"Piper, H Beam - Fuzzy 3 - Other People" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piper H Beam)

Gerd paused, grinning. Expecting Holloway to ask what.

"The empties, two from my 9.7 and one from your Sterberg,"
Holloway said. "Sure. Pretty-things." He laughed again. Fuzzies
always picked up empty brass.

"You find some Fuzzies with empty cartridges, you'll know who
they are."

"Oh, they won't keep them. They've gotten tired of them and
dropped them long ago."

They talked for a while, and finally Gerd broke the connection,
probably to call Ruth. Holloway went back to his paperwork. The
afternoon passed, and eventually he finished everything they had
piled up on him. He rose stiffly. Wasn't used to this damned sitting
on a chair all day. He refilled and lighted his pipe, got his hat, and
looked for the pistol that should be hanging under it before he
remembered that he wasn't bothering to wear it around the camp
anymore. Then, after a glance around to make sure he hadn't left
anything a Fuzzy oughtn't to get at, he went out.

They'd built all the walls of the permanent office that was to replace
this hut, and they'd started on the roof.

The ZNPF barracks and headquarters were finished and occupied;
in front of the latter a number of contragravity vehicles were
grounded: patrol cars and combat cars. Some of the former were
new, light green with yellow trim, lettered ZNPF. Some of the latter
were olive green; they and the men who operated them had been
borrowed from the Space Marines. Across the little stream, he
couldn't see his original camp buildings for the new construction
that had gone up in the past two and a half months; the whole
place, marked with a tiny dot on the larger maps as Holloway's
Camp, had been changed beyond recognition.

Maybe the name ought to be changed, too. Call it Hoksu-
Mitto—that was what the Fuzzies called it— "Wonderful Place."
Well, it was pretty wonderful, to a Fuzzy just out of the big woods;
and even those who went on to Mallorysport, a much more
wonderful place, to live with human families still called it that, and
looked back on it with the nostalgic affection of an old grad for his
alma mater. He'd talk to Ben Rainsford about getting the name
officially changed.

Half a dozen Fuzzies were playing on the bridge; they saw him and
ran to him, yeeking. They all wore zipper-closed shoulder bags,
with sheath-knives and little trowels attached, and silver identity
disks at their throats, and they carried the weapons that had been
issued to them to replace their wooden prawn-killers— six-inch