"Allen, Roger Macbride - Allies And Aliens 1 - Torch Of Honor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Allen Roger Macbride)

Never mind that I had just become the first man in history to smuggle a fully armed and equipped 5,000-man army past customs. It said right over my signature that I had nothing to declare.
There wasn't much point in unpacking what I had brought from Vapaus. It represented the last stages of the job, the delicate electronic work. Before any of that could be done, I had to get the big structural part of the receiver built. However, the man who was supposed to meet me at this end hadn't shown yet. More hurry-up-and-wait.
Along toward sunset, I was awakened from a light doze when the barn doors swung open and another wagon rolled in, dragging loads of steel and a number of electronics racks. I got up from my seat on the floor with a crick in my neck as a good-looking, cheerful, slightly pudgy young man hopped down from the driver's seat and walked over to me with a light step. He reached out and offered me his hand. "Dr. Darrow. George Prigot. The big brass seem to think you're on to something pretty big."
"I might be at that." I took an instant liking to George. He was of medium height, with a thick mop of shaggy brown hair. His eyes were calm, almost sleepy, and yet had a bright spark hidden in their depths. His handshake was firm and solid, and his hands would have done a surgeon credit-big, long-fingered, and used with a graceful economy of motion.
This was no military type, uniform or no. It barely was a uniform he had on. The insignia was faded, and the shirt was rumpled and washed to the point where it was a completely different shade of grey from the pants, which were too long, almost making him trip over his unshined shoes. Every outfit has one of George's kind in it-the tolerated talent, too good at what he did to be done without, and therefore given more freedom, more license, than anyone else.
"A matter transmitter. I used to hope I'd get the chance to work on one. I gave that up when they sent me here. Not much research on this planet for a while."
"Well, you'll work on it now. Did you get a look at the blueprints they wired down from the satellite?"
He pointed to the cart full of girders and sheet metal behind him. "That's it, right there. All prefabbed. We just finished up the last of the cutting an hour ago. In fact, my plan is to get the basic structure up tonight, while you get caught up on your rest. You look pretty done in. Where are you billeted? I'll run you over."
"Short trip. I'm not supposed to go farther than the privy, three times a day. They're bringing in a cot."
"Brilliant. You can't do design work sleeping on a piece of canvas in the middle of a machine shop. Heinrichs!"
"Yes sir?"
"First thing on the agenda is to get the doctor here a place to lay his head. We'll build him a soundproof cubicle over there in the corner. Get some soundproof wallboard and so on. I want it up inside of three hours. Pound the quartermaster over the head until he issues you a decent bed and bedding. Also, we'll need working tables and chairs. Brass didn't think we'd need any office space to do this. Got it?"
"Okay. Do I check with you if I need anything else?"
"Use your judgment. Better still, use Steve's. He knows what we can get away with. Learn from the master."
"Yo." Heinrichs neglected his salute (but George didn't seem to expect one), hopped back into the wagon, and drove off.
"That should settle things. Oh! They think to feed you?"
"Nope."
"And I forgot to eat, myself. Tell you what. You get freshened up a bit and I'll find us some food." And George was gone.
The privy detail marched me across the courtyard. By the time I had my shower, shaved, brushed my teeth, and generally gotten closer to feeling human, Heinrichs and a few others were already putting together my bunkroom. George appeared, bearing a pair of stacked trays, and, as George put it, "some of the boys" started to rig work lights.
The lighting was stark and cross-angled, like searchlights in a dark field. Brightly lit figures would scurry in front of a light and then vanish completely into huge shadows. Great misshapen beings would appear in silhouette on the walls and then transform themselves into normal humans as the original stepped closer to the wall and straightened up.
There is a magic about a rush job at night. The barn doors were left open as men came in and out after tools or a sandwich from the mess hall, and cool night air spilled into the brightly lit hangar. The previously untouched room lost its virginity. Men were at work, and litter appeared on the floor-scraps of paper full of rough sketches and calculations, sandwich wrappers, bits and shims of steel from pieces that needed a trim, tools strewn about, and cables snaking everywhere in entangling webs.
In the center of it all, the shell of the receiver grew like a ruin coming back to life. The first bracing appeared, and the wide curve of a half cylinder grew across the floor. Parts were welded together, and each joint was closely scrutinized by George. He was a tough man to please, and no job was done until it was done over and done right. Soon, the skeleton of the beast was complete, and we started putting the skin on.
Sheets of narrow-gauge steel were flush-bolted to the inside of the frame, and the pieces joined with a precision Finnish laser welding unit. You could run your hand over the seams and never find them.
This was a proud crew, a tight crew. George ran them hard, but they knew how good they were. The lowest-ranked laborer had just as much of a chance of winning a technical argument as his superior. Here the job was important, and to hell with the paperwork, we'll patch up a story later.
The Guardians I had been up against so far had been robots, or sadists, or barbarians, or simply boors. Here I was part of the team, since I could handle a screwdriver, since I could help Get The Job Done. After all the long weeks of isolation, starting the moment I set foot aboard Stars, this was just what I needed.
I nearly forgot whose side they were on, and the strong chance that this machine would result in their deaths. It's easy to rationalize killing the bad guys, but here was George offering to loan me his tape deck for the duration, and I might be arranging for him to be lying in a pool of blood in a week's time.
One line of thought could have cheered me up as far as that went. The plan might fail. The transmitter could go blooie. Guardian intelligence might catch up with me. I might blow the schedule. Could I speed up the work, or stall, if need be?
The great shape grew and solidified in the middle of the hangar, spotlit and backlit now and then by the welders. They were down to finicky alignment work by the time exhaustion caught up with me, and I crawled into my bunk, morning just peeping in the door. I slept long and well.
Outside my comfortable little room, a machine of death and salvation slowly grew.

