"Piers Anthony - Bio of a Space Tyrant 02 - Mercenary" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anthony Piers)

Then a shape stopped. "Kid, I think you been mugged," he said in English.

I looked up at him. He was a poorly shaven man with short, curly light hair and blue eyes: a fair Caucasian, rather than the dusky Latin of my own type. More succinctly: He was Saxon; I, Hispanic. He wore faded, worn coveralls and a sweat-stained shirt and cheap old composition shoes: a laboring man. But he represented help, and he looked great to me, a Good Samaritan. "I think so," I agreed.

"Check for your money," he advised, helping me to my feet with strong hands.

I checked. My new wallet was gone, and with it my money-and my identification. I groaned. I hadn't meant to make that sound; it just came out.

"They need more patrolmen in these public places," the man said. "Someone gets mugged just about every day. Where you going, kid? I'll help you there."

Confused, I pondered. "Looking for work," I said. "I-just checked the Navy office, but ..." I was having trouble organizing my memory.

"Too young?" he asked sympathetically.

"Yes. He asked my age, and I said fifteen, and he said to come back in two years. Then-"

"Then you got mugged on your way to the employment office," he finished. "It happens. Here, let's introduce ourselves. I'm Joe Hill, migrant laborer, en route to a new hitch as a picker."

"Hope Hubris," I said, grateful for his easy manner. Other people were shoving by us, paying no attention. "From Callisto, refugee. I've just been granted status as a resident alien."

Joe smiled. "I'd guessed as much. You're from that batch they just processed at the immigration center, right? This your first day out on Leda?"

"First hour," I agreed, nodding. That made my head hurt again, and I touched the bad spot.

Joe brought out a large old handkerchief. "Let me mop that. It's not as bad as it feels. It's mostly a bruise with a little cut skin, and the blood's matting the hair a little. You'll get off with a headache." He patted the spot, and his reassurance made me feel better. "Look, Hope-I don't like to make you feel worse, but the fact is, this whole system isn't much better than the mugging you just got. At your age you just can't find decent work. All the employment offices will tell you the same. You've got to get a ticket to the Jupiter atmosphere-"

"They're not admitting aliens now," I said. "I have to find work out here in the Ecliptic until I qualify for citizenship." The Jupiter Ecliptic is the plane of the orbits of the satellites of Jupiter; actually, the outer moons do not match the plane of the inner ones, but it's all called the Jupiter Ecliptic anyway, or Juclip for short.

"Then you're screwed," he said, employing Saxon vernacular that was new to me. "Your age and nationality box you in. And now that you've lost your cash stake and your ID-"

"I must get them to issue me a new card," I said.

"Which will take weeks or months. I know this bureaucracy, Hope. What are you going to eat while you're waiting?"

I spread my hands, baffled. I hadn't counted on getting mugged.

"Come on," he said. "I'm running short on time, but I can get you to the alien office to put in for your card. Then-"

"Then?" I repeated, sounding stupid even to myself. I remained disorganized, and my head was hurting.

He sighed. "Then I guess I'd better take you with me on the picking gig. It's no life for the likes of you, but I can't see you stranded here. You'd wind up having to mug for a living."

"Oh, I would never-" I protested, shocked at the notion.

"Kid, when you're hungry and broke, and there's no work, and you know if you complain they'll deport you to your moon of origin, what do you do?"

I was silent. The realities of my situation were making themselves felt. Without my card I couldn't get a good job, and without the hundred-dollar tide-over stake they had issued me, I couldn't eat. They would indeed deport me on the slightest pretext. My kind was tolerated, not welcomed, here. They had made that clear enough at the outset. Mighty Jupiter, home of the free, had little use for dusky-skinned foreigners who couldn't manage their money and didn't work productively. Mighty Jupiter was not interested in listening to excuses, such as being mugged or being underage for employment. It was indeed a rigged system, but I was bound by its laws.

"Yes, I thought you were honest," Joe said. "I got a feel for people. That's why I stopped to help you." He paused. "No, that's not entirely so. I would've stopped, anyway. I can't pass up a working man in distress."