"Cook, Glen - Passage at Arms" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cook Glen)

I check the sky. I can't fathom the omens he's reading.

The surface batteries stop clearing their throats and begin singing in earnest. The Commander gives Yanevich a derisive glance. "Seems to be shit flying everywhere, First Officer."

"Make a liar out of me," the Lieutenant growls. He flings a ferocious scowl at the sky.

Eye-searing graser flashes illuminate the rusting bones of once-mighty buildings. In one surreal, black-and-white, line-on-line instant I see an image which captures the sterile escsnce of this war. I swing my camera up and snap the picture, but too late to nail it.

Way up there, at least three stories, balanced on an I-beam, a couple were making it. Standing up. Holding on to nothing but each other.

The Commander saw them, too. "We're on our way."

I try to glimpse his facial response. He wears the same blank mask. "Is that a non sequitur, Commander?"

"That was Chief Holtsnider," Westhause says. How the hell does he know? He's sitting facing me. The coupling was going on over his left shoulder. "Leading Energy Gunner. Certifiable maniac. Says a good-bye up there before every mission. A quick, slick patrol if he gets his nuts off. The same for her ship if she gets hers. She's a Second Class Fire Control Tech off Johnson's Climber." He gives me a sick grin. "You almost snapped a living legend of the Fleet."

Crew segregation by sex is an unpleasantry unique to the Climbers. I haven't been womanizing that much in integrated society, but I'm not looking forward to a period of enforced abstinence. There's something about having somebody else cut you off that does things to your mind.

The folks back home don't hear the disadvantages. The holonets concentrate on swaggering leave-takers and glory stuff that brings in the volunteers.

Climbers are the only Navy ship-type spacing without in-tegrated crews. No other vessel produces pressure like a Climber. Adding the volatile complication of sex is suicidal. They found that out early.

I can understand the reasons. They don't help me like it any better.

I met Commander Johnson and her officers in Turbeyville. They taught me that, under like pressures, women are as morally destitute as the worst of men, judged by peacetime standards.

What are peacetime standards worth these days? With them and a half-dozen Conmarks you can buy a cup of genuine Old Earth coffee. Price six Conmarks without-on the black mar-ket.

The first dropship whips in along the carrier's backtrail, taking us by surprise. Her sonic wake seizes the vehicle, gives it one tremendous shake, and deafens me momentarily. Some-how the others get their hands to their ears in time. The dropper becomes a glowing deltoid moth depositing her eggs in the sea.

"There's some new lifters that'll need to be built," West-hause says. "Let's hope what we lost were Citron Fours."

My harness is suddenly a trap. Panic hits me. How can I get away if I'm strapped down?

The Commander touches me gently. His touch has a sur-prisingly calming effect. "Almost there. A few hundred me-ters."

The carrier stops almost immediately. "You're a prophet." It's a strain, trying to sound settled. That damned open sky mocks our human vulnerability, throwing down great bolts of laughter at our puniness.

A second dropper cracks overhead and leaves her greetings. A lucky ground weapon has bitten a neat round hole from her flank. She trails smoke and glowing fragments. She wobbles. I missed covering my ears again. Yanevich and Bradley help me out of the carrier.

Bradley says, "Bad shields on that one." He sounds about two kilometers away. Yanevich nods.

"Wonder if they'll ever get her back up." The First Watch! Officer commiserates with fellow professionals.

I stumble several times clambering through the ruins. The boom must have scrambled my equilibrium.

The entrance to the Pits is well hidden. It's just another shadow among the piles, a man-sized hole leading into one of war's middens. The rubble isn't camouflage. Guards in full| combat gear loaf inside, waiting to clear new debris when the last dropship finishes her run, hoping there'll be no work to do.

We trudge through the poorly lit halls of a deep subbase-j ment. Below them lie the Pits, a mix of limestone cavern and wartime construction far beneath the old city. We have to walk down four long, dead escalators before we find one still working. The constant pounding takes its toll. A series of escalators carries us another three hundred meters into Canaan's skin.