"Bill the Galactic Hero" - читать интересную книгу автора (Asprin Robert)

and Eager and the other troopers from X squad sitting around the table all
clapped and cheered, as they always did when Bowb said something.

"Tell, us more, Bowb!"

"It can still talk-I thought it was dead!"

"Go on-why is the body a wonderful thing?"

They waited in expectant silence, while Bowb managed to tear a bite from his
sausage and, after ineffectual chewing, swallowed it with an effort that
brought tears to his eyes. He eased the pain with a mouthful of beer and spoke.

"The human body is a wonderful thing, because if it doesn't die it lives."

They waited for more until they realized that he was finished, then they
sneered.

"Boy, are you full of bowb!"

"Sign up for OCS!"

"Yeah-but what does it mean?"

Bill knew what it meant but didn't tell them. There were only half as many

men in the squad as there had been the first day. One man had been transferred,
but all the others were in the hospital, or in the mental hospital, or
discharged for the convenience of tire government as being too crippled for
active service. Or dead. The survivors, after losing every ounce of weight not
made up of bone or essential connective tissue, had put back the lost weight in
the form of muscle and were now completely adapted to the rigors of Camp Leon
Trotsky, though they still loathed it. Bill marveled at the efficiency of the
system. Civilians had to fool around with examinations, grades, retirement
benefits, seniority, and a thousand other factors that limited the efficiency
of the workers. But how easily the troopers did it! They simply killed off
the weaker ones and used the survivors. He respected the system. Though he
still loathed it.

"You know what I need, I need a woman," Ugly Ugglesway said.

"Don't talk dirty," Bill told him promptly, since he had been correctly
brought up.

"I'm not talking dirty!-" Ugly whined. "It's not like I said I wanted to
re-enlist or that I thought Deathwish was human or anything like that. I just
said I need a woman. Don't we all?"

"I need a drink," Bowb Brown said as he took a long swig from his glass of
dehydrated reconstituted beer, shuddered, then squirted it out through his
teeth in a long stream onto the concrete, where it instantly evaporated.