"James Tiptree Jr -- Happiness is a Warm Spaceship" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tiptree James Jr)

Quent picked up his blouse.
“Is it prejudice to think that everyone should have his own—”
“ ‘Do you want your boy’s life to depend on an octopus?’ ” recited the M.O. wryly.
“Oh, well, there he went too far. I told him so.” Quent wrenched his way into his dress
blouse. “I’m not prejudiced. Why, some of my—”
“I see,” said the M.O.
“I welcome the opportunity,” said Quent. He started for the door. “What?”
“Your hat,” said the M.O.
“Oh, thanks.”
“By the by,” the M.O. called after him, “Gal News will probably be on your trail.”
Quent stopped in midstride and flung up his head like a startled moose. A small figure was
trotting toward him down the corridor. His jaw clenched. He took off down a side corridor,
doubled through a restricted zone and galloped into the rear of the freight depot, shoving his
tabs at a gaping cargoman.
“My dittybox, quick.”
Box in arms, he clambered into a cargo duct, ignoring the chorus of yells. He made his way
down the treads until he came to an exit in the perimeter docks. He climbed out into the
spacious service area of the Adastra from which he had debarked two hours before.
The inlet guard grinned. “Coming back aboard, Lieutenant?”
Quent mumbled and started off around the docking ring, lugging his box. He passed the
immaculate berths of the Crux, Enterprise, Sirian, passed the gleaming courier docks, plodded
on into sections crowded with the umbilical tubes of freighters and small craft and
crisscrossed with cables and service rigging. He stumbled and was grazed by a mobile
conveyor belt whose driver yelled at him. Finally he came to an inlet scrawled in chalk “ P B
ROSEKZ”. It was a narrow, grimy tube. Nobody was in sight.
He set down his box and started in, trying not to rub his white shoulders against the flex.
The tube ended in an open lock which gave directly into a small wardroom cluttered with
parcels and used drinking bulbs.
Quent coughed. Nothing happened.
He called out.
A confused sound erupted from the shaftway opposite. It was followed by a massive rear
end clad in shorts and a shaggy gray parka. The newcomer turned ponderously. Quent looked
up at an ursine muzzle set in bristly jowls, a large prune of a nose.
“Who you?” demanded the ursinoid in thick Galactic.
“Lieutenant Quent, First Officer, reporting,” said Quent.
“Good,” rumbled the other. He surveyed Quent from small bright eyes and scratched the
hair on his belly. Quent had erred about the parka.
“You know refrigerate for storage?”
“Refrigerant?”
“Come. Maybe you make some sense.”
Quent followed him back into the shaftway and down a dark ladder. Presently they came
to a light above an open hatch. The ursinoid pointed to a tangle of dripping tubes.
“What’s it for?” Quent asked.
“Make cold,” growled the other. “New model. Should not slobber so, vernt?”
“I mean, what’s it refrigerating?”
“Ants. Here, you take. Maybe better luck.”
He thrust a crumpled folder into Quent’s hand and shouldered past him up the ladder,
leaving a marked aroma of wet bear rug.
The leaflet was titled: Temperature-Controlled Personnel System Mark X5 Series D, Mod.,
Appvl. Pdg. Quent peered into the hatch. Beyond the pipes was a dim honeycomb of hexagonal