Robert A Heinlein - Rocket Ship Galileo

VIP免费

2024-12-15 0 0 275.77KB 102 页 5.9玖币

file:///C|/Documents and Settings/hasi•i/Dokumenty/Mar•anovi ptá•koviny/...Heinlein, Robert A/%book %a Robert A Heinlein %t Rocket Ship Galileo.txt

Chapter 1 :: "LET THE ROCKET ROAR"

"EVERYBODY ALL SET?" Young Ross Jenkins glanced nervously at his two chums. "How about

your camera, Art? You sure you got the lens cover off this time?"

The three boys were huddled against a thick concrete wall, higher than their heads and about ten

feet long. It separated them from a steel stand, anchored to the ground, to which was bolted a black

metal shape, a pointed projectile, venomous in appearance and an ugly rocket. There were fittings on

each side to which stub wings might be attached, but the fittings were empty; the creature was chained

down for scientific examination.

"How about it, Art?" Ross repeated. The boy addressed straightened up to his full five feet three

and faced him.

"Look," Art Mueller answered, "of course I took the cover off, it's on my check-off list. You worry

about your rocket, last time it didn't fire at all and I wasted twenty feet of film."

"But you forgot it once, okay, how about your lights?"

For answer Art switched on his spot lights; the beams shot straight up, bounced against highly

polished stainless-steel mirrors and brilliantly illuminated the model rocket and the framework which

would keep it from taking off during the test.

A third boy, Maurice Abrams, peered at the scene through a periscope which allowed them to look

over the reinforced concrete wall which shielded them from the rocket test stand.

"Pretty as a picture," he announced, excitement in his voice. "Ross, do you really think this fuel mix

is what we're looking for?"

Ross shrugged, "I don't know. The lab tests looked good, we'll soon know. All right, places

everybody! Check-off lists, Art?"

"Complete."

"Morrie?"

"Complete."

"And mine's complete. Stand by! I'm going to start the clock. Here goes!" He started checking off

the seconds until the rocket was fired. "Minus ten . . minus nine . . . minus eight . . . minus seven . . .

minus six . . . minus five . . . minus four. . . ."

Art wet his lips and started his camera.

"Minus three! Minus two! Minus one! Contact!"

"Let it roar!" Morrie yelled, his voice already drowned by the ear-splitting noise of the escaping

rocket gas.

A great plume of black smoke surged out the orifice of the thundering rocket when it was first fired,

billowed against an earth ramp set twenty feet behind the rocket test stand and filled the little clearing

with choking fumes. Ross shook his head in dissatisfaction at this and made an adjustment in the

controls under his hand. The smoke cleared away; through the periscope in front of him he could see the

rocket exhaust on the other side of the concrete barricade. The flame had cleared of the wasteful smoke

and was almost transparent, save for occasional sparks. He could actually see trees and ground through

the jet of flame. The images shimmered and shook but the exhaust gases were smoke-free.

"What does the dynamometer read?" he shouted to Morrie without taking his eyes away from the

file:///C|/Documents and Settings/hasi•i/Dokumenty/Mar•an...t A/%book %a Robert A Heinlein %t Rocket Ship Galileo.txt (1 of 102)16.11.2003 16:16:25

file:///C|/Documents and Settings/hasi•i/Dokumenty/Mar•anovi ptá•koviny/...Heinlein, Robert A/%book %a Robert A Heinlein %t Rocket Ship Galileo.txt

periscope. Morrie studied the instrument, rigged to the test stand itself, by means of a pair of opera

glasses and his own periscope. "I can't read it!" he shouted. "Yes, I can -- wait a minute. Fifty-two -- no,

make it a hundred and fifty-two; it's second time around. Hunderfiftytwo, fif'three, four. Ross, you've

done it! You've done it! That's more than twice as much thrust as the best we've ever had."

Art looked up from where he was nursing his motion-picture camera. It was a commercial 8-

millimeter job, modified by him to permit the use of more film so that every second of a test could be

recorded. The modification worked, but was cantankerous and had to be nursed along. "How much more

time?," he demanded.

