"C M Kornbluth - Theory Of Rocketry" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

Instinct tells me not to queer my luck by talking about it, but anyway—I really believe I'm moving up in
the organization. The other day a party from Sales came through the QC labs and one of them, just an
ordinary-looking Joe, stopped to talk to me about the test I was running—asked very intelligent
questions. You could have knocked me over with a Folin-Wu pipette when they told me who he was
afterward: just John McVey himself, Assistant Vice-President in Charge of Sales! Unaccustomed as I am
to pipe dreams, it can't be a coincidence that it was me he talked to instead of half a dozen other lab men
with seniority; I don't know what he has in mind exactly, maybe some kind of liaison job between QC
and Sales, which would put me on Staff level instead of Hourly-Rated. , . .



Mr. Edel felt sick for him. He would have to answer the letter at once; if he put it off he would put it off
again and their correspondence would peter out and Fuqua would be betrayed. But what could he tell
him—that he was pipe-dreaming, that "coincidences" like that happen to everybody a hundred times a
day, that Roland Fuqua, Ph.D., would never, at forty-five, move from the quality-control lab to the
glittering world of sales?



He stalled for time by stamping and addressing the envelope first, then hung over the typewriter for five
minutes of misery. It was Wednesday night; Foster was due for the twelfth and last of his Enrichment
sessions. Mr. Edel tried not to cause Fuqua pain



by dwelling on the world of teaching he had lost—but what else was there to write about?
 I'm sure you remember Foster—the fly boy? I've been taking him, on one of those Enrichment things,
through Henry V. This is supposed to win him .001 of a place higher on the graduating-class list and get
him into the Academy, and I suppose it will. Things are very simple for Foster, enviably so. He has a titan
of engineering for a father who appears to commute between the Minas Gerais power station in Brazil,
his consulting service in the city and trouble spots in the I. T. and T. network—maybe I should say
commutate. I honestly do not believe that Foster has to lie his way through the personality profiles like the
rest of us mortals—



Now, there was a hell of a thing to put down. He was going to rip the page out and start again, then
angrily changed his mind. Fuqua wasn't a cripple; it wasn't Bad Form to mention his folly; it would be
merely stupid to pretend that nothing had happened. He finished out the page with a gush of trivia. Sexy
little Mrs. Dickman who taught Spanish was very visibly expecting. New dietician in the cafeteria, food
cheaper but worse than ever. Rumored retirement of Old Man Thelusson again and one step up for
history teachers if true. Best wishes good luck regards to Beth and the youngster, Dave. He whipped the
page into folds, slipped it into the envelope and sealed the flap fast, before he could change his mind
again. It was time to stop treating Fuqua like a basket case; if convalescence had not begun by now it
never would.