"Gordon R. Dickson - Jean Dupres" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

back home to figure out ways to explain our true situation here to the Klahari and make some agreement
on the basis of it with them. But meanwhileтАФour investment in men and equipment on this world is out of
reachтАФtoo much to waste by war with the adult Klahari now." He paused and watched me for a second
"You're on your own, Lieutenant."
I digested that.
"Yes, Colonel," I said, finally. "All right. We'll hold out here. We're twenty or so men, and there's
ammunition and food. But there's a boy, the son of a local planterтАж"
"Sorry, Lieutenant He'll have to stay too."
"Yes, sirтАж"
We went into practical details about holding the Strongpoint. There was a sergeant with the remnants
of a half company, maybe another twenty men, not far west of me, holding an unfinished Strongpoint. But
no communications. If I could get a man through to tell that command to join us here, our situation would
not be so bad. One man might get through the KlahariтАж
I finished and went outside. Three new planters were just being admitted through the gate, ragged and
tiredтАФand one was Pelang Dupres. Even as I started toward him, he spotted Jean and rushed to the
boy, asking him questions.
"тАж but your mama! Your mama!" I heard him demanding impatiently as I came up. One of my men,
who had been there, pushed in between Pelang and the boy.
"Let me tell you, Mr. Dupres," he said, putting his hand on Pelang's arm and trying to lead him away
from Jean. I could see him thinking that there was no need to harrow up Jean with a rehearsal of what
had happened. But Pelang threw him off.
"Tell me? Tell me what?" he shouted, pushing the man away, to face Jean again. "What happened?"
"We buried her, Daddy," I heard Jean saying quietly. "And afterward we'll send her to EarthтАФ"
"Buried herтАФ" Pelang's face went black with congestion of blood under the skin, and his voice
choked him. "She's dead!" He swung on the man who had tried to lead him away. "You let her be killed;
and you saved thisтАФthisтАФ" He turned and struck out at Jean with a hand already clenched into a fist,
Jean made no move to duck the blow, though with the quickness that I had seen in him while coming to
the Strongpoint, I am sure he could have. The fist sent him tumbling, and the men beside him tried to grab
him.
But I had lost my head when he hit Jean. I am not sorry for it, even now. I drove through the crowd
and got Pelang by the collar and shoved him up against the concrete side of the watch-tower and banged
his head against it. He was blocky and powerful as a dwarf bull, but I was a little out of my head. We
were nose-to-nose there and I could feel the heat of his panting, almost sobbing, breath and see his
brown eyes squeezed up between the anguished squinting of the flesh above and below them.
'Your wife is dead," I said to him, between my teeth. "But that boy, that son of yours, Dupres, was
there when his mother died! And where were you?"
I saw then the fantastic glitter of the bright tears in his brown squeezed-lip eyes. Suddenly he went
limp on me, against the wall,
and his head wobbled on his thick, sunburned neck.
"I worked hardтАФ" he choked suddenly. "No one worked harder than me, Pelang. For them
bothтАФand theyтАж" He turned around and sobbed against the watchtower wall. I stood back from him.
But Jean pushed through the men surrounding us and came up to his father. He patted his father's broad
back under its white glass shirt and then put his arms around the man's thick waist and leaned his head
against his father's side. But Pelang ignored him and continued to weep uncontrollably. Slowly, the other
men turned away and left the two of them alone.
There was no question about the man to send to contact the half company at the unfinished
Strongpoint west of us. It had to be the most jungle-experienced of us; and that meant me. I left the fort
under the command of the factor, a man named Strudenmeyer. I would rather have left it under command
of one of my two remaining enlisted men, but the factor was technically an officer in his own Strongpoint
and ranked them, as well as being known personally to the local planters holed up there. He was the