Читать книгу Windows of Opportunities - Heinrich Psscht - Страница 40
Captain
Оглавление– Sir, may I ask a question?
– Come on, Hans, just be brief!
– How did you become the captain?
– How did I become a captain? Or how did I become the captain of this ship? See, these are two questions!
– Probably the first, sir!
– At first I became a navigator like you. You don’t want me to tell you how I did that, do you?
– No, sir!
– Then I entered the School of Captains…
– You went back to school, sir?
– Indeed, we were joking when we were young that after the Academy of Navigators you need to go to the School of Captains, and in order to become an Admiral, you probably should go to the Kindergarten… And everybody laughed like hippos!
– This is really very funny, sir!
– You bet! We thought so, too, but it’s not as funny as that, Hans, and you will know why one day!
– Then I had been serving for several years on a large ship as an assistant captain, and then they gave me some kind of jalopy, a pathetic ruin with a robot navigator. What a bore he was! But gradually we’ve got used to each other! Sometimes he even sends me his greetings! He’s quite old for a robot, dodges mandatory upgrades… What’s flashing on your screen?
– Some small objects on the course, like asteroids, sir!
– Have we entered the field of gravity of some star?
– There is no star around on the indicator, sir!
– Instant acceleration, Hans!
– Why, sir?
– Don’t ask idiotic questions, do it! I’ll chart a course
and you take the console, you will be the captain for a few minutes! Just don’t press anything in a hurry!
– Yes, sir, I’ll be careful!
– Seems we have slipped through!
– What was that, sir?
– We flew straight to the event horizon of the black hole. A little more, we would not be able to escape and would be smeared over this very horizon…
– I can’t understand how it happened sir…
– Mark in the log: unidentifiable black hole in the square, put the coordinates, let them figure it out! Be careful, Hans! Do you know what is the main difference between a navigator and a captain?
– I daren’t know sir
– The captain can always say to the navigator: “Be careful!”
