"S. M. Stirling - Draka 02 - Under The Yoke" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stirling S. M)

"Shut up, slut-bitch!" The guard raked her hard-rubber
truncheon along the bars in frustration, then stalked off down
the corridor.

Sister Marya Sokolowska lowered her head and fought to
recapture the Presence; a futile effort, it could not be forced.
Enough, prayer is more than feelings, she chided herself, while
habit droned the sonorous Latin words and told the beads of her
rosary. The words were a discipline in themselves; faith was a
matter of the intellectual will more than subjective sentiment.
And the others relied on her: even Chantal Lefarge the
communist over in the corner was joining in; it helped remind
them they were human beings and not animals-with-numbers,
that they were a community, linked one with the other.
Something easy to forget in the ten-by-twelve brick cube of cell
10-27, under the Domination of the Draka. Though she was the
only Pole here, and the only religious.

Covertly, her eyes followed the guard as far as the grill-door
would allow. The building had not been designed as a prison; the
Draka had taken it over when Lyons fell, back in '45. Before
then… a school, perhaps, or some sort of offices. Then the
Security Directorate had come, and cordoned off as many square
blocks of the city as need dictated; knocked doors and built
walkways between buildings, surrounded the whole with
razor-wire and machine-gun towers, put in bars and
control-doors. It was a warren now, brick and concrete, burlap
and straw ticking, the ever-present ammonia stink of
disinfectant. Lights that were never dimmed, endless noise. The
tramp-tramp-clank of chain gangs driven in lockstep to
messhalls or to their work, maintaining and extending the
prison-complex. Far-off shouts and screams, or someone in the
cell across the corridor waking shrieking from a nightmare.
Mornings were worst: that was the hour for executions, in the
courtyard below their cell. The metal grille blocked vision but not
sound; they could hear the footsteps, sometimes pleading or
whimpering, once or twice cracked voices attempting the
Marseillaise, then the rapid chattering of automatic weapons
and rounds thumping into the earth berm piled against their
block's wall… The nun finished the prayer and came to her feet,
putting solemnity aside and smiling at the others. Together they
rolled the thin straw-stuffed pallets up against the walls, each
folding her single cotton blanket on top and placing the cup and
pan in the regulation positions. There was nothing else to do; it
was forbidden to sleep or sit after the morning siren.
Conversation was possible, if you were careful and very quiet, a
matter of gesture and brief elliptical phrases, and it helped break
the terrible sameness of each day. Newcomers brought in fresh
tidings from the world outside, and bits of gossip passed from