"Robert F. Young - The Bluebird Planet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

the
bluebird
planet
by ROBERT F. YOUNG
She'd never seen so many birds. The woods were blue
with them. And then a bird perched on her shoulder!

Robert F, Young, author of WISH UPON A STAR, our lead novel in our December 1956 issue,
works in a machine shop in upstate New York and usually writes stories critical of tomorrow's
machine age. Here is a gentler story, however, an exception—the story of a lonely woman, and a
bird.

THE SHIP had landed in a clearing in a forest. The grass was jet-burned just beneath it, but a little
ways away the grass was green, and dancing in a summer wind. And beyond the dancing grass the forest
trees curtsied like timid girls m new summer dresses.
Miss Mintz could hardly believe her eyes. They'd said that Deneb 6 was a lovely planet, and they'd
said that once you landed there you'd never want to leave; and they'd said, just wait till you see the
moon! But Miss Mintz was invariably skeptical of the third person plural, particularly when it referred to
travel agency pitchmen, and she'd taken what they had said with several grains of salt.
But she needn't have, she saw now. She climbed the rest of the way down the disembarking stairs
and stepped into the dancing grass. The Senior Class came tumbling down behind her, laughing and
shouting like the kids they really were beneath the blase exteriors they had affected throughout the trip.
There was a winy tang to the sparkling air, and winsome little white clouds hung high in the bright blue
sky.
In the clearing the whole class began talking at once:
"Did you ever see such green grass?"
"Just look at that sky!"
"Say— There's a bluebird!"
"Where?"
"Over there! Why— There's another!"
"And another!"
Miss Mintz saw them then. The forest was full of them. Her heart began to pound. It pounded even
harder when Chief Petty Officer Burke, whose responsibility it was to see that excursion parties got
started off on the right foot, appeared in the ship's lock at the top of the stairs and raised his hand for
silence.
"The bluebirds can wait," he said when the seniors had quieted. He pointed to where Deneb blazed
like a macrocosmic gasoline lantern in the middle of the afternoon sky. "When that sun sets it's going to
get dark awful quick, so what you kids had better do is start setting up camp right away—unless you
want to spend another night aboard ship."
 There was a chorus of "Oh no's!" and "I should say not's!" followed by enthusiastic activity. Miss
Mintz took command in her capacity as chaperon and oversaw the unloading of the collapsible
camp-village. After consulting with Mr. Burke she selected a site at the edge of the forest conveniently
close to an effervescent brook. The Jiffy Huts were set up in a jiffy, and by the time the first night
shadows had begun to creep in out of the forest there was a little plastic village nestling at the feet of the
trees within shouting distance of the ship. Shortly thereafter a portable generator began to hum, and
new-strung electric lights came to radiant life along Little Main Street and shone warmly from the square
screened windows of the huts.
The Mess Hut had been assembled with loving care and a little after sundown it was ceremoniously
christened the Deneb Six Cafe. After the christening the male division of the Senior Class carried the
treasured provisions from the ship's deep freeze across the clearing to the kitchen where the female