"Seventeen seconds," Ross yelled at him. "Stand by, I'm going to give her the works." He twisted

his throttle-monitor valve to the right, wide open. The rocket responded by raising its voice from a

deepthroated roar to a higher pitch with an angry overtone almost out of the audible range. It spoke with

snarling menace.

Ross looked up to see Morrie back away from his periscope and climb on a box, opera glasses in

hand.

"Morrie-get your head down!" The boy did not hear him against the scream of the jet, intent as he

was on getting a better view of the rocket. Ross jumped away from the controls and dived at him,

tackling him around the waist and dragging him down behind the safety of the barricade. They hit the

ground together rather heavily and struggled there. It was not a real fight; Ross was angry, though not

fighting mad, while Morrie was merely surprised.

"What's the idea ?," he protested, when he caught his breath.

"You crazy idiot!," Ross grunted in his ear. "What were you trying to do? Get your head blown

off?"

"But I wasn't-" But Ross was already clambering to his feet and returning to his place at the

controls; Morrie's explanation, if any, was lost in the roar of the rocket.

"What goes on ?" Art yelled. He had not left his place by his beloved camera, not only from a sense

of duty but at least partly from indecision as to which side of the battle he should join. Ross heard his

shout and turned to speak. "This goon," he yelled bitterly, jerking a thumb at Morrie, "tried to-"

Ross's version of the incident was lost; the snarling voice of the rocket suddenly changed pitch,

then lost itself in a boneshaking explosion. At the same time there was a dazzling flash which would

have blinded the boys had they not been protected by the barricade, but which nevertheless picked out

every detail of the clearing in the trees with brilliance that numbed the eyes.

They were still blinking at the memory of the ghastly light when billowing clouds of smoke welled

up from beyond the barricade, surrounded them, and made them cough.

"Well," Ross said bitterly and looked directly at Morrie, "that's the last of the Starstrack V."

"Look, Ross," Morrie protested, his voice sounding shrill in the strange new stillness, "I didn't do it.

I was only trying to- "

"I didn't say you did," Ross cut him short. "I know you didn't do it. I had already made my last

adjustment. She was on her own and she couldn't take it. Forget it. But keep your head down after this-

you darn near lost it. That's what the barricade is for."

"But I wasn't going to stick my head up. I was just going to try-"

"Both of you forget it," Art butted in. "So we blew up another one. So what? We'll build another

one. Whatever happened, I got it right here in the can." He patted his camera. "Let's take a look at the

wreck." He started to head around the end of the barricade.

file:///C|/Documents and Settings/hasi•i/Dokumenty/Mar•an...t A/%book %a Robert A Heinlein %t Rocket Ship Galileo.txt (2 of 102)16.11.2003 16:16:25

file:///C|/Documents and Settings/hasi•i/Dokumenty/Mar•anovi ptá•koviny/...Heinlein, Robert A/%book %a Robert A Heinlein %t Rocket Ship Galileo.txt

"Wait a minute," Ross commanded. He took a careful look through his periscope, then announced:

"Seems okay. Both fuel chambers are split. There can't be any real danger now. Don't burn yourselves.

Come on."

They followed him around to the test stand.

The rocket itself was a complete wreck but the test stand was undamaged; it was built to take such

punishment. Art turned his attention to the dynamometer which measured the thrust generated by the

rocket. "I'll have to recalibrate this," he announced. "The loop isn't hurt, but the dial and the rackand-

pinion are shot."

The other two boys did not answer him; they were busy with the rocket itself. The combustion

chamber was split wide open and it was evident that pieces were missing.

"How about it, Ross?" Morrie inquired. "Do you figure it was the metering pump going haywire, or

was the soup just too hot for it?"

"Hard to tell," Ross mused absently. "I don't think it was the pump. The pump might jam and refuse

to deliver fuel at all, but I don't see how it could deliver too much fuel unless it reared back and passed a

miracle."

"Then it must have been the combustion chamber. The throat is all right. It isn't even pitted much,"

he added as he peered at it in the gathering twilight.

"Maybe. Well, let's throw a tarp over it and look it over tomorrow morning. Can't see anything

now. Come on, Art."

"Okay. Just a sec while I get my camera." He detached his camera from its bracket and placed it in

its carrying case, then helped the other two drag canvas tarpaulins over all the test gear-one for the test

stand, one for the barricade with its controls, instruments, and periscopes. Then the three turned away

and headed out of the clearing.

