"Harry Harrison - Bill, The Galactic Hero" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

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four years here, and he was not going to miss what promised to be a third.
A crowd had already gathered in the market square when Bill hurried up, and
they were listening to an enthusiastic band concert. The robot hurled itself
into the glorious measures of "Star Troopers to the Skies Avaunt," thrashed its
way through "Rockets Rumble," and almost demolished itself in the tumultuous
rhythm of "Sappers at the Tithead Digging." It pursued this last tune so
strenuously that one of its legs flew off, rising high into the air, but was
caught dexterously before it could hit the ground, and the music ended with the
robot balancing on its remaining leg, beating time with the detached limb. It
also, after an ear-fracturing peal on the basses, used the leg to point across
the square to where a tri-di screen and refreshment booth had been set up. The
troopers had vanished into the tavern, and the recruiting sergeant stood alone
among his robots, beaming a welcoming smile.
"Now hear this! Free drinks for all, courtesy of the Emperor, and some lively
scenes of jolly adventure in distant climes to amuse you while you sip," he
called in an immense and leathery voice.
Most of the people drifted over, Bill in their midst, though a few
embittered and elderly draft-dodgers slunk away between the houses. Cooling
drinks were shared out by a robot with a spigot for a navel and an
inexhaustible supply of plastic glasses in one hip. Bill sipped his happily
while he followed the enthralling adventures of the space troopers in full
color, with sound effects and stimulating subsonics. There was battle and death
and glory, though it was only the Chingers who died: troopers only suffered
neat little wounds in their extremities that could be covered easily by small
bandages. And while Bill was enjoying this, Recruiting Sergeant Grue was
enjoying him, his little piggy eyes ruddy with greed as they fastened onto the
back of Bill's neck.
This is the one! he chortled to himself while, unknowingly, his yellowed
tongue licked at his lips. He could already feel the weight of the bonus money
in his pocket. The rest of the audience. were the usual mixed bag of overage
men, fat women, beardless youths, and other unenlistables. All except this
broad-shouldered, square-chinned, curly-haired chunk of electronic-cannon
fodder. With a precise hand on the controls the sergeant lowered the background
subsonics and aimed a tight-beam stimulator at the back of his victim's head.
Bill writhed in his seat, almost taking part in the glorious battles unfolding
before him.
As the last chord died and the screen went blank, the refreshment robot
pounded hollowly on its metallic chest and bellowed, "DRINK! DRINK! DRINK!"
The sheeplike audience swept that way, all except Bill, who was plucked from
their midst by a powerful arm.
"Here, I saved some for you," the sergeant said, passing over a prepared cup
so loaded with dissolved ego-reducing drugs that they were crystallizing out at
the bottom. "You're a fine figure of a lad and to my eye seem a cut above the
yokels here. Did you ever think of making your career in the forces?"
"I'm not the military type, Shargeant . . ." Bill chomped his jaws and spat
to remove the impediment to his speech and puzzled at the sudden-fogginess in
his thoughts. Though it was a tribute to his physique that he was even