"S. M. Stirling - Draka 01 - Marching Through Georgia" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stirling S. M)

snub-nosed; freckles were all very well, enough men had
described it as cute, but it obstinately refused to mature into the
cold, aquiline regularity that was most admired. She sighed, lit
another cigarette, started running the latest costume drama over
again in her head. Tragic Destiny: Signy Anders and Derek
Wallis as doomed Loyalist lovers fighting the American rebels,
with Carey Plesance playing the satanic traitor George
Washington…

God, it must have been uncomfortable wearing those
petticoats, she thought. No wonder they couldn't do anything
but look pretty and faint; how could you fight while wearing a
bloody tent? Good thing Africa cured them of those notions.
***

0410, Eric thought. Time. The voice of the pilot spoke in his
earphones, tinny and remote.

"Coming up on the drop zone, Centurion," she said. "Wind
direction and strength as per briefing. Scattered cloud, bright
moonlight." A pause. "Good luck."

He nodded, touching his tongue to his lip. The microphone
was smooth and heavy in his hand. Beside him the American war
correspondent, Bill Dreiser, looked up from his pad and then
continued jotting in shorthand.



Dreiser finished the paragraph and forced his mind to
consider it critically, scanning word by word with the pinhead
light on the other end of the pen. Useful, when you had to consult
a map or instrument without a conspicuous light; the
Domination issued them to all its officers, and he had been quick
to pick one up. The device was typical of that whole bewildering
civilization; he turned it in his hands, feeling the smooth careful
machining of its duralumin parts, admiring the compact
powerful batteries, the six different colors of ink, the moving
segments that made it a slide rule as well.

Typical indeed, he thought wryly. Turned out on specialized
machine tools, by illiterate factory-serfs who thought the world
was flat and that the Combine that owned their contracts ruled
the universe.

He licked dry lips, recognizing the thought for what it was: a
distraction from fear. He had been through jump training, of
course—an abbreviated version tailored to the limitations of a
sedentary American in early middle age. And he had seen
enough accidents to the youngsters about him to give him