The clearing was surrounded by a barbed wire fence, placed there at the insistence of Ross's

parents, to whom the land belonged, in order to keep creatures, both four-legged and two-legged, from

wandering into the line of fire while the boys were experimenting. The gate in this fence was directly

behind the barricade and about fifty feet from it.

They had had no occasion to glance in the direction of the gate since the beginning of the test run-

indeed, their attentions had been so heavily on the rocket that anything less than an earthquake would

hardly have disturbed them.

Ross and Morrie were a little in front with Art close at their heels, so close that, when they stopped

suddenly, he stumbled over them and almost dropped his camera. "Hey, watch where you're going, can't

you ?" he protested. "Pick up your big feet!"

They did not answer but stood still, staring ahead and at the ground. "What gives?," he went on.

"Why the trance? Why do-oh!" He had seen it too.

"It" was the body of a large man, crumpled on the ground, half in and half out the gate. There was a

bloody wound on his head and blood on the ground. They all rushed forward together, but it was Morrie

who shoved them back and kept them from touching the prone figure. "Take it easy!," he ordered.

"Don't touch him. Remember your first aid. That's a head wound. If you touch him, you may kill

him."

"But we've got to find out if he's alive," Ross objected.

"I'll find out. Here-give me those." He reached out and appropriated the data sheets of the rocket

test run from where they stuck out of Ross's pocket. These he rolled into a tube about an inch in

file:///C|/Documents and Settings/hasi•i/Dokumenty/Mar•an...t A/%book %a Robert A Heinlein %t Rocket Ship Galileo.txt (3 of 102)16.11.2003 16:16:25

file:///C|/Documents and Settings/hasi•i/Dokumenty/Mar•anovi ptá•koviny/...Heinlein, Robert A/%book %a Robert A Heinlein %t Rocket Ship Galileo.txt

diameter, then cautiously placed it against the back of the still figure, on the left side over the heart.

Placing his ear to the other end of the improvised stethoscope he listened. Ross and Art waited

breathlessly. Presently his tense face relaxed into a grin. "His motor is turning over," he announced.

"Good and strong. At least we didn't kill him."

"We?"

"Who do you think? How do you think he got this way? Take a look around and you'll probably

find the piece of the rocket that konked him." He straightened up. "But never mind that now. Ross, you

shag up to your house and call an ambulance. Make it fast! Art and I will wait here with . . . with, uh,

him. He may come to and we'll have to keep him quiet."

"Okay." Ross was gone as he spoke. Art was staring at the unconscious man. Morrie touched him

on the arm. "Sit down, kid. No use getting in a sweat. We'll have trouble enough later. Even if this guy

isn't hurt much I suppose you realize this about winds up the activities the Galileo Marching-and-

Chowder Society, at least the rocketry-and-loud-noises branch of it."

Art looked unhappy. "I suppose so."

"`Suppose' nothing. It's certain. Ross's father took a very dim view of the matter the time we blew

all the windows out of his basement -- not that I blame him. Now we hand him this. Loss of the use of

the land is the least we can expect. We'll be lucky not to have handed him a suit for damages too. Art

agreed miserably. "I guess it's back to stamp collecting for us," he assented, but his mind was elsewhere.

Law suit. The use of the land did not matter. To be sure the use of the Old Ross Place on the edge of

town had been swell for all three of them, what with him and his mother living in back of the store, and

Morrie's folks living in a flat, but-law suit! Maybe Ross's parents could afford it; but the little store just

about kept Art and his mother going, even with the afterschool jobs he had had ever since junior high --

a law suit would take the store away from them.

His first feeling of frightened sympathy for the wounded man was beginning to be replaced by a

feeling of injustice done him. What was the guy doing there anyhow? It wasn't just.

"Let me have a look at this guy," he said.

"Don't touch him," Morrie warned.

"I won't. Got your pocket flash?" It was becoming quite dark in the clearing.

"Sure. Here . . . catch." Art took the little flashlight and tried to examine the face of their victim-

hard to do, as he was almost face down and the side of his face that was visible was smeared with blood.

Presently Art said in an odd tone of voice, "Morrie-would it hurt anything to wipe some of this

blood away?"

