"E.Voiskunsky, I.Lukodyanov. The Crew Of The Mekong (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

of the new tenant's room showed him among the other performers, very
handsome and muscular in black tights, his chest bulging.
When the war broke out Uncle Vova locked up his flat and went into the
army. Nikolai's father, who worked at a railway-carriage repair shop, was
also drafted. Yura's father, an oil refinery engineer, was given a draft
deferment.
Now the boys played army scouts and guerrillas. Life was hard,
especially for Nikolai and his mother, who was a nurse and worked day and
night at an army hospital.
Nikolai's father was killed in a battle on the Dnieper River.
After seven years of schooling Nikolai told his mother that he wanted
to go to work. She tried to persuade him to stay in school but he would not
be moved. Yura's father found a job for Nikolai as an apprentice fitter in
the oil refinery's maintenance shop and persuaded him to attend night
school.
Soon after, Yura's family moved to another part of town and Nikolai was
left without a playmate. But this did not matter because he had no time for
play.
Yura felt that fate had been unkind to him for making him sit over his
books all through the war instead of letting him fight the Nazis. Besides,
he envied Nikolai's hands, with their traces of grease and metallic dust.
And so, after finishing the eighth grade at school Yura went to work in the
maintenance shop, side by side with Nikolai. They went through night school
together and then entered the evening department of a college. Shortly after
graduating with degrees in engineering the two young men were assigned to
jobs in the Oil Transportation Research Institute, where they worked under
Boris Privalov.
They crossed the courtyard, climbed the stairs, walked down the
glassed-in gallery and entered Nikolai's room. There, it was pleasantly
cool. Bookshelves lined the wall above Nikolai's desk. A photographic
enlarger stood on the floor in a corner of the room, like a stork on one
leg.
Yura picked up the underwater gun Nikolai was making and examined it.
"The spring's a bit tight."
"No, it's just right," said Nikolai. "Can't have it any looser."
"If you finish it by Sunday we can do some shooting."
"We're racing on Sunday."
"Why, so we are. I forgot." Yura stretched out luxuriously on the sofa.
"I want you to look at this," said Nikolai, producing several sheets of
paper covered with sketches and figures from a drawer of the desk. "What do
you think of it?"
Yura glanced at the sketches. "They look like pears." He yawned. "Take
these drawings away. I'm too lazy to think."
"But first listen. Remember that conversation about surface tension and
the interesting idea Privalov suggested?" "He told us to forget it."
Nikolai lost his temper. "You're an idiot! I can't discuss anything
with you nowadays. All you can think of is Val."
"You're the idiot," Yura replied cheerfully. "All right, let's have
it."
Nikolai turned on the fan. "What shape does a liquid have?" he asked,