"Robert A. Heinlein - Starship troopers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

Robert A. Heinlein


Starship troopers



Robert A. Heinlein. 1959


CHAPTER 1

Come on, you apes! You wanta live forever?
• Unknown platoon sergeant, 1918

I always get the shakes before a drop. I’ve had the injections, of course,
and hypnotic preparation, and it stands to reason that I can’t really be
afraid. The ship’s psychiatrist has checked my brain waves and asked me
silly questions while I was asleep and he tells me that it isn’t fear, it isn’t
anything important -- it’s just like the trembling of an eager race horse in
the starting gate.
I couldn’t say about that; I’ve never been a race horse. But the fact is: I’m
scared silly, every time.
At D-minus-thirty, after we had mustered in the drop room of the Rodger
Young, our platoon leader inspected us. He wasn’t our regular platoon
leader, because Lieutenant Rasczak had bought it on our last drop; he was
really the platoon sergeant, Career Ship’s Sergeant Jelal. Jelly was a
Finno-Turk from Iskander around Proxima -- a swarthy little man who looked
like a clerk, but I’ve seen him tackle two berserk privates so big he had to
reach up to grab them, crack their heads together like coconuts, step back
out of the way while they fell.
Off duty he wasn’t bad -- for a sergeant. You could even call him „Jelly“ to
his face. Not recruits, of course, but anybody who had made at least one
combat drop.
But right now he was on duty. We had all each inspected our combat
equipment (look, it’s your own neck—see?), the acting platoon sergeant
had gone over us carefully after he mustered us, and now Jelly went over us
again, his face mean, his eyes missing nothing. He stopped by the man in
front of me, pressed the button on his belt that gave readings on his
physicals. „Fall out!“
„But, Sarge, it’s just a cold. The Surgeon said—„
Jelly interrupted. „ ‚But Sarge!’ „ he snapped. „The Surgeon ain’t making
no drop—and neither are you, with a degree and a half of fever. You think I
got time to chat with you, just before a drop? Fall out!“
Jenkins left us, looking sad and mad—and I felt bad, too. Because of the
Lieutenant buying it, last drop, and people moving up, I was assistant
section leader, second section, this drop, and now I was going to have a
hole in my section and no way to fill it. That’s not good; it means a man can
run into something sticky, call for help and have nobody to help him.
Jelly didn’t downcheck anybody else. Presently he stepped out in front of us,