"You're dern tootin' it would! You let him be till the doctor comes." "All right, all right. Anyhow I

don't need to -- I'm sure anyhow. Morrie, I know who he is."

"You do? Who?"

"He's my uncle."

"Your uncle!"

"Yes, my uncle. You know-the one I've told you about. He's my Uncle Don. Doctor Donald

Cargraves, my `Atomic Bomb' uncle."

Chapter 2 :: A MAN-SIZED CHALLENGE

file:///C|/Documents and Settings/hasi•i/Dokumenty/Mar•an...t A/%book %a Robert A Heinlein %t Rocket Ship Galileo.txt (4 of 102)16.11.2003 16:16:25

file:///C|/Documents and Settings/hasi•i/Dokumenty/Mar•anovi ptá•koviny/...Heinlein, Robert A/%book %a Robert A Heinlein %t Rocket Ship Galileo.txt

"AT LEAST I'M PRETTY SURE it's my uncle," Art went on. "I could tell for certain if I could see

his whole face."

"Don't you know whether or not he's your uncle? After all, a member of your own family-"

"Nope. I haven't seen him since he came through here to see Mother, just after the war. That's been

a long time. I was just a kid then. But it looks like him."

"But he doesn't look old enough," Morrie said judiciously. "I should think- Here comes the

ambulance!"

It was indeed, with Ross riding with the driver to show him the road and the driver cussing the fact

that the road existed mostly in Ross's imagination. They were all too busy for a few minutes, worrying

over the stranger as a patient, to be much concerned with his identity as an individual. "Doesn't look too

bad," the interne who rode with the ambulance announced. "Nasty scalp wound. Maybe concussion,

maybe not. Now over with him- easy! -while I hold his head." When turned face up and lifted into the

stretcher, the patient's eyes flickered; he moaned and seemed to try to say something. The doctor leaned

over him.

Art caught Morrie's eye and pressed a thumb and forefinger together. There was no longer any

doubt as to the man's identity, now that Art had seen his face.

Ross started to climb back in the ambulance but the interne waved him away. "But all of you boys

show up at the hospital. We'll have to make out an accident report on this."

As soon as the ambulance lumbered away Art told Ross about his discovery. Ross looked startled.

"Your uncle, eh? Your own uncle. What was he doing here?"

"I don't know. I didn't know he was in town."

"Say, look- I hope he's not hurt bad, especially seeing as how he's your uncle -- but is this the uncle,

the one you were telling us about who has been mentioned for the Nobel Prize?"

"That's what I've been trying to tell you. He's my Uncle Donald Cargraves."

"Doctor Donald Cargraves!," Ross whistled. "Jeepers! When we start slugging people we certainly

go after big game, don't we?"

"It's no laughing matter. Suppose he dies? What'll I tell my mother?"

"I wasn't laughing. Let's get over to the hospital and find out how bad he's hurt before you tell her

anything. No use in worrying her unnecessarily." Ross sighed, "I guess we might as well break the news

to my folks. Then I'll drive us over to the hospital."

"Didn't you tell them when you telephoned?," Morrie asked. "No. They were out in the garden, so I

just phoned and then leaned out to the curb to wait for the ambulance. They may have seen it come in

the drive but I didn't wait to find out."

"I'll bet you didn't."

Ross's father was waiting for them at the house. He answered their greetings, then said, "Ross-"

"Yes, sir?"

"I heard an explosion down toward your private stamping ground. Then I saw an ambulance drive

in and drive away. What happened?"

"Well, Dad, it was like this: We were making a full-power captive run on the new rocket and-" He

sketched out the events.

Mr. Jenkins nodded and said, "I see. Come along, boys." He started toward the converted stable

file:///C|/Documents and Settings/hasi•i/Dokumenty/Mar•an...t A/%book %a Robert A Heinlein %t Rocket Ship Galileo.txt (5 of 102)16.11.2003 16:16:25

file:///C|/Documents and Settings/hasi•i/Dokumenty/Mar•anovi ptá•koviny/...Heinlein, Robert A/%book %a Robert A Heinlein %t Rocket Ship Galileo.txt

which housed the family car. "Ross, run tell your mother where we are going. Tell her I said not to

worry." He went on, leaning on his cane a bit as he walked. Mr. Jenkins was a retired electrical engineer,

even-tempered and taciturn.

