"Eric Frank Russel - The Space Willies" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russell Eric Frank)

Marching inside, he stood at attention before the desk,
head erect, thumbs in line with the seams of the pants, feet
at an angle of forty-five degrees. A robot, he thought, just
a damned robot.
Fleet Admiral Markham surveyed him from beneath bushy
brows, his cold gaze slowly rising from feet to head then de-
scending from head to feet.
"Who are you?"
"Scout-Pilot John Leeming, sir."
"Oh, yes." Markham maintained the stare then suddenly
barked, "Button your fly."
Leeming jerked and showed embarrassment. "I can't, sir.
It has a defective zipper."
"Then why haven't you visited the tailor? Does your com-
manding officer approve of his men appearing before me


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sloppily dressed? I doubt it! What the devil do you mean by
it?"
"With all due respect, sir, I don't see that it matters. Dur-
ing a battle a man doesn't care what happens to his pants so
long as he survives intact."
"I agree," said Markham. "But what worries me is the
question of how much other and more important material
may prove to be substandard. If civilian contractors fail on
little things like zippers, they'll certainly fail on big ones.
Such failures can cost lives."
"Yes, sir," said Leeming, wondering what the other was
getting at.
"A new and untried ship, for instance," Markham went
on. "If it operates as planned, well and good. If it doesn't
. . ." He let the sentence peter out, thought awhile, con-
tinued, "We asked for volunteers for special long-range re-
connaissance patrols. You were the first to hand in your
name. I want to know why."
"If the job has to be done, somebody must do it," Leeming
answered evasively.
"I am fully aware of the fact. But I want to know exactly
why you volunteered." He waited a bit, urged, "Come on,
speak up! I won't penalize a risk-taker for giving his rea-
sons."
Thus encouraged, Leeming said, "I like action. I like work-
ing on my own. I don't like the time-wasting discipline they
go in for around the base. I want to get on with the work for
which I'm suited, and that's all there is to it."
Markham nodded understandingly. "So do most of us. Do you
think I'm not frustrated sitting behind a desk while a