《Nor Iron Bars 》作者：- James Blish【EPUB】

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Nor Iron Bars. THE FlyawayII which was large enough to carry a hundred passengers seemed twice as large toGordon Arpe with only the crew on board large and silent with the silence of its orbit athousand miles above the Earth. quotWhen are they duequot Dr. now Captain Arpe said for at least the fourth time. His secondofficer Friedrich Oestreicher looked at the chronometer and away again with boredom. quotThe first batch will be on board in five minutesquot he said harshly. quotPresumably theyve allreached SV-One by now. It only remains to ferry them over.” Arpe nibbled at a fingernail. Although he had always been the tall thin and jumpy type nail-biting was a new vice to him. quotI still think its insane to be carrying passengers on a flight like thisquot he said. Oestreicher said nothing. Carrying passengers was no novelty to him. He had been captainof a passenger vessel on the Mars run for ten years and looked it: a stocky hardmuscledyoungster of thirty whose crew cut was going gray despite the fact that he was five yearsyounger than Arpe. He was second in command of the FlyawayII only because he had no knowledgeof the new drive. Or to put it another way Arpe was captain only because he was the only manwho did understand it having invented it. Either way you put it didnt sweeten it forOestreicher that much was evident. Well the first officer would be the acting captain most of the time anyhow. Arpe admittedthat he himself had no knowledge of how to run a space ship. The thought of passengersfurthermore came close to terrifying him. He hoped to have as little contact with them aspossible. But dammit all it was crazy to be carrying a hundred laymen half of them women and childrenfurthermore on the maiden flight of an untried interstellar drive solely on the belief of oneDr. Gordon Arpe that his brain child would work. Well that wasnt the sole reason of course.The whole Flyaway project of which Arpe had been head believed it would work and so did thegovernment