CHAPTER SEVEN

"Jeff, if this things works, things are really going to change. I mean really change." George downed a big gulp of New Finnish vodka and grimaced at the strength of the stuff. He handed me the bottle and I took a slightly shorter pull off it. I nodded a somewhat hazy agreement.
"Cars, planes, hell, even intersystem spaceflight-all of it obsolete. Push a button and there you are!"
"And then once you're at the other end someone hands you a bill for a gigawatt or so of electricity."
"Just a question of efficiency."
"Think it can be made efficient?"
"Sure. I think you can make it efficient."
"Me. Hmmmm."
"You. Jeff-why is it you always talk about it as if it wasn't your work?"
"I dunno." I realized I was on thin ice again and tried to retreat. "I guess the idea has been floating around so long I can't take credit. Or else I don't really believe it will work."
"Oh, it'll work." George was no more a theorist than Terrance MacKenzie Larson (alias Jefferson Darrow) was. His opinion, no, his certitude, was based on faith. Faith in me, ol' Doc Darrow. I took a longer hit off the bottle.
Judas. I felt like Judas. George so clearly liked me, respected me. I had found it harder and harder to play the part of Dr. Darrow, prize chicken and quisling, around him. Here I was, posing as the brilliant inventor of the gadget he had dreamed of as a kid in the children's barracks back on the Guardian's planet, Capital. And I was to betray him
We were sitting in my little private room, and the boys from George's crew (or, more formally, 9462 Construction Battalion) were throwing themselves a little party to celebrate the completion of the basic structure. From here on in it was finicky work with oscilloscopes and test calipers. One of the boys opened the door, stuck in a rather red nose, yelled "C'mon! Th' party's ou' here!," and nearly slammed the door on himself as he left, without waiting for a reply.
George grinned and sipped at the bottle. I shook my head at him. "You sure don't seem the military type, George. How'd you end up here?"
"Hell, Jeff, on Capital, everybody's the military sort. There isn't anything else. That's the whole point."
"What's the idea of calling it Capital, anyway?"
He shrugged vaguely. "They figure it's going to be that. Someday. The Capital. Capital of everything, everybody."
"Everybody? Earth? Bandwidth? Europa?"
"I guess."