“Yes, the generals will dismiss me if I fall for the bait of this jerk. And Smirnov is also good, behaved very stupidly. I would be ashamed report a meeting, and even with humanoids. Unjustified risk, could put an end to his career, it's good that he was lucky, the policy has changed. And you must be a fool, a fool, but he rose to the rank of colonel. Well, nothing we are fix it, expel it as a major.” Outside the window, a cypress tree stood like a slender minaret, soaring into the sky. The general has been observing for the fifth year how the tree under the window grows, and it has overgrown with ties, like this cypress with branches. And to make the colonel a major, it was as easy for the general as for the sparrow outside the window to fly from one cypress branch to the next. The general turned away from the window. The decision ripened in his head. He took off his cap from a hanger in the corner of the room and left the office.
The doctor was young. After graduating from medical school, he was among the best sent to the Spaceport. From his senior colleagues, he heard that there is not life there, but earthly paradise. And so, having entered the earthly paradise, the young man was given a look around. For six months he, among twelve comrades, wandered around the town in the hope of getting a job as soon as possible, but the command seemed to spit on them from a big hill, as the captain, the head of the personnel department, said.
– I hardly managed to break through the allowance, and you still have claims to me.
The guys quickly realized that the captain had nothing to do with it and began to invite him to their company for a bottle of vodka. But although the captain drank, he drank quietly, without noise. The authorities did not pay attention to the impeccable captain, and he imperceptibly served his 45- year term.
– I have only three years left. He spoke proudly to drinking companions. Who, having not yet tasted the joys of service, did not fully understand the captain what he meant. And so, the young lieutenant of the medical service left the general, firmly remembering that more than one instruction did not say about the use of hypnosis as therapeutic purposes for the treatment of the military personnel of the spaceport. And if so, then naturally the general could not give permission for this, but since he did not forbid him, the lieutenant decided that with Fedorov's tacit consent, he could afford to subject Major Gratsis to hypnosis. And inspired by his decision, he did not enter, flew into Elena's room. The cosmonaut at this time was sitting at her desk and writing a letter home. Surprised, she turned to the flying lieutenant: – You have to knock, young man.
– Excuse me, Elena Albertovna, but I am twenty- nine years old, and you too. Do you know what the difference between us is?
– What is it?
– The fact that you are the wife of the deceased astronaut, and I …
– The wife of the deceased general, the astronaut interrupted him venomously.
The doctor was clearly arrogant. Lowering his gaze, he fell silent. Then, in a deaf voice, like a guilty schoolboy, in front of a strict teacher, he mumbled: “I apologize to you.”
– Get out, brat, – the woman rudely threw out the insult. The lieutenant blushed from ear to ear, but obeyed and walked out the door. He stood with his back against the door and raised his eyes to the ceiling. Elena herself did not expect such a surge of emotional incontinence from herself. Somewhere deep in her soul, she was embarrassed for the stupid lieutenant, for his tactless behavior. But on the other hand, that he should run to her with a bouquet of roses and kneel to beg for a date.