Art could not remember his own father; Morrie's father was still living but a very different

personality. Mr. Abrams ruled a large and noisy, children-cluttered household by combining a loud

voice with lavish affection.

When Ross returned, puffing, his father waved away his offer to drive. "No, thank you. I want us to

get there."

The trip was made in silence. Mr. Jenkins left them in the foyer of the hospital with an injunction to

wait.

"What do you think he will do?" Morrie asked nervously.

"I don't know. Dad'll be fair about it."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Morrie admitted. "Right now I don't want justice; I want charity."

"I hope Uncle Don is all right," Art put in.

"Huh? Oh, yes, indeed! Sorry, Art, I'm afraid we've kind of forgotten your feelings. The principal

thing is for him to get well, of course."

"To tell the truth, before I knew it was Uncle Don, I was more worried over the chance that I might

have gotten Mother into a law suit than I was over what we might have done to a stranger."

"Forget it," Ross advised. "A person can't help worrying over his own troubles. Dad says the test is

in what you do, not in what you think. We all did what we could for him."

"Which was mostly not to touch him before the doctor came," Morrie pointed out.

"Which was what he needed."

"Yes," agreed Art, "but I don't check you, Ross, on it not mattering what you think as long as you

act all right. It seems to me that wrong ideas can be just as bad as wrong ways to do things."

"Easy, now. If a guy does something brave when he's scared to death is he braver than the guy who

does the same thing but isn't scared?"

"He's less . . . . no, he's more. . . . You've got me all mixed up. It's not the same thing."

"Not quite, maybe. Skip it."

They sat in silence for a long time. Then Morrie said, "Anyhow, I hope he's all right."

Mr. Jenkins came out with news. "Well, boys, this is your lucky day. Skull uninjured according to

the X-ray. The patient woke when they sewed up his scalp. I talked with him and he has decided not to

scalp any of you in return." He smiled.

"May I see him?" asked Art.

"Not tonight. They've given him a hypo and he is asleep. I telephoned your mother, Art."

"You did? Thank you, sir."

"She's expecting you. I'll drop you by."

Art's interview with his mother was not too difficult; Mr. Jenkins had laid a good foundation. In

fact, Mrs. Mueller was incapable of believing that Art could be "bad." But she did worry about him and

Mr. Jenkins had soothed her, not only about Art but also as to the welfare of her brother. Morrie had still

less trouble with Mr. Abrams. After being assured that the innocent bystander was not badly hurt, he had

shrugged. "So what? So we have lawyers in the family for such things. At fifty cents a week it'll take

you about five hundred years to pay it off. Go to bed."

"Yes, Poppa."

file:///C|/Documents and Settings/hasi•i/Dokumenty/Mar•an...t A/%book %a Robert A Heinlein %t Rocket Ship Galileo.txt (6 of 102)16.11.2003 16:16:25

file:///C|/Documents and Settings/hasi•i/Dokumenty/Mar•anovi ptá•koviny/...Heinlein, Robert A/%book %a Robert A Heinlein %t Rocket Ship Galileo.txt

The boys gathered at the rocket testing grounds the next morning, after being assured by a

telephone call to the hospital that Doctor Cargraves had spent a good night. They planned to call on him

that afternoon; at the moment they wanted to hold a post-mortem on the ill-starred Starstruck V.

The first job was to gather up the pieces, try to reassemble them, and then try to figure out what had

happened. Art's film of the event would be necessary to complete the story, but it was not yet ready.

They were well along with the reassembling when they heard a whistle and a shout from the

direction of the gate. "Hello there! Anybody home?"

"Coming!" Ross answered. They skirted the barricade to where they could see the gate. A tall,

husky figure waited there -- a man so young, strong, and dynamic in appearance that the bandage around

his head seemed out of place, and still more so in contrast with his friendly grin.

"Uncle Don!" Art yelled as he ran up to meet him.

"Hi," said the newcomer. "You're Art. Well, you've grown a lot but you haven't changed much." He

shook hands.

"What are you doing out of bed? You're sick."

