movements were easy and graceful. Pollux swarmed after him. Castor
cheered up a bit when they reached the control room. The ship had not been
stripped for salvage as completely as had many of the ships on the lot. True,
the ballistic computer was missisng but the rest of the astrogation
instruments were in place and the controls to the power room seemed to be
complete. The space-battered old hulk was not a wreck, but merely obsolete.
A hasty look at the power room seemed to confirm this.
Ten minutes later Castor, still mindful of supper, herded Pollux down the
ladder. When Castor reached the ground Pollux said, ‘Well?’
‘Let me do the talking.’
The sales office of the lot was a bubble dome nearly a mile away; they
moved toward it with the easy, fast lope of old Moon hands. The office airlock
was marked by a huge sign:
DEALER DAN
THE SPACESHIP MAN

CRAFT OF ALL TYPES *** SCRAP METAL *** SPARE PARTS
FUELING & SERVICE
(AEC License No. 739024)