"David Drake - Hammer's Slammers 08 - The Voyage" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

Telaria

AS NED SLADE walked toward the dockyard building with the HEADQUARTERS—PANCAHTE EXPEDITION sign on the door, a line of six human males and a squat, shaggy alien from Racontis jogged past

"You wonder why I'm a private," the leader sang.

' 'And why I sleep in the ditch,'' sang-wheezed the remaining joggers in several keys. The Racontid had a clear, carrying voice which would better have suited an angel than a creature which could pull a strong man apart with its bare hands.

A metal saw shrilled within the starship in the adjacent frames, overwhelming the song. Ned's mind supplied the words anyway: "It's not because I'm stupid, but 1 just don't want to be rich..."

The door was ajar. Ned knocked, but he couldn't hear the rap of his own knuckles over the saw, so he let himself in.

"Shut the curst thing!" ordered the man at the electronic desk, cupping a palm over his telephone handset. He was paunchy and at least sixty standard years old. "I can't hear myself think!"

2 — DAVID DRAKE —

As he spoke, the sawblade coasted back to silence. The fellow at the desk returned to his call. The rangy, somewhat younger man leaning against the office wall prevented Ned from swinging the door to. "Leave it, kid," the man said. "I like the ventilation.''

Ned looked from one stranger to the other. Neither of them paid him any attention. "No," the older man said into his handset, "I'm Adjutant Tadziki, but it will not help if you call back when Captain Doormann is here. She's already made her decision on a supplier."

Tadziki looked like a bureaucrat. The other fellow wore a stone-pattern camouflaged jumpsuit with WARSON, T over the left breast pocket. Ned didn't recognize the uniform, but War-son was as obviously a soldier as the men and the Racontid jogging around the starship outside were. Warson continued to gaze out the window, singing under his breath, ' 7 could've been a general and send out folks to die..."

"No," said the adjutant, "since she'll be eating the rations herself, your offer of saving three-hundredths per kilo isn't very important to her—and it bloody well isn't important to me!"

"But the sort of things a general does," Ned murmured, watching the soldier, ' 'they make me want to cry.''

Warson turned sharply. "You know the song?" he asked.

Tadziki slammed down the handset. "Fucking idiot!" he said.

"Yeah, but in an armored unit it's 'You ask why I'm a trooper,' "Ned said. "That's the way I learned it."

"Where?" Tadziki asked. "And for that matter, who the hell are you?1'

"On Nieuw Friesland," Ned said. "In the Frisian Defense Forces. I'm Reserve Ensign Slade, but I'm from Tethys originally."

"Slade?" Warson said in amazement. "You're Don Slade? Via, you can't be!"

Ned's lips tightened. "You're thinking of my uncle," he said stiffly. "I'm not Don Slade, no."

The voices of the jogging troops became faintly louder.

— THE VOYAGE — 3

They were making circuits around the vessel under construction. Warson nodded disdainfully toward the window and said, "Herne Lordling's got us doing an hour's run each day to shape us up. They're singing that to piss him off.' *

"Lordling's a general?" Ned asked.

"He was a colonel," Warson said. "He'sapissant,is what he really is. Sure you want to join a rinkydink outfit being run by a pissant, kid?"