"Not me," his uncle asserted. "I've got a release from the hospital to prove it. But introduce me --

are these the rest of the assassins?"

"Oh-excuse me. Uncle Don, this is Maurice Abrams and this is Ross Jenkins. . . Doctor

Cargraves."

"How do you do, sir?"

"Glad to know you, Doctor."

"Glad to know you, too." Cargraves started through the gate, then hesitated. "Sure this place isn't

booby-trapped?"

Ross looked worried. "Say, Doctor-we're all sorry as can be. I still can't see how it happened. This

gate is covered by the barricade."

"Ricochet shot probably. Forget it. I'm not hurt. A little skin and a little blood-that's all. If I had

turned back at your first warning sign, it wouldn't have happened."

"How did you happen to be coming here?"

"A fair question. I hadn't been invited, had I?"

"Oh, I didn't mean that."

"But I owe you an explanation. When I breezed into town yesterday, I already knew of the Galileo

Club; Art's mother had mentioned it in letters. When my sister told me where Art was and what he was

up to, I decided to slide over in hope of getting here in time to watch your test run. Your hired girl told

me how to find my way out here."

"You mean you hurried out here just to see this stuff we play around with?"

"Sure. Why not? I'm interested in rockets."

"Yes, but-we really haven't got anything to show you. These are just little models."

"A new model," Doctor Cargraves answered seriously, "of anything can be important, no matter

who makes it nor how small it is. I wanted to see how you work. May I?"

"Oh, certainly, sir-we'd be honored." Ross showed their guest around, with Morrie helping out and

Art chipping in. Art was pink-faced and happy -- this was his uncle, one of the world's great, a pioneer

of the Atomic Age. They inspected the test stand and the control panel. Cargraves looked properly

impressed and tut-tutted over the loss of Starstruck V.

As a matter of fact he was impressed. It is common enough in the United States for boys to build

file:///C|/Documents and Settings/hasi•i/Dokumenty/Mar•an...t A/%book %a Robert A Heinlein %t Rocket Ship Galileo.txt (7 of 102)16.11.2003 16:16:25

file:///C|/Documents and Settings/hasi•i/Dokumenty/Mar•anovi ptá•koviny/...Heinlein, Robert A/%book %a Robert A Heinlein %t Rocket Ship Galileo.txt

and take apart almost anything mechanical, from alarm clocks to hiked-up jaloppies. It is not so common

for them to understand the sort of controlled and recorded experimentation on which science is based.

Their equipment was crude and their facilities limited, but the approach was correct and the

scientist recognized it.

The stainless steel mirrors used to bounce the spotlight beams over the barricade puzzled Doctor

Cargravcs. "Why take so much trouble to protect light bulbs ?" he asked. "Bulbs are cheaper than

stainless steel."

"We were able to get the mirror steel free," Ross explained. "The spotlight bulbs take cash money."

The scientist chuckled. "That reason appeals to me. Well, you fellows have certainly thrown

together quite a set-up. I wish I had seen your rocket before it blew up."

"Of course the stuff we build," Ross said diffidently, "can't compare with a commercial unmanned

rocket, say like a mailcarrier. But we would like to dope out something good enough to go after the

junior prizes."

"Ever competed?"

"Not yet. Our physics class in high school entered one last year in the novice classification. It

wasn't much -- just a powder job, but that's what got us started, though we've all been crazy about

rockets ever since I can remember."

"You've got some fancy control equipment. Where do you do your machine-shop work? Or do you

have it done?"

"Oh, no. We do it in the high-school shop. If the shop instructor okays you, you can work after

school on your own."

"It must be quite a high school," the physicist commented. "The one I went to didn't have a machine

shop."

"I guess it is a pretty progressive school," Ross agreed. "It's a mechanical-arts-and-science high

school and it has more courses in math and science and shop work than most. It's nice to be able to use

the shops. That's where we built our telescope."

"Astronomers too, eh?"

"Well-Morrie is the astronomer of the three of us."

"Is that so?," Cargraves inquired, turning to Morrie.

Morrie shrugged. "Oh, not exactly. We all have our hobbies. Ross goes in for chemistry and rocket

fuels. Art is a radio ham and a camera nut. You can study astronomy sitting down."

