"Carey Rockwell - Tom Corbett Space Cadet 01 - Stand By for Mars!" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rockwell Carey)

The boy jerked himself erect and snapped to attention.
"I-I'm sorry, sir," he stammered. "But my boot-it was coming off and-"
"I don't care if your pants are falling down, an order's an order!"
The boy gulped and reddened as a nervous titter rippled through the
ranks. McKenny spun around and glared. There was immediate silence.
"What's your name?" He turned back to the boy.
"Corbett, sir. Cadet Candidate Tom Corbett," answered the boy.
"Wanta be a spaceman, do ya?" asked Mike, pushing his jaw out another
inch.
"Yes, sir!"
"Been studying long hard hours in primary school, eh? Talked your
mother and father deaf in the ears to let you come to Space Academy and be
a spaceman! You want to feel those rockets bucking in your back out in the
stars? EH?"
"Yes, sir," replied Tom, wondering how this man he didn't even know
could know so much about him.
"Well, you wont make it if I ever catch you disobeying orders again!"
McKenny turned quickly to see what effect he had created on the others.
The lines of bewildered faces satisfied him that his old trick of using one of the
cadets as an example was a success. He turned back to Corbett.
"The only reason I'm not logging you now is because you're not a Space
Cadet yet-and won't be, until you've taken the Academy oath!"
"Yes, sir!"
McKenny walked down the line and across the platform to an open
teleceiver booth. The ranks were quiet and motionless, and as he made his
call, McKenny smiled. Finally, when the tension seemed unbearable, he
roared, "At ease!" and closed the door of the booth.
The ranks melted immediately and the boys fell into chattering clusters,
their voices low, and they occasionally peered over their shoulders at Corbett
as if he had suddenly been stricken with a horrible plague.
Brooding over the seeming ill-fortune that had called McKenny's attention
to him at the wrong time, Tom sat down on his suitcase to adjust his boot. He
shook his head slowly. He had heard Space Academy was tough, tougher
than any other school in the world, but he didn't expect the stern discipline to
begin so soon.
"This could be the beginning of the end," drawled a lazy voice in back of
Tom, "for some of the more enthusiastic cadets." Someone laughed.
Tom turned to see a boy about his own age, weight, and height, with
close-cropped blond hair that stood up brushlike all over his head. He was
lounging idly against a pillar, luggage piled high around his feet. Tom
recognized him immediately as Roger Manning, and his pleasant features
twisted into a scowl.
"About what I'd expect from that character," he thought, "after the trick he
pulled on Astro, that big fellow from Venus."
Tom's thoughts were of the night before, when the connecting links of
transportation from all over the Solar Alliance had deposited the boys in the
Central Station at Atom City where they were to board the monorail express
for the final lap to Space Academy.
Manning, as Tom remembered it, had taken advantage of the huge
Venusian by tricking him into carrying his luggage. Reasoning that since the