"Eric Frank Russell - Jay Score" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russell Eric Frank)

JAY SCORE by Eric Frank Russell

There are very good reasons for everything they do. To the uninitiated some of
their little tricks and some of their regulations seem mighty peculiar-but
rocketing through the cosmos isn't quite like paddling a bathtub across a farm
pond, no, sir!

For instance, this stunt of using mixed crews is pretty sensible when you look
into it. On the outward runs toward Mars, the Asteroids or beyond, they have
white Terrestrials to tend the engines because they're the ones who perfected
modern propulsion units, know most about them and can nurse them like nobody
else. All ships' surgeons are black Terrestrials because for some reason none
can explain no Negro gets gravity-bends or space nausea. Every outside repair
gang is composed of Martians who use very little air, are tiptop metal workers
and fairly immune to cosmic-ray burn.

As for the inward trips to Venus, they mix them similarly except that the
emergency pilot is always a big clunker like Jay Score. There's a motive
behind that; he's the one who provided it. I'm never likely to forget him. He
sort of sticks in the mind, for keeps. What a character!

Destiny placed me at the top of the gangway the first time he appeared. Our
ship was the Upskadaska City, a brand new freighter with limited passenger
accommodation, registered in the Venusian space-port from which she took her
name. Needless to say she was known among hardened spacemen as the Upsydaisy.

We were lying in the Colorado Rocket Basin, north of Denver, with a fair load
aboard, mostly watch-making machinery, agricultural equipment, aeronautical
jigs and tools for Upskadaska, as well as a case of radium needles for the
Venusian Cancer Research Institute. There were eight passengers; all
emigrating agriculturalists planning on making hay thirty million miles nearer
the Sun. We had ramped the vessel and were waiting for the blow-brothers- blow
siren due in forty minutes, when Jay Score arrived.

He was six feet nine, weighed at least three hundred pounds yet toted this
bulk with the easy grace of a ballet dancer. A big guy like that, moving like
that, was something worth watching. He came up the duralumin gangway with all
the nonchalance of a tripper boarding the bus for Jackson's Creek. From his
hamlike right fist dangled a rawhide case not quite big enough to contain his
bed and maybe a wardrobe or two.

Reaching the top, he paused while he took in the crossed swords on my cap,
said, "Morning, Sarge. I'm the new emergency pilot. I have to report to
Captain McNulty."

I knew we were due for another pilot now that Jeff Durkin had been promoted to
the snooty Martian scent-bottle Prometheus. So this was his successor. He was
a Terrestrial all right, but neither black nor white. His expressionless but
capable face looked as if covered with old, well- seasoned leather. His eyes
held fires resembling phosphorescence. There was an air about him that marked