As a rule, everything new in the room was linked with the Captain. Today there were diagrams on his desk that had not been there before. It was something new, and consequently something that required some thinking. Teacher Tenin very much liked new things. He sat down at the Captain’s desk and began to look over the diagrams.
From the shower room came:
“Add a little more cold, Polly!”
“Don’t! It’s cold already! I’m freezing!”
“Hold onto him, Lin. It’ll toughen him up.”
“Athos, hand me the scraper.”
“Where’s the soap, guys?”
Someone fell onto the floor with a crash. A yelp: “What idiot threw the soap under my feet?”
Laughter, cries of “Zow!”
“Very clever! Boy, will I get you!”
“Back! Pull in your manipulators, you!”
The teacher looked the diagrams over and replaced them. The plot thickens, he thought. Now an oxygen concentrator. The boys are really taken up with Venus. He got up and looked under Pol’s pillow. There lay the Introduction to. It had been thoroughly leafed through. The teacher flipped thoughtfully through the pages and put the book back. Even Pol, he thought. Curious.
Then he saw that the boxing gloves that had been lying on Lin’s desk day in and day out, regularly and unvaryingly for the last two years, were missing. Over the Captain’s bed, the photograph of Gorbovsky in a vacuum suit was gone, and Pol’s desktop was empty.
Teacher Tenin understood everything. He realized that they wanted to run away, and he knew where they wanted to run to. He even knew when they wanted to go. The photograph was missing, and therefore it was in the Captain’s knapsack. Therefore the knapsack was already packed. Therefore they were leaving tomorrow morning, early. The Captain always liked to do a thorough job, and not put off until tomorrow what he could do today. (On the other hand, Pol’s knapsack couldn’t be ready yet—Pol preferred to do everything the day after tomorrow.) So they were going tomorrow, out through the window so as not to disturb the housefather. They had a great dislike of disturbing housefathers. And who did not?
The teacher glanced under a bed. The Captain’s knapsack was made up with enviable neatness. Pol’s lay under his bed. Pol’s favorite shirt—red stripes and no collar—stuck out from the knapsack. In the cabinet reposed a ladder skillfully woven from sheets, undoubtedly Athos’s creation.
So… that meant there was some thinking to be done. Teacher Tenin grew gloomy and cheerful simultaneously.
Pol, wearing only shorts, came tearing out of the shower room, saw the teacher, and turned a cartwheel.
“Not bad, Pol!” the teacher exclaimed. “Only keep your legs straight.”
“Zow!” Pol yelped, and cartwheeled the other way. “Teacher, spacemen! Teacher’s here!”
They always forgot to say hello.
The crew of the Galaktion darted into the room and got stuck in the doorway. Teacher Tenin looked at them and thought… nothing. He loved them very much. He always loved them. All of them. All those he brought up and launched into the wide world. There were many of them, and these were the best of all. Because they were now. They were standing at attention and looking at him just the way he liked. Almost.
“K-T-T-U-S-T-X-D,” signaled the teacher. This meant, “Calling crew of Galaktion. Have good visual contact. Is there dust on course?”
“T-T-Q-U-Z-C,” the crew answered discordantly. They also had good visual contact, and there was almost no dust on the course.
“Suit up!” the teacher commanded, and stared at his chronometer.
Without saying anything more, the crew rushed to suit up.
“Where’s my other sock?” Lin yelled, and then he saw the yacht. “You think that’s clever, Polly?” he muttered.
The suiting-up lasted thirty-nine and some tenths seconds,
Lin finishing last. “You pig, Polly,” he grumbled. “Wise guy!”
Then everyone sat down at random, and the teacher said, “Literature, geography, algebra, and work. Right?”
“And a little phys ed too,” added Athos.
“Undoubtedly,” said the teacher. “That’s clear from your swollen nose. And speaking of phys ed, Pol is still bending his legs. Alexandr, you show him how.”
“Okay,” Lin said with satisfaction. “But he’s a little slow, Teacher.”
Pol answered quickly, “Better a somewhat sluggish knee / Than a head full of stupidity.”
“C plus.” The teacher shook his head. “Not too elegant, but the idea is clear. In thirty years maybe you’ll learn to be witty, Pol, but when it happens don’t abuse your power.”
“I’ll try not to,” Pol said modestly.
C plus wasn’t so bad, but Lin sat there red and sulky. By evening he would have thought up a rejoinder.
“Let’s talk about literature,” Teacher Tenin proposed. “Captain Komov, how is your composition feeling today?”
“I wrote about Gorbovsky,” the Captain said, and fished in his desk.
“A fine topic!” said the teacher. “I hope you’ve been equal to it.”
“He’s not equal to anything,” Athos declared. “He thinks that the important thing about Gorbovsky is the know-how.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think that the main thing about Gorbovsky is the daring, the courage.”
“I would suppose you’re wrong, Navigator,” said the teacher. “There are very many daring people. And among spacemen you won’t find any cowards. The cowards simply die out. But the Assaultmen, especially ones like Gorbovsky, are unique. I ask you to believe me because I know, and you don’t, not yet. But you’ll find out, Navigator. And what did you write?”
“I wrote about Doctor Mboga,” said Athos.
“Where did you find out about him?”
“I gave him a book about flying leeches,” Pol explained.
“Wonderful, boys! Have you all read the book?”
“Yes,” said Lin.
“Who didn’t like it?”
“We all liked it,” Pol said with pride. “I dug it out of the library.”
He of course had forgotten that the teacher had recommended that book to him. He always forgot such details—he very much liked to “discover” books. And he liked everyone to know about this. He liked publicity.
“Good for you, Pol!” said the teacher. “And you, of course, wrote about Doctor Mboga too?”
“I wrote a poem!”
“Oho, Pol! And aren’t you afraid?”
“What is there to be afraid of?” Pol said blithely. “I read it to Athos. The only things he complained about were trivia. And just a little bit.”
The teacher looked doubtfully at Athos. “Hmm. As far as I know Navigator Sidorov, he is rarely distracted by trivia. Well see, we’ll see. And you, Alexandr?”
Lin silently thrust a thick composition book at the teacher. A monstrous smudge spread over the cover. “Zvantsev,” he explained. “The oceanographer.”
“Who is that?” Pol asked jealously.
Lin looked at him with shocked contempt and remained silent. Pol was mortified. It was unbearable. It was awful. He had never so much as heard of Zvantsev the oceanographer.
“Well, great,” the teacher said, and gathered up the composition books. “I’ll read them and think about them. We’ll talk about them tomorrow.”
He immediately regretted saying that. The Captain was so visibly discomfited by the word “tomorrow.” To lie, to dissemble, ran very much against the grain of the boy. There was no need to torture them—he would have to be more careful in his choice of words. After all, they were not planning anything bad. They were not even in any danger—they would get no farther than Anyudin. But they would have to come back, and that would really hurt. The whole school would laugh at them. Kids were sometimes malicious, especially in cases like this, where their comrades imagined that they could do something that others couldn’t. He thought of the great scoffers in Rooms 20 and 72, and about the jolly smallfry who would jump with a whoop upon the captive crew of the Galaktion and tear them limb from limb.