"I see," the physicist replied gravely. "A matter of efficient self-protection. I knew about Art's

hobbies. By the way, Art, I owe you an apology; yesterday afternoon I took a look in your basement. But

don't worry-I didn't touch anything."

"Oh, I'm not worried about your touching stuff, Uncle Don," Art protested, turning pinker, "but the

place must have looked a mess."

"It didn't look like a drawing room but it did look like a working laboratory. I see you keep

notebooks -- no, I didn't touch them, either!"

"We all keep notebooks," Morrie volunteered. "That's the influence of Ross's old man."

"Dad told me he did not care," Ross explained, "how much I messed around as long as I kept it

above the tinker-toy level. He used to make me submit notes to him on everything I tried and he would

grade them on clearness and completeness. After a while I got the idea and he quit."

"Does he help you with your projects?"

file:///C|/Documents and Settings/hasi•i/Dokumenty/Mar•an...t A/%book %a Robert A Heinlein %t Rocket Ship Galileo.txt (8 of 102)16.11.2003 16:16:25

file:///C|/Documents and Settings/hasi•i/Dokumenty/Mar•anovi ptá•koviny/...Heinlein, Robert A/%book %a Robert A Heinlein %t Rocket Ship Galileo.txt

"Not a bit. He says they're our babies and we'll have to nurse them."

They prepared to adjourn to their clubhouse, an out-building left over from the days when the Old

Ross Place was worked as a farm. They gathered up the forlorn pieces of Starstruck V, while Ross

checked each item. "I guess that's all," he announced and started to pick up the remains.

"Wait a minute," Morrie suggested. "We never did search for the piece that clipped Doctor

Cargraves."

"That's right," the scientist agreed. "I have a personal interest in that item, blunt instrument, missile,

shrapnel, or whatever. I want to know how close I came to playing a harp."

Ross looked puzzled. "Come here, Art," he said in a low voice.

"I am here. What do you want?"

"Tell me what piece is still missing-"

"What difference does it make?" But he bent over the box containing the broken rocket and

checked the items. Presently he too looked puzzled.

"Ross-"

"Yeah?"

"There isn't anything missing."

"That's what I thought. But there has to be."

"Wouldn't it be more to the point," suggested Cargraves, "to look around near where I was hit?"

"I suppose so."

They all searched, they found nothing. Presently they organized a system which covered the ground

with such thoroughness that anything larger than a medium-small ant should have come to light. They

found a penny and a broken Indian arrowhead, but nothing resembling a piece of the exploded rocket.

"This is getting us nowhere," the doctor admitted. "Just where was I when you found me?"

"Right in the gateway," Morrie told him. "You were collapsed on your face and-"

"Just a minute. On my face?"

"Yes. You were-"

"But how did I get knocked on my face? I was facing toward your testing ground when the lights

went out. I'm sure of that. I should have fallen backwards."

"Well . . . I'm sure you didn't, sir. Maybe it was a ricochet, as you said."

"Hmm. . . maybe." The doctor looked around. There was nothing near the gate which would make a

ricochet probable. He looked at the spot where he had lain and spoke to himself.

"What did you say, doctor?"

"Uh? Oh, nothing, nothing at all. Forget it. It was just a silly idea I had. It couldn't be." He

straightened up as if dismissing the whole thing.

"Let's not waste any more time on my vanishing `blunt instrument.' It was just curiosity. Let's get

on back."

The clubhouse was a one-story frame building about twenty feet square. One wall was filled with

Ross's chemistry workbench with the usual clutter of test-tube racks, bunsen burners, awkward-looking,

pretzel-like arrangements of glass tubing, and a double sink which looked as if it had been salvaged

from a junk dealer. A home-made hood with a hinged glass front occupied one end of the bench. Parallel

to the adjacent wall, in a little glass case, a precision balance' of a good make but of very early vintage

stood mounted on its own concrete pillar.

