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

how to be a good trooper. Keep your mouth shut. Deathwish paced on.

"Right now you are nothing but horrible, sordid, flabby pieces of debased
civilian flesh. I shall turn that flesh to muscle, your wills to jelly,
your minds to machines. You will become good troopers, or I will kill you.
Very soon you will be hearing stories about me, vicious stories, about how
I lulled and ate a recruit who disobeyed me."

He hatred and stared at them, and slowly the coffin-lid lips parted in an
evil travesty of a grin, while a drop of saliva formed at the tip of each
whitened tusk.

"That story is true."

A moan broke from the row of recruits, and they shook as though a chill
wind had passed over them. The smile vanished.

"We will run to breakfast now as soon as I have some volunteers for an
easy assignment. Can any of you drive a helicar?"

Two recruits hopefully raised their hands, and he beckoned them forward.
"All right, both of you, mops and buckets behind that door. Clean out the
latrine while the rest are eating. You'll have a better appetite for lunch."

That was Bill's second lesson on how to be a good trooper: never volunteer.

The days of recruit training passed with a horribly lethargic speed.
With each day conditions became worse and Bill's exhaustion greater. This
seemed impossible, but it was nevertheless true. A large number of gifted
and sadistic minds had designed it to be that way. The recruits' heads were
shaved for uniformity. The food was theoretically nourishing but incredibly
vile and when, by mistake, one batch of meat was served in an edible state
it was caught at the last moment and thrown out and the cook reduced two
grades. Their sleep was broken by mock gas attacks and their free time filled
with caring for their equipment. The seventh day was designated as a day of
rest, but they all had received punishments, like Bill's KP, and it was as
any other day. On this, the third Sunday of their imprisonment, they were
stumbling through the last hour of the day before the lights were extinguished
and they were finally permitted to crawl into their casehardened bunks. Bill
pushed against the weak force field that blocked the door, cunningly designed
to allow the desert flies to enter but not leave the barracks, and dragged
himself in. After fourteen hours of KP his legs vibrated with exhaustion, and
his arms were wrinkled and pallid as a corpse's from the soapy water. He
dropped his jacket to the floor, where it stood stiffly supported by its
burden of sweat, grease, and dust, and dragged his shaver from his footlocker.
In the latrine he bobbed his head around trying to find a clear space on one
of the mirrors. All of them had been heavily stenciled in large letters with
such inspiring messages as KEEP YOUR WUG SHUT-THE CHINGERS ARE LISTENING and
IF YOU TALK THIS MAN MAY DIE. He finally plugged the shaver in next to
WOULD YOU WANT YOUR SISTER TO MARRY ONE? and centered his face in the o in ONE.