"Chalker, Jack L - DG1 - The River of the Dancing Gods" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chalker Jack L)

voice sounds pure Texas to me."

She nodded idly, still staring distantly into the nothingness.

"Yeah. San Antone, that's me."

"Air Force brat?" He was nervous at pushing her too much,
maybe upsetting or alienating her -- she was on a thin edge,
that was for sure -- but he just had the feeling she wanted to

talk to somebody.

She did, a little surprised at that herself. "Sort of. Daddy

was a flier. Jet pilot."

"What happened to him?" He guessed by her tone that some-
thing had happened.

"Killed in his plane, in the finest traditions of the Air Force.
Sucked a bird into his jets while coming in for a landing and
that was it, or so I'm told. I was much too young, really, to

JACK L. CHALKER 7

remember him any more than as a vague presence. And the
pictures, of course. Momma kept all the pictures. The benefits,
though, they weren't all that much. He was only a captain,
after all, and a new one at that. So Momma worked like hell
at all sorts of jobs to bring me up right. She was solid Okla-
homa -- high school, no marketable skills, that sort of thing.
Supermarket checker was about the highest she got -- pretty
good, really, when you see the benefits they get at the union
stores. She did really well, when you think about it -- except
it was all for me. She didn't have much else to live for. Wanted
me to go to college -- she'd wanted to go, but never did. Well,
she and the VA and a bunch of college loans got me there, all
right, and got me through, for all the good it did. Ten days
after I graduated with a useless degree in English Lit, she
dropped dead from a heart attack. I had to sell the trailer we
lived in all those years just to make sure she was buried right.
After paying out all the stuff she owed, I had eight hundred
dollars, eight pairs of well-wom jeans, a massive collection of
T-shirts, and little else."

He sighed. "Yeah, that's rough. I always wanted to go to
college, you know, but I never had the money until I didn't
have the time. I read a lot, though. It don't pay to get hooked
on TV when you're on the road so much."