"David Drake - Hammer's Slammers 10 - Paying The Piper" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

communities on Plattner's World—and particularly with the spaceport at Solace in the central highlands.
The field's surface was graveled, but there were more soft spots than the one the starship's outrigger had
stabbed down through. Deseau was right about what wet weather would bring.

The starship sat on the southern edge of the kilometer-square field. On the north side opposite them
were a one-story brick terminal with an attached control tower, and a dozen warehouses with walls and
trusses of plastic extrusion. Those few buildings comprised the entire port facilities.
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Tractors were positioning lowboys under the corrugated metal shipping containers slung beneath the
300-meter-long dirigible now unloading at the east end of the field. A second dirigible had dropped its
incoming cargo and was easing westward against a mild breeze, heading for the mooring mast where it
would tether. The rank of outbound shipping containers there waited to be slung in place of the food and
merchandise the United Cities imported. The containers had been painted a variety of colors, but rust
now provided the most uniform livery.

A third dirigible was in the center of the field, its props turning just fast enough to hold it steady. The four
shipping containers hanging from its belly occasionally kicked up dust as they touched the ground. A port
official stood in an open-topped jitney with a flashing red light. He was screaming through a bullhorn at
the dirigible's forward cockpit, but the crew there seemed to be ignoring him.

Trooper Learoyd,Fencing Master 's right wing gunner—Huber chose to ride at the left gun, with
Deseau in the vehicle commander's post in the center—joined them at the hatch. He was stocky, pale,
and almost bald even though he was younger than Huber by several years. He looked out and said,
"What's worth having a war about this place?"

"There's people on it," Deseau said with a sharp laugh. "That's all the reason you need for a war, snake.
You ought to know that by now."

According to the briefing cubes, Rhodesville had a permanent population of 50,000; the residents
provided light manufacturing and services for the Moss-hunters coursing thousands of square kilometers
of the surrounding forest. Only a few houses were visible from the port. The community wound through
the forest, constructed under the trees instead of clearing them for construction. The forest was the
wealth of Plattner's World, and the settlers acted as though they understood that fact.

"There's a fungus that's a parasite on the trees here," Huber explained. "They call it Moss because it
grows in patches of gray tendrils from the trunks. It's the source of an anti-aging drug. The processing's
done offworld, but there's enough money in the business that even the rangers who gather the Moss have
aircars and better holodecks than you'd find in most homes on Friesland."

"Well I'll be," Learoyd said, though he didn't sound excited. He rubbed his temples, as if trying to
squeeze the pain out through his eyesockets.

Deseau spat again. "So long as they've got enough set by to pay our wages," he said. "I'd like a good,
long war this time, because if I never board a ship again it'll be too soon."

The third dirigible was drifting sideways. Huber wouldn't have been sure except for the official in the