"David Drake - Hammer's Slammers 01 - Hammer's Slammers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

enough for the central government to get inter-
ested. Official trading ports were set up on the
coast of Two. Local tobacco was to be sent from
them to Bamberg City, to be assessed and trans-
shipped.

Some was; but the interloping traders contin-
ued to land in the back country, and central gov-
ernment officials gnashed their teeth over tax
revenues that were all the larger for being illusory.

It didn't help that One had been settled by
Catholic Fundamentalists from Germany and Latin
America, and that the squatters on Two were al-
most entirely Levantine Muslims.

The traders didn't care. They had done their
business in holographic entertainment centers and
solar-powered freezers, but there was just as much
profit in powerguns and grenades.

As for mercenaries like Alois HammerтАФand Tyi
Koopman. . . They couldn't be said not to care;

because if there wasn't trouble, they didn't have
work.
Not that Tyi figured there was much risk of
galactic peace being declared.

Desoix laughed without even attempting to make
the sound humorous. "Well," he said, "do you
know when Easter is?"

"Huh?" said Tyi. "My family wasn't, you know,
real religious . . . and anyway, do you mean on
Earth or here or where?"

"That's the question, isn't it?" Desoix answered,
glancing around the empty cabin just to be sure
there couldn't be a local listening to him.

"Some folks here," he continued, "figure Easter
according to Earth-standard days. You can tell
them because they've always got something red in
their clothing, a cap or a ribbon around their

sleeve if nothing else. And the folks that say,
'We're on Bamberia so God meant us to use
Bamberg days to figure his calendar . . . ,' well,