"David Drake - Hammer's Slammers - Counting the Cost" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

"Them?" responded the big sergeant major. "They do whatever Bishop Turner tells them to do, sir,"

He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the massed orderlies. His eyes held only flat appraisal, as if he were estimating range and the length of the burst he was about to fire.

"Anything at all," he concluded.

Tyl Koopman didn't pursue the matter as he and Scratchard - the latter limping noticeably - walked across the courtyard toward the entrance of the Palace of Government.

He could feel the eyes of the honor guard following them with contempt. It didn't bother him much, any more.

Five years in the Slammers had taught him that parade-ground soldiers always felt that way about killers in uniform.

_CHAPTER SIX

The flood shutters of the Palace of Government were closed, and Charles Desoix wasn't naive enough to think that the thick steel plates had been set against the chance of a storm surge. Bamberg City had really come apart in the two weeks he was gone.

Or just maybe it was starting to come together, but President John Delcorio wasn't going to be part of the new order.

Desoix threw a sharp salute to the head of the honor guard. The Bamberg officer returned it while the men of his section presented arms.

Striding with his shoulders back, Desoix proceeded toward the front entrance - the only opening on the first two stories of the palace that wasn't shuttered.

As Desoix looked at it, the saluting was protective coloration. It was purely common sense to want the respect of the people around you... and when you've wangled billets for yourself and your men in the comfort of the Palace of Government, that meant getting along with the Executive Guards.

By thumbing an epaulet loop, Desoix brightened the gray-spattered markings of his uniform to metallic silver - and it was easy to learn to salute, as easy as learning to hold the sight picture that would send a bolt of cyan death down-range at a trigger's squeeze. There was no point in not making it easy on yourself.

He thought of making a suggestion to the Slammers officer who'd just arrived, but... Tyl Koopman seemed a good sort and as able as one of Colonel Hammer's company commanders could be expected to be.

But Koopman also seemed the sort of man who might be happier with his troops in the police barracks beneath the City Offices than he would be in the ambiance of the Palace.

The captain in command of the guards at the entrance was named Sanchez; he roomed next door to Desoix in the officers' quarters in the West Wing. Instead of saluting again, Desoix took the man's hand and said, "Well, Rene, I'm glad to be back on a civilized planet again... but what on earth has been going on in the city since I left?"

The Guards captain made a sour face and looked around at the sergeant and ten men of his section. Everyone in the Executive Guard was at least sponsored by one of the top families on the planet. Not a few of them were members of those families, asserting a tradition of service without the potential rigors of being stationed on Two if the Crusade got under way.

"Well, you know the people," Sanchez said, a gentleman speaking among gentlemen. "The recent taxes haven't been popular, since there are rumors that they have more to do with Lady Eunice's wardrobe than with propagation of Christ's message. Nothing that we need worry about."

Desoix raised an eyebrow. The Executive Guards carried assault rifles whose gilding made them as ornamental as the gold brocade on the men's azure uniforms... but there were magazines in the rifles today. That was as unusual as the flood shutters being in place.

"Ah, you can't really stay neutral if things get... out of hand, can you?" the UDB officer asked. He didn't like to suggest that he and Sanchez were on different standards; but that was better than using "we" when the word might seem to commit the United Defense Batteries.

The guardsman's face chilled. "We'll follow orders, of course," he said. "But it isn't the business of the army to get involved in the squabbles of the mob - or to attempt to change the will of the people."

"Exactly," said Desoix, nodding enthusiastic agreement. "Exactly."

He was still nodding as he strode into the entrance rotunda. He hoped he'd covered his slip with Sanchez well enough.

But he certainly had learned where the army - or at least the Executive Guard - stood on the subject of the riots in the streets.

There was a small, separately-guarded, elevator off the rotunda which opened directly onto the Consistory Room on the third floor. Desoix hesitated. The pager inset into his left cuff had lighted red with Major Borodin's anxiety, and Desoix knew what his commander wanted without admitting his presence by answering.