"We ought to have air-conditioning," Ross told the doctor, "to do really good work."

file:///C|/Documents and Settings/hasi•i/Dokumenty/Mar•an...t A/%book %a Robert A Heinlein %t Rocket Ship Galileo.txt (9 of 102)16.11.2003 16:16:25

file:///C|/Documents and Settings/hasi•i/Dokumenty/Mar•anovi ptá•koviny/...Heinlein, Robert A/%book %a Robert A Heinlein %t Rocket Ship Galileo.txt

"You haven't done so badly," Cargraves commented. The boys had covered the rough walls with

ply board; the cracks had been filled and the interior painted with washable enamel. The floor they had

covered with linoleum, salvaged like the sink, but serviceable. The windows and door were tight. The

place was clean.

"Humidity changes could play hob with some of your experiments, however," he went on. "Do you

plan to put in air-conditioning sometime?"

"I doubt it. I guess the Galileo Club is about to fold up."

"What? Oh, that seems a shame."

"It is and it isn't. This fall we all expect to go away to Tech."

"I see. But aren't there any other members?"

"There used to be, but they've moved, gone away to school, gone in the army. I suppose we could

have gotten new members but we didn't try. Well . . we work together well and,. . . you know how it is."

Cargraves nodded. He felt that he knew more explicitly than did the boy. These three were doing

serious work; most of their schoolmates, even though mechanically minded, would be more interested in

needling a stripped-down car up to a hundred miles an hour than in keeping careful notes.

"Well, you are certainly comfortable here. It's a shame you can't take it with you." A low, wide,

padded seat stretched from wall to wall opposite the chemistry layout. The other two boys were

sprawled on it, listening. Behind them, bookshelves had been built into the wall. Jules Verne crowded

against Mark's Handbook of Mechanical Engineering. Cargraves noted other old friends: H.G. Wells'

Seven Famous Novels, The Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, and Smyth's Atomic Energy for

Military Purposes. Jammed in with them, side by side with Ley's Rockets and Eddington's Nature of the

Physical World, were dozens of puip magazines of the sort with robot men or space ships on their

covers.

He pulled down a dog-eared copy of Haggard's When the Earth Trembled and settled his long body

between the boys. He was beginning to feel at home. These boys he knew; he had only to gaze back

through the corridors of his mind to recognize himself.

Ross said, "If you'll excuse me, I want to run up to the house." Cargraves grunted, "Sure thing,"

with his nose still in the book. Ross came back to announce, "My mother would like all of you to stay

for lunch."

Morrie grinned, Art looked troubled. "My mother thinks I eat too many meals over here as it is," he

protested feebly, his eyes on his uncle. Cargraves took him by the arm. "I'll go your bail on this one,

Art," he assured him; then to Ross, "Please tell your mother that we are very happy to accept."

At lunch the adults talked, the boys listened. The scientist, his turban bandage looking stranger than

ever, hit it off well with his elders. Any one would hit it off well with Mrs. Jenkins, who could have

been friendly and gracious at a cannibal feast, but the boys were not used to seeing Mr. Jenkins in a

chatty mood.

The boys were surprised to find out how much Mr. Jenkins knew about atomics. They had the usual

low opinion of the mental processes of adults; Mr. Jenkins they respected but had subconsciously

considered him the anachronism which most of his generation in fact was, a generation as a whole

incapable of realizing that the world had changed completely a few years before, at Alamogordo, New

Mexico, on July 16, 1945. Yet Mr. Jenkins seemed to know who Doctor Cargraves was and seemed to

know that he had been retained until recently by North American Atomics. The boys listened carefully

to find out what Doctor Cargraves planned to do next, but Mr. Jenkins did not ask and Cargraves did not

file:///C|/Documents and Settings/hasi•i/Dokumenty/Mar•an...t A/%book %a Robert A Heinlein %t Rocket Ship Galileo.txt (10 of 102)16.11.2003 16:16:25

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

file:///C|/DocumentsandSettings/hasi•i/Dokumenty/Mar•anoviptá•koviny/...Heinlein,RobertA/%book%aRobertAHeinlein%tRocketShipGalileo.txtChapter1::"LETTHEROCKETROAR""EVERYBODYALLSET?"YoungRossJenkinsglancednervouslyathis wochums."Howaboutyourcamera,Art?Yousureyougotthelenscoveroffthistime?"Thethreebo...

展开>> 收起<<

Robert A Heinlein - Rocket Ship Galileo.pdf

共102页,预览21页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

Robert A Heinlein - Rocket Ship Galileo

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: